Ollie, the Cria, explores the hall

Binegar WI June Meeting

We welcomed our twin WI - Dilton Marsh from Wiltshire to our June meeting. What a delightful meeting - our speaker was Caroline Pembro with her Cria (baby Llama) Ollie. Well he was very well behaved and walked about the hall investigating members, - he had his milk (goats milk), unfortunately his mother had died when he was born. Goodness that bottle of milk soon disappeared and then he was off around the hall again. Caroline told us lots about her llama's and finished with Q&A.

After a tasty supper supplied by the committee, Angela showed us her paintings from a recent Somerset County visit to Denman. She had a good display and had achieved a lot during her visit. Then Ruth read us two poems one about a bee sting and the last about her fight with 'a large spider' - lots of laughter here. Angela remembered a monologue from her Denman visit which had everyone in stitches. The raffle concluded the evening. Priscilla (President, Dilton Marsh) gave a vote of thanks.

Liverpool AGM

Our dual member Pauline West was a delegate at the AGM in Liverpool. Only one coach went up from Somerset - in the evening a quick visit to the Roman Catholic Cathedral was very inspiring and then a mean out at 'The Clove Hitch' in Hope Street. (Members outside the The Feathers hotel). View as we walked around the Albert Dock before the conference.

The AGM itself was very inspiring especially the motion to 'move to next business' - something which was whole-heartedly endorsed by the vast majority of members present. Wonderful geography lecturer - Director of the Royal Geographical Society - Dr Rita Gardener. The Harmonies complete the afternoon which ended 20 mins overtime (first time it's ever happened when I've been at an AGM!!). Fascinating meeting!

24th May - Empire Day - Queen Victoria's birthday

Our Empire Day was very well received by visitors from N. Curry, Yeovil, Puriton and Wincanton WIs and three local WIs also supported us Leigh-on-Mendip, Chewton Mendip and Ashwick and Oakhill. In total over 60 members were present - including of course, many of our own members. The hall was decorated with Union Jacks plus varied bunting, our red gingham tablecloths and mini Union Jacks for each table added to the jolly hall.
(our dual member Pauline in green).

There was a Queen Victoria quiz / well known songs quiz sheet and stalls with ACWW display, bridges abroad (to guess) a bring & buy and also the inevitable raffle. Valerie Stevens from Dorset gave us an enthusiastic insight into ACWW at work in projects in Eastern Europe. This was followed by a yummy cream tea. Results of quizzes (2 prizes) and the raffle results completed a very successful afternoon. £361.20 was raised towards our Somerset Project in Uganda.

May Meeting

Resolution evening - was very well attended. Ruth then shared a very poignant poem about her daughters fight with cancer - everyone was very moved - too moved to applaud - and the silence spoke for itself about the emotion displayed in this poem. Helen surprised Eileen by deciding that after this the speaker came first!! Eileen and Kath told members about life nr Adelaide in Australia where our pen friends from Happy Valley live. Kath made two recipes from the Happy Valley cookbook and read out Lotus's recipe for elephant stew!! Margaret and her husband from Happy Valley are due to spend 4 nights with Eileen in July and so the July meeting has been re-arranged (it's Members night) and is brought forward by one week to 12th July.

Margaret is going to talk about her cruise around Australia and we are hoping to have a craft display, maybe some drama and definitely a poem or two from Ruth to entertain our Australian guest.

Back to the May meeting - after refreshments - both resolutions were discussed and after fairly heated discussion it was decided to support the Mega Farm resolution proposed by our twin WI from Wiltshire - Dilton Marsh (although if you added up the abstentions and the no votes they equalled the supporters!!) and abstain from the libraries resolution because the wording is suspect.

Another varied evening from Binegar WI.