January Newsletter

Happy New Year and a very warm welcome to our first WI Newsletter of 2025. We have a great line up of speakers and activities to look forward to this year, as well as our monthly meetings, special interest groups meet ups and outings. 

Our first speaker for 2025 is food writer Ruth Neiman, whom we’ve rescheduled after she was unable to attend last year owing to illness. Her latest book, Freakeh, Wild Wheat & Ancient Grains made her a Guild of Food Writers Awards 2022 Finalist. We are looking forward to welcoming her and hearing all about the traditions and flavours of Middle Eastern cuisine. During the presentation Ruth will be handing round spices to smell and foods to taste. There’s is more info about her in the Coming Up section of this newsletter.

Also at our January meeting on the 21st, we’ll be voting on this year’s NFWI resolutions – more information below in our ‘NFWI’ section.

As a huge fan of everything arts and crafts, I believe everyone has a creative side which shows up in different ways, whether it’s through ideas or activities. I’d like to encourage everyone to make a fun start to 2025 – so how about signing up to the 64 Million Artists Challenge for January? The 64 Million Artists movement recognises the benefits of creativity. With 31 daily prompts to encourage a short activity to spice up your winter day, from sketching to poetry to dance, no skills needed! Happy new creative year!! Take a look. We welcome ideas from all our members, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with any of the committee with your suggestions. 

I look forward to seeing you all very soon

Jane, President Battersea WI
E: presidentbattersea@surreyfedwi.org.uk

In your January 2025 Newsletter:

  • Updates from Your WI Groups
  • Coming Up: January and February speakers
  • Offshoots – activities inspired by BWI groups 
  • Surrey Federation – August weekend in Bristol
  • NFWI updates and important information about resolutions for 2025

Art In December we built on our still life charcoal skills with Bianca. She created an atmosphere that helped us to focus and feel a real improvement in our work. We’ll be looking to arrange more tutored sessions going forward.


 

Book Groups – what we’ve been reading

Bookends The Fraud. Inspired by the C19th Titchbourne Trial. A significant number of us could not get on with the book and abandoned it. Those that did, didn’t like it. We felt it was disjointed, but for no apparent reason. The best part narrated the slave’s history.  Woven into the story was that of the real life author William Ainsworth, a contemporary of Dickens, whose initial success dwindled into mediocre writing. Dear Reader, I cannot recommend this novel.” 

Chapter One Reading Group The Moon’s a Balloon. Having read this in the Seventies, some of us were intrigued to revisit it, and a few copies of the original hard back edition also made it to the meeting! Niven is a wonderful story teller who lived an extraordinary life. He gives us the Hollywood gossip and stories from his childhood, military career and wartime; usually amusing but including some dark and poignant memories too. It gave us a lot to talk about.

Boozy Books Homecoming. This is a long book that covers many generations. It explores the lengths we would go to protect the people we love and the secrets we keep hidden. It also asks us to think about what it really means to come home. Overall, we found it a captivating, complex novel that felt like a mystery to be solved with clues along the way.

Craft Group  We had great fun during our session on 8th December making vintage cards in Thrive’s Garden Shed in the Herb Garden in Battersea Park. We made extra for Thrive’s Christmas Open Day on 12th December. 

Film    Time for our end of year round-up of what we watched in 2024: Poor Things (January), The Holdovers (February), Monster (March), Challengers (April), The Fall Guy (May), Wilding (June) and Fly Me To The Moon (July). We had a break for August and resumed with LEE (September), The Room Next Door (October), The Man with a Thousand Faces (November) and Better Man (December). I’m not sure as a group we’ve seen many of the contenders for The Oscars (March 2025), the list of nominations is here 

Foodies Our December theme was Christmas Bites. We feasted on smoked salmon blinis, parma ham and parmesan cheese palmiers, stuffed baby peppers, devils on horseback, hot salmon in little gem shells, spiced pecans, stilton biscuits and prawns on sticks. We still found room to squeeze in dessert and what a delight: mini puff mince pies, chocolate brownies, Jamaican Rum Truffles, a cheese board, as well as candied orange and strawberries dipped in chocolate. 

Taking part in dry January?  Here are some Foodies Group suggestions for alcohol free alternatives. Top recommendations included McGuigan Zero Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc. The Wise Bartender sells mixed cases and The Club Soda  tasting room in Covent Garden lets you try before you buy. There are plenty of good alcohol free beers in local supermarkets too.

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Walking Thirteen of us plus four dogs turned out on a sunny morning for an enjoyable walk along the Thames Path from Imperial Wharf to Chelsea Bridge; the group photo shows us visiting the brand-new Thames Tideway open space on the Embankment, opposite Chelsea Hospital. After that we headed up to visit Chelsea Barracks and finished at Chelsea Hospital’s new Soane Stable Yard for coffee. 

Our January meeting Guest Speaker is Food Writer and culinary author Ruth Nieman, will be showcasing the traditional and authentic flavours of the eclectic Middle Eastern cuisine from a cultural, historical and biblical perspective. Through the eyes and palates of local women from Northern Israel, Ruth will be taking us on a journey from the land to the plate, talking through some traditional recipes, and introducing us to the indigenous ingredients and fragrant spices of this ancient cuisine, giving us an insight into the food customs and practices of her heritage and those of the local women that helped her to bring The Galilean Kitchen to our table. During the presentation Ruth will be handing round spices to smell and foods to taste. She welcomes questions as she goes along.

Ruth is a member of the Guild of Food Writers Publications by Ruth include The Galilean Kitchen and Freekeh, Wild Wheat and Ancient Grains You can also find her on Instagram 

Our February speaker will be Bella Lane, whom some of you met when we went to the Silver & Gold Wire Exhibition at the Guildhall last year. Bella’s talk will be about the different styles of embroidery around the world and how they vary in technique, colours, subject matter and patterns, together with samples to show you. Following on from her talk, later this year we are planning to run an embroidery workshop

Over the year Knitting Group has been making baby items to donate to the charity Little Village.  On 6th December Rachel took Joan to their premises in Tooting High Street to hand over the items – 1 cardigan, 3 jumpers, 3 vests, 5 hats, 3 pairs of baby bootees, 2 pairs of baby mittens along with some hair scrunchies and a knitted tissue pouch. 

We had another successful wreath making workshop this year, with mince pies and mulled wine.  We all made elaborate wreaths led by Helmer again. The zeitgeist this year was much more natural and we used lots of foliage foraged along the banks of the Wandle.

Christmas Cheer A handful of our members joined the St Mary’s congregation to sing carols and help serve 250 people with handmade mince pies and mulled wine. The event raised an amazing £10,250 celebrating 100 years of Katherine Low Settlement. We were warmly thanked by the organisers for volunteering at the event and for our warm and welcoming hospitality.

Battersea WI is part of the Surrey Federation of WIs. The Surrey Federation website has all the latest news about events and news in our neighbouring WIs. This Summer they have organised a weekend away in Bristol from 8-10 August 2025  to coincide with the weekend of the Balloon Fiesta. 

The WI campaigns on a huge range of issues – from promoting women’s rights and fostering health awareness to encouraging sustainable development and building a fairer society. For more information about Campaigns please visit the NFWI website 

This Newsletter has been edited for the website. A more detailed version is available to members. If you are interested in joining Battersea WI please use our contact form to get in touch

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