WI Newsletter – June 2012

Whilst our members have enjoyed celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, we are exhausted with all the jubilations, goodness knows how Her Majesty feels as she continues with her busy schedule. Maybe that is why some of our members were waiting outside the pub before opening time. They were so keen they arrived at The Crown in Kings Somborne before its scheduled opening time of 12 noon as the lunch club arrived for their monthly get together!

Several of our members made up a party to take a picnic up to the sportsfield at the beginning of the month to join in the village’s picnic in the park; others joined their families or neighbours. Whatever we did we all said it was a lovely idea and we enjoyed watching the country dancing and the jazz band gave the whole affair a lovely atmosphere.

On Sunday, along with the PTA, we were asked to serve teas in the village hall, whilst Andrew Bulpitt supplied the necessary technology so that we could still watch the splendid pageant make its way down the Thames, albeit in the pouring rain. Tim Tayler had put together an exhibition in the Jubilee Room to which our Institute had contributed with various albums and other memorabilia from our archives. This proved to be very popular. We were delighted with the number of people who came for a welcome cup of tea and piece of cake, as the afternoon had been an unknown quantity and we were kept very busy.

At our June meeting, President Sue George, thanked all those who helped make the afternoon a success, with special thanks going to Pat Balam who had represented us at the Jubilee Committee meetings and Heather Girvan who spent all day helping on the Sunday.

Our quiz team has been in action this month; they tell us it was the taking part in the first round of Hampshire Federation’s annual quiz that was important, not the winning – by that you may deduce they have not made it into the next round.

Our walk took us through Monxton and Amport on a lovely summer morning and we enjoyed lunch at The Black Swan (aka The Mucky Duck) in Monxton where we are always welcome.

There were more Diamond Jubilee celebrations at our June meeting, starting with the National Anthem, continuing with a picture quiz which thank goodness seemed to go down well. Photographs of the Queen were placed around the hall, each representing a decade of her reign. Members were asked to identify the correct decade, year and event of each photograph. The winners were Janis Bulpitt and Val Hayter. The Hall was festooned with union jacks and there was a lovely supper of sandwiches (yes Coronation Chicken was one of the fillings) made by Sue George, Aileen Catterson & Judy Wickham along with strawberries and cream (courtesy of Gayle Beaton). If this wasn’t enough, Val Downing had make a sponge covered with fresh cream and fruit depicting the union jack and Janis Bulpitt had made a sponge iced with the union jack. Our members are certainly patriotic.

Next month we will have an Olympic themed meeting – our members are getting nervous as to how much participation is expected. Jokingly (but was she?) Sue George asked our members to come along with their running shoes on, so if you are sporting minded please come along to the Village Hall on 26th July in time for our 7.30 start.

Diary Dates:
2012

14 July – Walking Group

19 July – Coffee Morning

26 July – Olympic themed evening – 7.30 p.m. in the Village Hall

28 July – Lunch Club

07 August – Reading Group

08 August – Outing to Chichester and Goodwood House

Sharon King