Art and Baking groups preparing for Christmas 2023
June 2023 Flower Festival
Ladies with Llamas on our August Outing 2023
Fun, friendship and community
Whitley WI is a large and lively group of women. We have a busy programme of meetings and events which are designed to attract and involve the varying ages and interests of all our members. For a flavour of what we do please see our monthly newsletters.
We are always delighted to greet new members and can assure you of a warm and friendly welcome. Our committee members will introduce you to fellow members and make you feel really at home.
Our meetings are held at 7.30pm in Whitley Village Hall on the first Thursday of every month. Drop in and be sure of a welcome.
Join a Sub-Group...make new friends.
Art, Walking, Craft, Baking Beauties, Book Club, Scrabble, Positive Planet, Garden Interest, Darts & Bowls. Please see Subgroups menu for more information.
8 of our members attended the annual Literary Lunch at Hartford Golf club. The whole event, for over 160 ladies, had been masterminded by our own Pat Sharp and it was a great success. Local author Sally-Anne Martyn shared her development as an author and her journey into the world of publishing.
With some humour Sally-Anne confessed that she enjoys developing the dark side of any story and her first published novel, ‘The Clinic’, is a dark psychological thriller. One of our members read this book over a couple of days just after the event– she just couldn’t put it down! After an enjoyable lunch it was good to socialise with WI members from local groups and others from across the county.
The following is a brief summary, you can get detailed information about the different activities by looking on the subgroup pages. Click the coloured link to take you to the page
Our Walking group enjoyed a walk around Runcorn Hill, followed by a very social stop at Runcorn Park cafe
The topic for our July meeting was’ Living in Styal’ and the speaker was Ed Tarry, Community Engagement officer for Styal Women’s Prison. He has won awards for the work he does in ‘Building Bridges, Changing Lives’.
Ed started by talking about the prison, its population, and the activities offered. He explained the challenges presented by significant numbers of women who have multiple problems including mental health and drug issues, abusive backgrounds and low self esteem. Ed’s job is to oversee some of the prisoner’s activities specifically designed to build skills and self confidence.
Ed talked about about 2 significant initiatives at Styal – the ‘fine dining’ restaurant Clink and the Recycling Lives project. Both of these provided real work experience and responsibilities and have extremely good outcomes in helping prisoners into work as they leave the prison. He was also clearly very proud of the entries from the prison gardening team which have won medals at the Cheshire Show on a regular basis.
After refreshments Melanie and Susan updated us on the many events and competitions planned over the next month or so.
We had planned to encourage more Whitley members to enter classes in the 2023 Show and were certainly not disappointed. We had the most entries for many years in the various WI competitions and also several members volunteered to help in the WI marquee with refreshments and stewarding.
Our Craft group had been busy preparing a display in the Combined Craft competition with a ‘Once upon a Time’ theme. Our ‘Dick Whittington’ exhibit, with beautiful quilting, knitting and felting won 2nd prize. Many thanks to Annette, Melanie, Jackie and the team for all their hard work
We also had a number of entries in individual classes, with at least one place in every class we entered. Susan came first In the Gingerbread People class and Pat came 2nd in the Marmalade class. Pam Burr, a dual member with Dutton WI won the ‘Meanwood Cup’ , where the winner was chosen by public vote.
In the Photography class Pat came 2nd with her Autumn leaves and Toadstools, Annette came 3rd with her Lizard and Melanie’s Deer was Highly Commended. In the Watercolour Class Ann C came 3rd with her ‘A Magical Land’ picture. Many thanks also to the other members who entered, it’s just as important to take part and it was great to see Whitley so well represented.
On the day several members volunteered to help in the WI marquee with refreshments and stewarding. That’s a great way to see the show, and also to get involved.
The following is a brief summary, you can get detailed information about the different activities by looking on the subgroup page.
Lots of our walkers joined a walk around Anderton Nature Park on a glorious June day, enjoying a picnic along the way. For more information and pictures have a look on the Walking subgroup page
Craft group concentrated on entries for the Cheshire Show – have a look on the Home page to see how we got on!
The Baking Beauties topic was ‘Summer Fruit Baking’, lots of mouthwatering bakes were enjoyed.
The Book Group had a lively discussion on ‘You People’ by Nikita Lalwani.
The Art and Scrabble groups are taking a break until September.
