OUR April meeting heralded the arrival of two new welcome members and following the singing of Jerusalem the business matters were dealt with. President, June Lloyd, reminded everyone that two of our members were on a WI visit to the National Space Centre in Leicester. She further reminded everyone that next Tuesday we are hosting the Evesham Vale W.I. Group Meeting with our speaker giving a talk on “An Unusual Job for a Lady”. We have invited members from all WIs in our Group to join us for what promises to be an entertaining evening and gives the various Institutes the chance to meet other WI members from in and around Evesham. Members were also offered the chance to try their hands at bowling with a local bowling club and to visit the historic town of Bewdley. Many members will be helping at the Village Hall Table Top Sale on 30th April by supplying and selling their usual delicious home made cakes, jams and preserves as well as some craft items. June then presented member Margaret Powell with a gift token in celebration of her gaining one hundred points in our monthly competitions. The Secretary in turn presented June with a gift token for also gaining one hundred points in the monthly competitions.

June then introduced our speaker for the evening, Meg Farmer, whose talk was called “My Life with 101 Children”. She spoke for forty-five minutes, without notes, on what proved to be a very fascinating subject on fostering children. She covered not only the looking after the children whose ages ranged from three hours old to late teens but issues which no one seemed to appreciate such as appearing in Court to cover the various legal processes, helping the children to integrate into family life and mixing with other foster children from different upbringings. She and her husband worked as a team and their own children have in turn considered fostering. Many of the children were not fostered because they were not wanted or loved but because their own family could not cope.

Following the Vote of Thanks by Hazel Hunter we all enjoyed our usual delicious supper followed by the drawing of the raffle and the announcement of the winner of the competition entitled “A Flower from your Garden” which was won by Sandra Jackson.

Our next meeting, following the Group Meeting, is on May 10 which is our annual Resolutions Meeting followed by a Quiz. Over the years the W.I. have achieved a lot by holding such meetings and approaching various politicians and institutions to help with issues – the plight of the bees, dairy farmers and midwives to mention but a few.

Guests and new members are welcome. For further information contact June Lloyd on 01386 830844.

MARGARET DALTON