| Hello everyone, It was lovely to meet Felicity Cloake at our February meeting, now we know that most people prefer brown sauce to red sauce with their breakfast. Some of the more unusual items like laverbread and cockles I thought sounded delicious. It certainly was an epic cycling tour around Britain sampling the British Breakfast, I had never heard of marmalade on bacon butties before, some of you tell me that you have now tried it, and it really is delicious! Sad news however about kippers being on their way out.   At the next meeting on Tuesday 19th March we have Vivien Morgan coming to tell us why women have dressed up as men to go to war and fight, the presentation is called ‘Cross-dressed to Kill’ and sounds fascinating. At the March meeting we will be making a collection of secondhand/used spectacles, prescription or off the shelf, they are reconditioned and sent to Africa, India and Eastern Europe to those that are in need. So please if you have any old spectacles kicking around the house, bring them to the meeting. Details about the charity below. One important thing to mention, is that the meeting in April will be on the 9th April, the second Tuesday of the month not the third. I have put together a updated calendar for you below, which includes as many of the dates of outings/activities and meetings that are confirmed so far in 2024. So do take a good look and save the dates in your diaries. The second important thing is that our memberships are up for renewal, and our subs for 2024-2025 need to be paid before the due date of 1st April. The main upcoming events are: Tuesday 20th February – Main Meeting – Vivien Morgan – Cross-dressed to Kill plus a collection of spectacles. Tuesday 9th April – Main Meeting is a Craft Evening (decoupaging coat hangers) Wednesday 10th April – Visit to Crossness Pumping Station Thursday 11th April Supper Outing to a local restaurant I look forward to seeing you all very soon, All the very best Rosemary   Cross-dressed to Kill by Vivien Morgan – Meeting Tuesday 19th March Vivien Morgan is a former TV News Journalist and Documentary Producer, who picked up a camera to become a TV Videojournalist pioneer. Travelling undercover she reported from the closed Communist countries, from Tibet and Myanmar and later from much of Sub-Saharan and West Africa as well as the Middle East and Iran. Her fascination with these historic young women who cross-dressed in the 17th-20th centuries came from her own experience of what it meant to hide your identity to get your story, but not going as far as swapping skirts for trousers and signing up for the army to fight! Fascination turned into research and ended up with a book to commemorate them At our meeting, Vivien will be telling us about many extraordinary stories of twenty women cross-dressers of English, Irish, French, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, American and Israeli nationalities. There were literally hundreds of known women cross-dressers in Britain across Europe and in the Americas yet they have been erased from both social and military history. The bravery of these women masquerading as men and the risks they took were great. The penalty for cross-dressing in this period was harsh, including the death penalty because it was seen as an unnatural act that threatened society and offended social morality. The talk will answer all the questions of exactly why young women dressed as men to fight as soldiers in the 17th to 20th centuries.  At our March Meeting we will also be collecting second-hand spectacles Please bring any unwanted second-hand spectacles, prescription or shop bought to the March meeting. A note from our member who is organising the collection I am collecting spectacles for recycling by the Chichester Lions. They have the experience to sort them in preparation for onward transmission to Medico France in Le Havre. Medico France have the necessary equipment to clean and grade the spectacles ready for use in eye camps in Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Here is a link to see how our unwanted specs are used I’m putting together a pack and would appreciate any unused pairs our members have sitting around and are willing to donate. Thank you.   Wednesday 10th April – Crossness Pumping Station The outing in April will be to Crossness Pumping Station, near Abbey Woods. We will have a tour of the magnificent Victorian pumping station finished in 1868 which saved London from the cholera epidemic which was spreading through London, caused by the effluent draining into the Thames. Tickets £20. Please get in touch to book a place or if you have any further questions.   Thursday 11th April- Supper Outing Battersea WI has a booking at a local restaurant on the evening of Thursday 11th April. There is room to add others in, please get in touch if you would like to join us. We will soon be circulating menus to those interested as they have asked that we order in advance, being a large group. It should be a fun evening so please don’t miss out. (The restaurant has gluten free and dairy free options on its menu.) |
