Audlem WI January Meeting

Audlem WI January Meeting

Today I shall put my positive big pants on, even though I feel like putting an 'Out of Order' sticker on my head and going back to bed.

A friend once told me that drinking alcohol is the worst thing to do in cold weather. Hot soup is the best because the process of digesting food helps to warm you up. Needless to say she is no longer on my Xmas card list.

What's so bad about January anyway? It's a good month to hibernate. A good time to hatch plans. A good time to nurture some optimism, energy and enthusiasm for the coming spring which is just around the corner, and when it arrives we Audlem WI ladies intend to hit the ground running, replacing our Jimmy Choo's for more appropriate footwear because we are not anything if not versatile !

The weather forecast may be grim, but our loyal and determined members will don their warm layers, apply ice grippers to their shoes and descend en masse to the Scout and Guide Hall in expectation of yet another afternoon of friendship, educational activities and learning new skills, combined with a jolly good afternoon tea! To us, shivering is just extra exercise.

Some people cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go and we all know that if we laugh a lot it clears the lungs as well as having other unfortunate consequences, but by now I am sure our members have spotted me shuffling paper around to divert attention from my lack of lyrical knowledge whilst Jerusalem is being sung.

This year my New Year's Resolution is to learn the flipping words!

Fortunately June Perry, our dedicated pianist, always ensures that we end up on the same note, and if we don't, the heavy crash of a chord usually pulls us back into line! Her standards are higher than ours as she is a stalwart of Audlem Voices!

This month we had our congenial new President Christine Jenkins at the helm and surprisingly, after all the seasonal merrymaking, almost a full turnout of members with three new visitors, who, having heard that our members mature with the damage, not with the years, thought they could join in with the fun!

Finally released from our family duties – after all grandmothers are there to help their grandchildren get into mischief they hadn't yet thought about and are also God's reward for not killing our offspring – we were raring to go.

This month we had some serious business to attend to. After a timely reminder from Anne Hollins that our bursary for Denman College this year would be escalated from £350 to £450, as the costs of alcohol have been increased, we were also reminded that the WI has released details of the five resolutions that we have been asked to vote on, so that one can be selected for our National Annual Meeting.

Lin Nicholas encouraged our members to use their vote, quite rightly, whilst at the same time pointing out that one of the resolutions is already law, and the others certainly had Government support with explanatory information already available online.

We're normally an easy going bunch, but this is one WI area which makes us see red – apart from the escalating cost of our annual subs!

Our National WI Federation has been instrumental in successfully influencing the Government with serious topics such as equal pay for women etc, but in the last few years we seem to have just been preaching to the converted.

Audlem WI decided that change was required and our feelings needed to be expressed as individual WI groups were at fault – we need to provide fresh innovative ideas at grass roots levels for resolution selections so we have composed and sent a letter to our Cheshire Federation and our National WI..............watch this space.

Thankfully Christine was able to move on to lighter subjects and introduced our January speaker Christine Finch, who had already set up her laptop ready for her slides.

Christine only had a few minutes to pique the interest of the assembled audience of our busy intuitive ladies, knowing that telling a well-crafted story is amongst one of the most powerful tools for a speaker and she, in her own unique and whimsical way, captured our attention from the start.

Christine had already spoken to us on a previous occasion about her life in the theatre, however this was interestingly carried forward to her marriage to another Shakespearean actor, Stephen Finch, who wanted to return to his native country, the USA, finally settling his wife and son into life in a small town, Landrum in South Carolina.

In 1980 he had the seemingly hair brained idea of starting up a theatre, and upon discovering an old skating rink for sale, they promptly bought it and converted it into a theatre on very limited funds and a lot of improvisation!

The theatre was named 'The Barn Door' and seated 250 people on makeshift chairs.

This small town provided willing helpers and aspiring actors, and the theatre was always full.

Elaborate sets were not required as painted cardboard and the 'suggestion' of other areas worked well.

After a successful ten years the theatre was sold and became an antiques emporium, leading to Landrum becoming a successful 'Antiques Town,' a legacy that stands to this day.

You would think that after a few weeks of rich food our tea ladies would be tired of turning out home made delicacies, but no, once again they rose to the occasion and the table groaned under the weight of scones with cream and jam, chocolate cakes, fairy cakes with buttercream, egg sandwiches and sausages.

Replete, with diets out of the window, the raffle was drawn – Pat Smith, Margaret Bayley, Lyn Wheeler and one of our visitors were the lucky winners and then Christine announced our birthday ladies, Val Butler, Margaret Bayley, Helen Dunlop and Elizabeth Huntbach.

January 25th sees our group heading for The Lord Combermere for our Annual Lunch.

Now for ladies who eat cake because after all it's always someone's birthday somewhere, we have high expectations and remember,' it may be the cock that crows, but it's the hens that lay the eggs!'

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