WYKE REGIS WI - Record of the monthly meeting held on Thursday 10th January 2019 at 7pm
 
WELCOME
President Margaret welcomed  44  members. She thanked Jacqui Rockett for the lovely Spring flower arrangement and the Book Group who are tonight’s hostesses.
 
RECORD OF previous MEETING on   December 4th  2018
Members had received these by e-mail and there were copies on the chairs. The raffle last month raised £32.60. No amendments were raised so the record was agreed and signed.
 
MATTERS ARISING
  • Membership subs for 2019 are now due. Please pay in the tea break. You can also give your subs to your interest group secretary who will make sure they get to the Treasurer. The full subs this year are £42.
  • Carol concert was very well received. Everyone enjoyed it. The mayor came, we had about  70 people including WI members from Portesham, Martinstown, Sutton Poyntz and Portland WIs. The church is not charging us for the use of the church, so we are sending them a donation of £40.
  • Group secretaries. The meeting last month felt that they would like these to be more visible. They said that they did not want to wear name badges, so we will ask them whether would they be in favour of having photos on the notice board (like the committee do). If so, we will do that.
  • Also it would be nice if the group doing the refreshments that month give a very short introduction to their group and what they do immediately before the tea break. To start this off, Elaine told us about how the Book Club operates and what a good time they have discussing the books and also all sorts of other topics. They had had a belated Xmas lunch at the Turk’s Head, which was very enjoyable.
  • NFWI Resolutions. Members were reminded that we are voting on these this month. Voting slips have been printed off and put next to the yellow collection box next to the front door. Please post your slip in the box by 17th January please as we have to get the result to DFWI by 21st January.
  • Last month we asked members to come up with suggestions to make the monthly meetings more inclusive / lively. The President asked whether anyone had thought of any suggestions over the Xmas period. No suggestions were forthcoming. Please continue to think about this and put your suggestions in the suggestion box. The committee will continue to come up with new ideas which will be tried out.
 ITEMS FOR THIS MONTH
  • The President presented Ann Stagles with a card for her 70th birthday.
A couple of months ago, the Smugglers pub was doing renovations and discovered a poster for a Whist Drive and a Play (Twelfth Night) put on by Wyke Regis WI many decades ago. They contacted Ann May who collected the poster and showed it to Paul Atterbury of Antiques Roadshow fame. He suggested that the best way to keep it safe was to get it framed, which Ann is doing. Ann had shown the poster to the ECHO who published a double page spread about it in the following day’s edition. This was shown to the members by Kathy as Ann was not at the meeting.
  • The poster had the dates for the events (Weds Nov 25th and Thurs Nov 26th) but not the year, which was the focus of much speculation.
  • The Whist Drive was to raise money to support the 8th Army in the North Africa. They were formed in 1941 and at the time of the whist drive had just defeated Rommel’s Afrika Panzer army at the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, which altered the course of the war in North Africa in the Allies favour. While members were playing whist, the 8th Army, led by Field Marshall Montgomery, were pursuing the Axis forces westwards towards Tunisia.
  • Some research by David May on HMS Dorsetshire (which was the beneficiary of the performance of Twelfth Night) showed that the ship had been sunk in the Far East in April 1942. The poster exhorts the audience to ‘Help float the new HMS Dorsetshire’. This seems like a fund raising effort to build a replacement warship which would have the same name. As no warship held that name after 1942, then perhaps there were insufficient funds raised, or the war ended before it could be build and commissioned.
  • The date then must be in 1942 – after the founding of the 8th Army and after the sinking of the original HMS Dorsetshire. A check through the extensive Wyke Regis WI scrapbooks brought forth an entry for November 10th 1942, which mentions an extra performance of Twelfth Night being given on November 26th in aid of DORSETSHIRE Week. This looks like the definitive answer to the mystery of the year.     
  • In accordance with the new laws brought in last May, we have produced aGDPR and Privacy notice which is to be given to each member. As we hold your data, by law we have to give you this. NFWI and DFWI has versions as well, so we’ve combined them all. Please take them and keep for future reference. Please read it and if you then have any questions (not now, after you’re read it all) then ask the Secretary, who’ll try her best to answer them. Those people who were not at the monthly meeting will have their forms delivered to them.
  • Pancake Day this year falls on Tues 5th March, which is our usual coffee morning date. We have decided to do both cakes and pancakes on that day. June Brock suggested that we not have the BRic-a-Brac stall in that case to save room as the pancake event is usually well attended.
  • Spring Fayre – This will be on Thursday 28th March. There is a list on the board for groups to say what sort of stall they are willing to provide. Rosemary Lander will be organising the food and will be looking for cooks and helpers. Please sign up.
  • Committee for next year 2019-20. It’s that time of year again when we are thinking about next year’s committee and President. These will be voted in at April AM meeting. There is a list of the board for members to propose and second new committee members. Do get their agreement to stand first before signing them up.
  • Most of the committee are staying on for next year, but Kathy is standing down  as her husband is retiring and they are going travelling. Our current Assistant Secretary (Joyce) is not able to take on more than she is already doing, so we will be looking for a new secretary.    Please have a serious think about taking up this important role. We cannot function without one.
CORRESPONDENCE
National Federation (NFWI):  none received 
Dorset Federation (DFWI):
  • Speakers Audition Sat 30th March at Colehill. £5 – book by 28th Feb
  • Murder Mystery Sat 9th March Charlton Down 7pm. £20 inc supper. book by 25th Feb.
  • DFWI Kurling League form. Venues all in the east of county. Finals in March at Moreton. enter team by 31st Jan 2019
  • Delegates Briefing meeting (Weds 1 May – Durweston, Blandford) for NFWI AM June. All members welcome (£2), delegates free.
  • See notice boards for details on all these events.
Other:
  • We have had a Christmas Card and Thank you from Sutton Poyntz WI for the invite to the Xmas Carol Concert .
  • We have had a Christmas Card and Thank you from the Choral Society for the ladies who helped with the refreshments at their concert in Dec.
  • Sue Churchill has sent cards to the Book Club and Scrabble groups thanking them for their good wishes. As Sue is the group secretary for Scrabble, Ann Pettifer and Joyce North will open up for their next meeting, when a new secretary for that group will be elected. 
DFWI NEWSLETTER
  • The photo on the cover this month is of Easton Gardens covered in snow and is by our own Ann Campbell.
WI LIFE
  • This has not arrived yet.