 Sub Group Dates Art Group – Saturday 23rd March Battersea Bookends – Monday 4th March Chapter One Reading – Tuesday 12th March Coffee Group – Wednesday 13th and Thursday 28th Feb Exhibitions Group – Saturday 9th March Film Group – Monday 25 March Foodies Group – Thursday 14th March Foraging Group – wild garlic & nettles as soon as they are ready for foraging Knitting & Crochet Group – Wednesday 27th 6.30pm Swimming Group – 16th or 17th March Photography Group – Wednesday 3rd April Walking Group – Friday 1st March CALENDAR OF EVENTS – 2024 MARCH Meeting 19th March Cross dressed to Kill by Vivien Morgan APRIL Meeting 9th April Craft Evening Decoupage Outing Wed 10th April Crossness Pumping Station Outing Thursday 11th April Supper out MAY Meeting 21st May The Highs & Lows of a Stuntwoman by Lucy Allen Outing Wed 15th May Eltham Palace & Gardens Outing Sat 11th May Biba Exhibition -Textile Museum JUNE Meeting 18th June Bingo with Fish & Chips Outing Monday 3rd June Evening Races Windsor JULY Meeting 16th July The History of ballet in London by Krissie Poyser Outing Saturday 6th July Sissinghurst Castle and Gardens Outing date tbc Medicinal Plant Walk & Hedge Herbs by Cristina Cromer AUGUST Meeting /Outing Tuesday 20th August Seaside Trip Margate- Broadstairs SEPTEMBER Meeting 17th September Taste of the Middle East – Wild Wheat Ancient Grains by Ruth Neiman Outing Date tbc Afternoon Tea Cruise on Thames OCTOBER Meeting 15th October Fine Cell Work by Rachel Stubbs Outing date tbc Wandsworth Recycling Centre NOVEMBER Meeting 19th November AGM with seasonal activity Outing Friday 15th November Tour/Talk at the Soane Museum DECEMBER Meeting date tbc Christmas Party Outing date tbc Christmas Workshop date tbc    Mithraeum and Sky Garden Outing On 7th February we enjoyed a delightful three-in-one outing. First of all we visited the Mithraeum to see the Roman Temple of Mithras in the heart of the city, The site lies over the course of one of London’s lost rivers, the Walbrook. The mysterious cult of Mithras first appeared in Rome in the 1st century AD. It then spread across the Empire over the next 300 years. Artefacts found whilst excavating the site were on display, on entering the site at the lower level we enjoyed the full ‘Roman experience’ with haze, lights, the sound of footsteps, chanting and secret whispers which transported one back to London in AD 240. After the Mithraeum visit we visited the Bank of England which was founded as a private bank in 1694 to act as banker to the Government and is today’s UK’s central bank. We all had a turn at picking up a gold bar, with much difficulty! The day was rounded off with afternoon tea at the Sky Garden to enjoy the views across London. It was a fully packed, interesting and enjoyable excursion.  February BPS Light Festival outing Eight of us met up on a mild dry Friday evening at Battersea Power Station to check out its Light Festival 2024. This wasn’t that large, but the trail of seven installations had been well positioned both inside and outside the old Turbine Halls to encourage visitors to explore the whole complex. We enjoyed posing for a photo on one interactive sculpture/ bench, and found the group of six giant blue butterflies flitting over the water in the Riverside Park especially effective. In half-term week it was good to see the Power Station busy, with lots of families out touring the installations too. At the end we were able to grab a table for drinks out of doors on the riverside terrace at Megan’s, in our coats but with a glowing heater overhead and a glamorous view of the Power Station and the Thames Path to look out at.   Walking Group We had an excellent turnout of thirteen members and two dogs for our February walk, for which we caught the Overground up to Gospel Oak and then crossed the South end of Hampstead Heath, to take in the famous view from Parliament Hill. Even on a grey morning the view across London was dramatic, with Canary Wharf, the Shard, the London Eye and the radio transmitter at Crystal Palace and many other landmarks plain to see. As we strolled on past the Bathing Ponds and through the picturesque back streets of Hampstead, the sun came out and we were able to enjoy our coffee sitting outside in the pretty garden of Burgh House. Afterwards all of us (even the dogs) were also able to take a look around inside; these days this handsome old Georgian building has become Hampstead’s local history museum and cultural centre, with a music room, an art gallery offering interesting changing exhibitions and a nice café in the basement. It’s easy to get to from Battersea too, being near both Hampstead Heath (Overground) and Hampstead (Northern line) stations. We definitely recommend a visit, but do check its website before you set off, as its opening hours are somewhat erratic.   KNITTING & CROCHET GROUP The Knitting & Crochet Group have been very busy recently, some members joined the Trinity Hospice for their ‘stuffing day’ of putting creme eggs into the knitted chicks that they had helped to knit last month. The photographs are just a taster of the 1000s and 1000s of chicks they had in, heaped on the table. An enjoyable and chatty afternoon, tea and cake was provided, and now plenty of chicks are ready to be sold at schools and shops to raise money for the charity. The other project which has kept the group very industrious has been the knitting and crocheting of poppies for Standing with Giants who are creating a memorial for D-Day 80, a display that will be installed in March until the end of August. The group are hoping they may be able to visit the installation sometime over the summer.   The Foodies Group The first meeting of our new Foodies group took place in February. The topic was canapes, and everyone enjoyed sampling each other’s favourite one whilst we chatted. It was certainly not a cookery competition and the atmosphere encouraged a lot of eating for 12 jolly attendees!   