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.
Julia Young spoke to us at our July meeting with tales of sex, violence and adulteration in the life of the honeybee.
Members got to look first hand at the intricate honeycomb made from beeswax that the bees use to store their food and raise their grubs. Julia is also a registered ‘swarm’ collector and is on hand to remove honeybees that have swarmed in the most peculiar places, including the back window of a car!
Julia had brought some of her pure honey to sell and informed us that not all honey is equal and the vast proportion of the honey for sale in supermarkets is adulterated with sugar syrup. Her jars were very popular!
Several of our members joined the Village Group trip to Yorkshire at the end of June. We visited Saltaire and had time to wander around the unique village of Saltaire – a world UNESCO site built by Titus Salt to house the workers for his woollen mills. The old mill now houses a permanant display of works by Bradford born artist David Hockney. An added bonus was the 1940’s festival taking place in the village with a tea dance at Victoria Hall and people dressed in 1940’s fashions.
For those of us who walked over the river Aire to Roberts Park, a cricket match was in progress although the skies were a little grey. From Saltaire we journeyed on to Ilkley and saw the famous Ilkley Moor and Cow and Calf rocks sitting above the town. A cuppa at Betty’s tea room beckoned for some of us and of course some retail therapy! A most enjoyable day!
The theme for this year’s show was ‘The Olympics’. Despite a reduced space/number of classes this year Whitley WI still submitted a number of entries as well as providing helpers for refreshments and stewarding.
Our main ‘team’ entry was in the ‘Teams’ section. The Craft group have been working hard for months on their entry – to depict ‘Team GB’. We included a range of items representing each of the 4 countries, with the items for judging being Whisky Marmalade for Scotland, a needle punched shamrock for Northern Ireland, a knitted guardsman and sentry box for Engand and a Bara Brith loaf for Wales. This was a great piece of teamwork involving a lot of people – thanks to Annette for coordinating it. Click on our Craft subgroup page to read more about our entry.
Scotland and WalesEngland and N. IrelandGoing for Gold
In another team class Susan L and Ann O’B entered the ‘Going for Gold’ section with a beautiful embroidery, apricot jam and an Almond Cake. Although neither of these were placed in the very competitive classes it was great to see Whitley represented with 2 very striking entries. We did win prizes in the preserve class with a second and a third place awarded to Pat S for her marmalade and Susan L for her apricot jam
In June we held our traditional joint meeting with Dutton WI, it was great to welcome back old friends Our President, Melanie, opened the meeting with pictures of her visit to the NFWI Annual Meeting at the Royal Albert Hall as representative of a few WIs in our area. It was her first National meeting and she really appreciated the opportunity to attend
Our speaker for the evening was Tina Saunders with ‘An Embroiderer’s Tale’. She studied at The Royal School of Needlework and she showed us many of the amazing pieces of coursework that she produced. It was fascinating to see the tiny stitches, incredible detail and use of shading to produce some fantastic results – her rhinocerus was particularly admired.
She then took on a number of different jobs including working for the famous shoemaker Jimmy Choo for a number of years where her work included the shoes that Camilla wore when she married Charles. Her most memorable time was the 6 years she spent as a dressmaker for Queen Elizabeth II. She shared pictures of some of her favourite outfits from this period.
She has now moved North and is kept busily self-employed with a wide range of projects, dressmaking and courses. A very enjoyable talk, with the message to enjoy life, follow your dreams, and do a job you love.
Tina then judged our competition which this month was for a thimble. This picture shows Janet (our competition organiser) and Tina discussing the entries. It was very appropriate that Ann C, our winner, is a joint member of Dutton and Whitley!
