June 2023 Main Meeting – A Flower Festival

We had a lovely ‘flower festival’ main meeting in June. Our members were asked to bring along a vase of flowers from their garden, displayed in a jam-jar or similar.

What a wonderful ‘free’ display of flowers we had, many thanks to everybody for their contributions. They were used as table centres during the evening, and formed the competition which was won by our newest member Ann Toll.

Our speaker for the evening was Melanie Farrow who started to develop ‘Smelanie’s Flowers’ during the Covid Lockdown. She entertained us with pictures showing the journey from a barren field to 20 beds of beautiful cottage garden plants, including spring tulips and autumn dahlias. Her love of flowers shone through, and she finished her talk with demonstrating how a bucket of her flowers, some chicken wire and a charity shop ‘vase’ can produce a beautiful display.

Pat and Annette also organised a plant sale, with lots of healthy homegrown flowers. They raised £140 which our Garden Group will use to arrange a visit or a course later in the year. We finished with our usual business, subgroup updates and the raffle. Melanie’s flower display provided the centrepiece of prizes, but they also included a beautiful scabiosa and other flower related items.

May subgroup meetings

Our Walking group enjoyed a lovely ramble around Glazebrook – see the subgroup page for more information and a picture.

Craft group met to put together their exhibit for the Cheshire Show but no pictures yet, you’ll have to visit the Show to see how we get on!

The Baking Beauties topic on 26th May will be ‘Summer Fruit Baking’.

The Book Group did not meet in May, due to holidays. The book for discussion at our June meeting is You People by Nikita Lalwani. The Art and Scrabble groups are taking a break until September.

May 2023 Main Meeting – Cheshire Wildlife Trust

Our President Melanie welcomed 39 members, 3 visitors and our speaker.

Richard Ortyl from the Cheshire Wildlife Trust gave is a very interesting illustrated talk about the work that they do around the county and the habitat and species they protect.

He spoke about species which used to be common, but are becoming endangered due to loss of habitat. Some of their local flagship reserves near to Whitley are Hatchmere, Marbury Reed Bed and Warbuton’s Wood. Other local reserves are Abbots Moss and Poors Wood in Northwich and Owley Wood at Weaverham. Helen Carey, who has been a trustee of Cheshire Wildlife trust gave the vote of thanks.

After the speaker and refreshments, Melanie updated us on the many different activities currently going on for Whitley WI, including preparations for the Cheshire Show, our Chester outing, the Group meeting, subgroup meetings and CFWI events. The competition for a wildlife ornament was won by Pat Sharp. Second was Penny Cross and third was Sue Clements.

We look forward to our June meeting ‘A Flower Festival where we will enjoy a demonstration by Melanie Farrow followed by a strawberry tea. Members were asked to bring along a jam-jar of flowers from their garden for the competition.

We closed the meeting by singing ‘God Save the King’ in recognition of the special weekend ahead to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III.

May Outing to Chester

25 of our members and guests enjoyed a beautiful sunny day on our annual May outing – this year we had a more local visit to Chester. We travelled by coach, where everyone was given a map of the centre and a short talk on different aspects of the history and layout of the city. We arrived at ‘the Groves’ in time to enjoy an ice-cream, a drink, or a short stroll before taking a trip on ‘Mark Twain’ which took us on a 2hr return trip along the river, passing many beautiful riverside dwellings and then through the Eaton estate.

We all walked up through the Roman Gardens, admiring the beautiful cherry blossom and past the amphitheatre to the Eastgate Clock where we had a couple of hours to do our own thing.

Some of our members took a leisurely stroll along the walls, stopping for a drink in the sun overlooking the Roodee racecourse. Others spent time walking around the shops and cafes. A very sociable and enjoyable day.