Gloucester Road WI

We hope that you are all safe and well. As we all live through these challenging times we felt it was important for our WI to stay connected and sociable so we are now moving our monthly meetings and clubs online until further notice.

For April’s meeting, we will have a general catch up with everyone and find out how you’ve been coping plus we will re-do the planned March meeting, with our local Bristol indoor plant specialists, Fancy Plants. They will be available on the call to answer all your houseplant needs – and now you’ll be able to show them on screen too!

We’d love to see as many of our members as possible online so will send instructions and details of how to get onto the meeting (via Zoom) to members only nearer the time, by email and on our Facebook Group.

Find out more about Fancy Plants here: www.fancy-plants.co.uk/ Instagram: @hellofancy_plants

Photo credit: Photo by Jackie Tsang on Unsplash

With Fancy Plants

We welcome Fancy Plants, our local Bristol indoor plant specialists who are coming along to answer all your houseplant needs.

Please bring along any cuttings you can donate for swapping, and if you have a plant that’s in need of some TLC, either bring it along for to our plant surgery or please take a photo you can show to get some advice.

Find out more about Fancy Plants here: https://www.fancy-plants.co.uk/
Instagram: @hellofancy_plants

Photo credit: Photo by Jackie Tsang on Unsplash

With Beth Calverley from The Poetry Machine

Beth is coming along to facilitate a poetry workshop for us to create a poem together as a whole group and there will also be a chance for some individual poetry writing.

Then Beth will do a talk and performance about how she got into poetry and her journey to set up her poetry enterprise and her community engagement work. During Beth’s session, she will share her journey into being a full-time poet and what she has learned through her community engagement work with people of many different ages and walks of life. She will get your creative muscles working gently with some relaxing, inspiring creative activities. (Please bring a pen and paper).

Beth Calverley is a slam-winning poet, creative coach and founder of The Poetry Machine. She co-creates poems in conversation with community members on a manual typewriter, helping them to express their thoughts and feelings through creativity. The Poetry Machine works with charities, companies, hospitals, universities, schools, heritage sites and festivals nationally. Beth is Poet in Residence at UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, based at South Bristol Community Hospital. Her debut collection will be launched in November 2020.

Find out more about Beth here: www.thepoetrymachine.live
Facebook: ThePoetryMachineUK
Twitter: @BethCalverley
Instagram: @poetrymachine/

Photo credit: Credit Oh Magazine & Amanda Thomas

Membership Signups

Come along to the first meeting of the year to sign-up for 2020 membership. New members and renewals are very welcome. Plus we have a taster session with Friends of the Earth on using your money to take climate action.

Doors open at 7.30pm for 8pm start at St. Andrew’s Bowling Club, Derby Road, Bristol, BS7 9AQ. Membership is £43.00.

Membership will be on a first come first serve basis. Please bring your cheque or cash and your completed membership form.

Further information about membership this year available on our being a member page.

Money for Good workshop with Friends of the Earth

Whether it’s pensions, purchases or investments, studies have shown that women are more likely to want to put their money to work for a fair and healthy planet, but are least served by a jargon-filled financial system that often feels alienating and out of touch.

For our January meeting, we welcome Friends of the Earth for a fun, interactive taster session for ‘Own It’ – a peer support network making it simpler for women to use their money to take climate action. We’ll learn how your financial choices can fight climate change, plus try out some of the tools and techniques they’ve developed for women to build an understanding of their relationship with money and generate ideas for action. We hope you’ll leave feeling empowered to put your money to work towards a climate positive solution and to carry on the conversation with the women in your life.

Photo: Previous workshop.

Merry Christmas everyone and we look forward to seeing you all for the bring a dish Christmas party!

If you weren’t at last month’s meeting and are not sure what to bring please just bring something to share or just come along. Please can all food be labelled if they contain allergens (gluten, nuts etc) and if it’s a shop bought item please cut out the ingredients list and place it next to it.

In a bid to be environmentally friendly (and save on the washing up!) we will not be using disposable plates so can everyone please bring their own plate and cutlery.

We’ll be running our Christmas raffle, which this year goes to our charity,  1625 Independent People. Plus they’ll be some games, a glass of bubbly (or non-alcoholic), and the traditional announcement of next year’s programme.

We welcome Professor Ronald Hutton from Bristol University to talk about Village Magic and Witchcraft. Find out more about his work on his Wikipedia page.

It’s time for the AGM, new committee members are sworn in and we have a review of the past year.

We also have a talk and demo from our local female butcher, Amy from Dave Giles on Gloucester Road.