The Battersea Book Ends Ian McEwan: Lessons We all found this book took a few attempts to get into. Some of us completed it and some didn’t. It started in the 1950s with descriptions of post WW2 army life in Libya and then developed into a multi generational, journey through life, everyman kind of book with multiple deep and complicated themes rather than one primary theme as a focus. The group found the narrative to be emotionally quite surface in the first two thirds of the book when themes such as child abuse, abandonment by a spouse and supporting a child dealing with their parent’s abandonment were covered. There was a big focus on world events such as life under the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chernobyl, CND, IRA bombings and similar. More feelings tended to be stated for these than for the personal for much of the book. However, it was an interesting reminder, and in some detail, to those of us who remember living through these events. For example people blocking their window and door gaps with cling film when fears of the Chernobyl dust cloud dropping radioactive matter over the UK was to the fore! Would that ever have worked? The last third of the book had a change of emotional emphasis when more of the main character’s feelings about his life and what was going on in the present were covered. Some of the big issues such as the child abuse and abandonment including adoption were revisited more deeply with something of a resolution for each. And a theme of domestic control and violence was added at this stage. There were a number of strong women in the book as partners and girlfriends to some of the male characters and the men they were involved with were generally described as having a heavy reliance on them Ian McEwan says the book isn’t wholly autobiographical but that some of it is based on parts of his life. It did have that feel about it. Overall it was considered worth reading.  Chapter One Reading Group In February the group discussed Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. The story has a very strong sense of place and time (prosperous suburban USA in the 1990s) which underpins our understanding of the characters and their actions. Through a series a plot lines and using multiple points of view the writer explores a number of issues and in particular the question “What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?” There was much to talk about – including the characters, the dynamics between family members, particularly between mothers and daughters, different approaches to living, the choices people make in their lives and some possible holes in the plot. It generated a deep and enjoyable discussion. The next meeting is on Tuesday 12th March when we will discuss The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.    Film Group Seven of us went to Clapham Picturehouse to see “The Holdovers” at the end of February. Members who had already seen the film highly recommended it and Da’Vine Joy Randolph has already won best supporting actress in the Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of a bereaved mother. The film is also up for five Oscars. It is set in 1970/71, with this excellently reflected in the vintage opening credits, music, cinematography, outfits and people smoking at every opportunity! It has plenty of humour in it, albeit often melancholic, honest and bleak. The film is based around an unpopular teacher, an abrasive student and the head cook being forced to take the Christmas break together in an otherwise empty, elite Academy in New England. The learning and bonding experiences of the three is lovely to watch, and a tear or two was shed at several poignant moments. The next Film Club outing will be on Monday 25th March.   Art Group Art Group met up twice in February, one Saturday to enjoy a relaxing morning painting and sketching around a member’s kitchen table, with coffee and cake, and a second meet-up when 6 members went to the Royal Academy for life drawing of ‘Circus and Cabaret’. An entertaining RA late-night drawing event with three acrobatic models dressed in circus costume, posing on a circular moving podium holding difficult poses which were quite challenging and testing to draw. All very good fun though.      Photography Group Photography Group met up to share and view their photos, the topic was images associated with ‘Food & Drink’. As usual there was a wide range of takes on the subject with a variety of compositions, depths of field, differing lighting and inventive photographs. As discussed food is a difficult subject to photograph, and always seems to look best in natural light. In early April the group are visiting the Photographers Gallery to see Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize 2024. Above and below is a small selection of photographs from the group.      The NEW WI Learning Hub In place of Denman, which as you know has been sold, the WI are pleased to announce that they have started The Learning Hub. which you can find more information about HERE. The WI Learning Hub will provide WI members with access to a range of online courses, and the majority of them will be free. There will be a small number of specialised courses delivered by external providers that will require a small fee, but these will be kept as low as possible.  FEDERATION NEWS AND ACTIVITIES The link to the main NFWI website is HERE The NFWI Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy is HERE The NFWI Charter can be read HERE The NFWI Code of Conduct can be read HERE CURRENT WI CAMPAIGNS: THINKING DIFFERENTLY SEEKING AWARENESS OF AUTISM AND ADHD IN WOMEN AND GIRLS SEE THE SIGNS CAMPAIGN SEEKS TO RAISE AWARENESS OF THE SUBTLE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF OVARIAN CANCER STOP MODERN SLAVERY THE CAMPAIGN SEEKS TO RAISE AWARENESS OF MODERN SLAVERY IN THE UK OTHER CAMPAIGNS |