In the summer of last year, Catherington W.I. celebrated its 60th birthday in fine style including a Diamond Anniversary Party in June where we all donned our glad rags and bling. This was closely followed with an outing to Denman College in Oxfordshire (this College is the hub of the National Federation of Woman’s Institutes) and then in September a Birthday Lunch was held where some of our members dressed up in clothes from the 1954 era.
The W.I. as a whole is celebrating its Centenary this year and part of it has entailed passing a Centenary Baton from each group of W.I. to the next across the country through towns and villages. On a very cold evening in January, Catherington W.I. joined in the fun of the baton change with other members from the Southdown Valley Group in Hambledon Village Hall, the baton having arrived earlier in a vintage fire engine. The evening included a fish & chip supper after which the baton was passed on to the Petersfield WI Group to continue its long journey before arriving at the Albert Hall on June 4th for the National W.I. Conference.
Our speaker at the January meeting was a Mr Eric Birbeck MVO who talked about the history of Haslar Hospital which was founded in the reign of King George 1 and built between 1746 – 1761. Amongst other things that formed part of the history of Haslar was that Haslar played a major part in discovering a cure for scurvy. In 1940 the hospital also set up the country’s first blood bank to treat wounded soldiers from the Second World War.
The subject for our February meeting could not have been more different, Jane-Ann Rogers from Wickham has been breeding angora goats for about 28 years, she explained about the process of shearing, dyeing and spinning the mohair yarn into the softest garments imaginable.
We looked forward to hearing about ‘Life on a Submarine’ in March; and, ‘Mistresses and how they influenced history’ in April and in June we will make a trip to visit Lacock Village in Wiltshire.
In February, Catherington W.I. sadly lost two of our much loved members, Joan Dennett and Betty Lawes. Both in their nineties, they had lived locally for many years and were very much a part of our village life.
We are a friendly group of over 50 Members, we meet every second Wednesday afternoon at 2.15 p.m. at Catherington Village Hall.