THE President, Chrissie Halls welcomed us to our October ‘Members Meeting’, a chance for Institute members to join in providing the entertainment.

The annual Blackberry Walk had been a great success and Beryl Warren and Gill Wass were thanked for again arranging the event and for the delicious tea. The champion picker was Gabrielle Falkiner with a total of 4 and-a-half pounds of fruit.

Members were thanked for cake making in support of the Ebrington ‘Reach for the Skies’ cycle ride. Our fame has spread and it is now known amongst the cycling groups as the Best Cake cycle ride.

Our programme officer Rita Jones was thanked for arranging such an entertaining alternative speaker for September’s meeting at short notice. Joan Bomford, well known as the first Countryfile Farming Hero delighted us with tales from her long life in farming and was much in demand to sign copies of her popular book “Up with the Lark”.

It was decided that in support of the national WI resolution Alleviating Loneliness Ebrington WI would sponsor a coffee morning for World Kindness Day. This will take place on Saturday 11 November, 10am–12 noon at Ebrington Village Hall.

Once again, we will be supporting the local delivery of Christmas cards and members were asked to sign up for receiving the cards at the Christmas Bazaar on December 12 and for delivering to the parish. We were also encouraged to support the annual Shoebox Appeal for children in eastern Europe and reminded of the type of gifts that would be welcome.

Our November meeting will be the AGM and Institute show and members were urged to enter the various classes.

Following the business, we were treated to a thoroughly enjoyable evening of music and anecdotes from members, put together very skilfully by Pearl Mitchell and her son Neil as an audio-visual presentation. The range of music was wide, classical, popular and themes from films and TV and the reasons for choosing were as varied and interesting, funny, poignant and thought provoking. Pearl was warmly thanked for her hard work.

Ebrington WI meets on the second Thursday of each month, excluding August and welcomes guests and new members. We work together with other village organisations to support our community.

RUTH DAVIES