It was a cold, frosty night for the first meeting of 2025 but Elaine, President gave everyone, including our speaker, a very warm welcome. She thanked the Committee for all their hard work in the preparations for the Christmas party and announced that Gillian had already booked the caterer, Ann Tennant, for the 2025 Christmas dinner. Picture below

Thanks were given to all the volunteers who help each month with the teas and confirmed that a £3 refund will be given to the providers of the refreshments.

Elaine said she hoped that everyone had read the details about the four proposed Resolutions in the November/December issue of the WI Life magazine, but she gave a resume of all of them so that voting could take place.

1. Let’s talk about incontinence;

2. Bystanders can be lifesavers;

3. Join the repair revolution;

4. Eliminate landfill of medication packaging.

Comments were invited and Christine spoke about number 4. Voting commenced with 13 voting for number 2 and 7 voting for number 4.

The Village Hall Management Committee had sent a letter inviting our Institute to provide teas again at the Village Fete on 10 May 2025, which was agreed to.

The next Board Games afternoon will be at 2pm on 21st January at Janet Bangay’s home.

Mary Rose gave details of this year’s Investigation & Discovery Day, which is being held from 10am-4pm on 13 March at the Holy Trinity Church, Aylesbury. Jayne had kindly offered to apply for tickets and a board was sent round for people to sign up for it if they wished to attend. The cost of £22 should be transferred to Jayne.

Those standing for the Elections for the National Board of Trustees were discussed by the Committee and the proposal to vote for the two nominations from Buckinghamshire was agreed to by the members.

Our speaker, Mike Payne, returned to talk about “Downton Abbey & the Locations used in Bucks, Berks & Oxon”. He had previously talked about the background of Pinewood Studios.

Mike and his late wife enjoyed the TV series so much that they had watched all 52 episodes 36 times and had visited most of the areas used in the series taking photos on their visits!

We were taken on a tour of all the lovely houses and places that had been used for the filming. It was not only very interesting but intriguing to be given some of the background as to how the various properties were dovetailed together, when the outside of one manor house was filmed but the inside was from an entirely different building and even county, so it was not just the beautiful Highclere Castle and grounds which was used for the filming

The next meeting will be held in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on 13 February when Cally Foster will talk about “A Funny Thing happened on the Way to Retirement”

President, Elaine, warmly welcome everyone including speaker, Cally Foster, on another cold evening.

An invitation from the Village Hall Committee had been received to do the teas again at the Village Fete on 10 May and a form had been put out for volunteers to sign to provide cakes and helping on the day.

The Beechwood Group meeting will be hosted by Wendover in St Anne’s Hall at 7 for 7.30pm on 16 April, cost £5 each with light refreshments. The speaker will be Christine Green talking about “A Life in Stitches”.

The next Board Games Group will now meet at Irene’s home at 2pm on 18 February.

Mary Rose gave details of the correspondence including the available Bursaries.

The BFWI Inter County Quiz being held at Prestwood Village Hall at 7.30 for 8pm on 27 March. An application has been made for a team of 3 people and volunteers should let Mary know if they are interested.

The BFWI Annual Council Meeting will be at 10am–4pm on10 April at Aylesbury Grammar School. A free ticket is available for one delegate and Observer tickets cost £7.

NFWI Weekly Federation weekly emails are available to read on the table. Note that there is a WI Exhibition at Beamish Museum, Co Durham from 8-16 March. Tickets cost £7.25 for members. (There was an article in the February WI Life Magazine about this to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the UK birthplace of the WI on Anglesey.}

The NFWI has set the annual subscription for the year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 at £51 but Avril proposed that Hyde Heath Evening Institute would subsidise that amount by £4 to £47 to be paid in our Institute. Members accepted the proposal. The subscription is apportioned with HHEWI receiving £21.10, BFWI share £12.05 and NFWI share £13.85.

Elaine then introduced Cally Foster whose talk was intriguingly called “A Funny thing happened on the way to Retirement”. Her interest in dance and drama started at school when she performed in various plays.

Competitions of recitations followed eventually leading to her moving to London to train, subsequently acting with well-known actors in theatres.

Cally took a teacher qualification and set up her own drama workshops, became a LAMDA examiner and adjudicator for the British & International Federation of Festivals, travelling around the world. We were entertained by recitations from plays by Shakespeare, poems by Pam Ayres and the moving finale set to music of William Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper.

 Altogether an amusing and entertaining evening with a difference!

The next meeting will be in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on 13 March when Colin Oakes will talk about “Victorian Food & Drink”.