It is good to see that Leigh on Mendip WI continues to flourish as we welcomed three new visitors and three return visitors to our February meeting. We enjoyed a lovely evening on the 12 February of education and participation.
We were entertained by Nancy Freeman, a local of our village, who explained some of the history behind the Japanese culture and art of “Sashiko” embroidery which literally means little stabs, a form of decorative reinforcement stitching. You use one running stitch to make the different designs. She also talked about "Boro" - the re-using and repairing of materials - and this possibly originated on the north west coast of Japan. She mentioned a little of the history of the country when from 1635-1860 life was very regimented. Repairing clothes was really important as fabric was expensive and items were passed down the generations. Those fisherman who had money would have their jackets stitched for them. Firemen were jackets constructed of many layers and stitched. They were soaked in water when they went in to fight fires to give them some added protection. These jackets could be beautifully decorated on the inside - which meant they could turn them inside out on their way back from having successfully put out a fire. Because many of the buildings were constructed of wood with thin paper walls fires were very common. Indigo was a very popular colour and each village had their own dyer.
Caroline had already sent out an e-mail and messages to members bringing them up to date with all that is planned. There are various outings in County News – which may be of interest. Please speak to one of the Committee if you wish to join in. We are also planning a couple of local outings of our own in Frome – hoping there will be sufficient interest to go ahead.
Members had individually voted for their favourite Resolution to be taken forward to National – when one will be chosen. The two with the most votes from Leigh on Mendip were
Dental Health Matters (13) and
Impacts of Poor Housing Conditions (14)
Mary gave a brief outline on the WI Learning
Hub - this is a new learning platform for WI members and also other
people. It is mainly free to WI and
there is a good variety of subjects and activities. Some can be viewed later – they are normally
available for about 9 days. Mary
encouraged members to have a look and will send any links if required.
https://learninghub.thewi.org.uk/at-home/
A small group of ladies met for our monthly lunch at The Bell on Wednesday 21 February. It is nice to chat and catch up with all the news in relaxing surroundings. This is in addition to our other sub-groups that meet on a regular basis.
Next month we are looking forward to the return of Neil Clarke with a talk and film on “Iceland:- Gorgeous Scenery, Geysers, Glaciers and Lava Caves”. He previously entertained us with his interesting talk on The Bristol Channel Islands.
We are a friendly group of women of all ages
and welcome visitors and new members. Please do come along to one of our
meetings to see if you would like to join.
We meet on the second Monday evening of the month, in The Memorial Hall
at 7:30pm.
