Mar 2025 – Subgroups

Darts Group – A good season for us and we reached the Cheshire Final at Winnington, held on 12th March. We had a successful start to the evening, winning our matches against Winwick and Dutton, but the lost to Little Leigh 2-1 in the semi-final. They went on to win the Final, leaving us in joint 3rd place out of 12 teams. Congratulations to our team.

Book Club – We had a change of genre, non fiction and an older book – ‘Notes from a Small Island’ by Bill Bryson. Not our favourite read, but an interesting discussion.

Walking Group had a walk around Great Budworth, with lunch at the Cock O’Budworth.

Craft Group – 11 ladies arrived in glorious spring sunshine to make their Easter bonnets.  There were  flowers galore, rabbits, carrots, eggs and chicks with a trimming of ribbons. We created a wonderful variety of hats. Maybe we’ll be all dressed up for a wonderful Easter parade at our next main meeting on May 1st. 

Art Group had a theme of Spring and members produced some lovely pictures, following Susan’s tutorial on a ‘Watercolour Spring Meadow’ or producing their own spring pictures

Baking Beauties made a range of ‘Melting Moments’ – mostly biscuits but a gingerbread which had a melting moment during production!

Mar 2025 – Main Meeting

Thirty of our members attended our March Main meeting where our guest speaker was Kim Smith from Radio Northwich talking about ‘Music is my first love’. She was a brilliant and entertaining speaker who talked about growing up in the 60s with vinyl records, black and white TV, tape to tape recorders – minimal technology but a fabulous range of music.

For our May outing this year we plan visit the British Ironworks at Oswestry. Members and their family/friends are welcome and at this stage we need ‘expressions of interest’ so we can decide on the cost and viability of the trip. If you would like to come and didn’t sign up please contact Jean so you can be added to the list.

Susan shared the results of the Resolution vote – Whitley chose ‘Incontinence Matters, Nationally the favourite was ‘Bystanders can be Lifesavers’. Members were also reminded to take empty blister packs to Boots for recycling. Annette reminded us about our Photographic competition and members were asked to email their entries to her, no need to print them.

The winner of the completion, ‘A favourite line from a song’ was won by Chris with ‘Happiness, Happiness, the greatest gift that I possess’. Our next meeting will be on April 3rd when Mary Lancaster will talk about her personal experience dealing with diabetes, with the title ‘Numbers, Needles and Jam Butties’

Feb 2025 – Birthday Afternoon Tea

We welcomed 30 of our members to an Afternoon Tea to celebrate Whitley WI’s 87th birthday. The committee had been busy preparing sandwiches, savoury snacks and nibbles, scones and cakes – probably the best Afternoon Tea in the area!


We always have a really special cake, made by one of our members. This year’s cake, beautifully decorated with sunflowers, was again made by Ann O’B and Helen C cut the cake for us. Helen has made a huge contribution to Whitley WI, not to mention Cheshire and National, over the years. Members had enjoyed completing a table quiz during the afternoon – 20 questions with clues to our favourite sweets and chocolates – great fun and a close finish. We concluded the event by all joining in with singing ‘The Gardener’s Hymn’ organised by Annette.

A very happy 87th Birthday Party

Feb 2025 – subgroups

Book club

We had a lively discussion on The Choice by SJ Ford. Was Jane Bell a murderer or a heroine when she deliberately ran over a man who she strongly suspected was going to kill many children in the local school her children attended.

Walking Group – Our first walk of this year was along the Whitegate Way – 8 of us walked towards Cuddington. The weather was cold but dry which we were very pleased about.

The Way was very busy with walkers, dog walkers, cyclists and one lady on a horse – it seems very popular for horses when you see what they have left on the pathway. We walked up to the Bridge with the A49 and then retraced our steps. It looks as if a considerable amount had been done to tidy the bushes and trees along the way and a water course was alongside the path. We walked for about 1hr 45min and finished with a well earned bite to eat at the Station Cafe which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Craft Group

The craft group had a busy stitching and gluing afternoon adorning our tree with green hearts to show the love. This is the usual annual February celebration of everything we care about and want to protect from the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We shall be showing our green heart tree at the main meeting in March with everyone’s hearts attached. If you have a heart saved from earlier years, why not bring it along and add it to our tree.

Art Group

Art Group’s theme this month was ‘Mixing colours’, led by Joan. She gave us a great overview of colours for different seasons and preparing the background of our pictures. She also brought along lots of pictures as ideas for our paintings. We then spent the session on our own piece of work, some lovely landscapes. Thanks to Joan for all the preparation work, an enjoyable and informative session.

Baking Beauties

With St David’s Day approaching a
taste of Wales was the theme for bakers this month. A mix of traditional and experimental recipes were produced for tasting and discussion. There were savoury and sweet Welsh cakes, Bara brith and Welsh cheese inspired quiche and biscuits. A Teisen lap cake – known as ‘cake on a plate’ finished off the selection We were also treated to a cup of Welsh tea.

Feb 2025 – Main Meeting

It was good to see everyone again after having to meet on Zoom in January due to the extreme weather. We had the best turnout in a long time – 40 members attended and Susan opened the meeting for the first time as our President.
Our speaker was Dominga Devitt who reminded us of lots of vintage adverts, some going back to the 1950s. Lots of memories for many of us, including some jingles from adverts that we hadn’t heard for many years. Janet gave the vote of thanks.
We had a busy meeting, with lots of information for members about the many activities planned by Whitley and Cheshire. After the refreshment break we had a vote on the resolutions. We had 39 votes cast, and the results were
1 Let’s talk about incontinence – 15 2 Bystanders can be lifesavers – 12
3 Join the repair revolution – 1 4 Eliminate landfill of medication packaging – 11

The results of our vote will be reported to Cheshire.

Pat outlined our financial position and advised members that the subs for 2025 would be £51, payable by end of March 2025.
The competition was for ‘A Vintage Branded Food Tin’, won by Jean. Our winner for 2024 was Anne Toll.
Our next meeting will be on 6th March when our speaker will be Kim Smith from Radio Northwich with a theme of ‘Music is my first love’. The competition is ‘A favourite line from a song’ – just write your favourite on a piece of card/paper and put on the Competition table..

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