TREASURER'S REPORT
Income:           £ 1,715.62, including the money from the December Singer’s                                                 Concerts and several 2019 subscriptions.
Expenditure:  £ 735.92  which included the electric PAT testing and                                                           some other small electrical work.
Bank Balance is  £ 24,896.09. 

SUB COMMITTEE REPORTS
WRIW Coffee morning: 
  • The ECHO managed to put in an advert saying that the January coffee morning was on Friday 4th January. We are not sure where they conjured this date up from! The actual coffee morning on Tues 8th January raised £84.
AOB FROM THE FLOOR
  • Ann Pettifer reported that Campaign Group are going to meet shortly to discuss the Red Box scheme which aims to help with period poverty, where girls in school do not have sufficient access to sanitary protection. We may come back to meeting to see what we could do to support this national project.
  • Ann Pettifer also thanked everyone for their donations of unwanted bras. She has taken a big bagful to the collection point in Dorchester. We are still collecting to look out for the red and white collection bag to make your donation.
  • Ann Pettifer also mentioned that the Poetry group is thinking of running a day trip with a coach/minibus/car trip (depending on demand) to various places in the county which have links to local poets. We have a member of the Poetry group who has run these trips before and would be happy to do this again. The day would include reading poems in suitable locations, as well as lunch and toilet stops. The trip would probably be sometime in June. She asked for a show of hands for people who would be interested in coming along and there was a good response, so she will pursue this.
  • Ann Stagles reported that the Craft group is restarting this Friday (11th). There will be cake to celebrate her birthday, so do come along.
  • Jenni Fleming asked if anyone had jam jars which they could let her have. She has a particular favourite size and shape in mind, so check with her before lugging bagsful of jars to the hall!
NEXT MONTHLY MEETING - February 14th
Our speaker will be James Haddow, The Taxi Driver Poet. James had to postpone his trip to us in September, but will be with us on Feb 14th, so we hope he has lots of romantic poems for the occasion.

Hostess/ Flowers/Refreshments will be provided by Ukulele/Scrabble?Folk Dancers.
 
RAFFLE      This raised £ 35.
 
SPEAKER
 After our usual tea break and social time, we were joined this evening by Stuart and Chrissy from Morrisons supermarket. They shared with us many fascinating insights into how the store is run. These included how products get onto the shelves, predicting the numbers of cashiers who need to be on the tills at any one time, the replacement of plastic with paper and biodegradable packaging, and many other things. It was very interesting and provoked lots of questions about various topics which Stuart and Chrissy answered ably.
 
They then handed out samples of Morrisons own label wine (a white Chardonnay from Moldova and a red from Australia), both pronounced excellent by the members. There was also an assortment of cheeses to try as well as bite-sized samples of cakes and other sweet things. These who didn’t come to the meeting missed an excellent time!
 
Margaret Boswell thanked Stuart and Chrissy very much for a very lively and fun-filled session. We will look out for them in Morrisons from now on.    
  
The meeting finished at 9.15  pm.