Most people arrive a little earlier and get a glass of wine or a cup of tea from the bar. The food at the Heathcote is great and some people come straight from work and eat there too.
We open the doors to our meeting from 7:15pm to allow people to choose a seat and mingle. We usually have cakes to sell & raffle tickets to buy for our nominated charity and members will often bring along something for the foodbank we support.
The meeting will open with a welcome from our President, who’ll give an update on WI news, plus anything that’s been sent through from our federation and NFWI.
We then have our main event which will either be a guest speaker or an activity. Past meetings have included talks from local historians, an international women’s day panel of a female fire fighter, a local female councillor and a magistrate telling us about their roles & our nominated charity coming in to tell us what they do and how we can make a difference. There’s always a chance for questions and we often have quite lively debates! Our activities have included soap making, quizzes, music bingo and beeswax food wrap making among many others.
The meeting comes to a close with the drawing of the raffle and a final address from the President after which people are welcome to stay and mingle if they wish.