The Women's Institute (WI) was formed in 1915 to revitalise rural communities and encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Since then the organisation's aims have broadened and the WI is now the largest voluntary women's organisation in the UK. The WI will celebrate its centenary in 2015 and currently has 212,000 members in over 6,300 WIs.
The WI plays a unique role in providing women with educational opportunities and the chance to build new skills, to take part in a wide variety of activities and to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities.
We meet every third Thursday 7.30pm Braughing Village Hall, although we have the reputation of “Jam and Jerusalem” we have very interesting speakers, demonstrations. Craft evenings, walks, outings to interesting places and meals at local venues. We fund raise for charity’s, our murder mystery evening raised over £1000.00 for air ambulance and our fashion show raised money for three other charities.
In January we go to the Pantomime at Gordon Craig Theatre, during August we have a tea afternoon, in October we organize a soup lunch open to everyone, and in December we have our Christmas Party.
Every Monday afternoon some of the ladies meet for crafts, we have made two patchwork double quilts for Braughing Sunday Teas raffle, small quilts for premature babies at The Lister Hospital which go home with them and fun things for ourselves.
Spring and Autumn group and council meetings have had very good speakers including, Margaret Threader ex Vernon Girl, Matt Baker, John Craven, Adam Henson and Michael Portillo.
This year being the centenary of the National Federation all institutes had the opportunity to see the Annual General Meeting screened at cinemas around the country direct from The Royal Albert Hall, every institute was represented at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party and Braughing had its own celebration with a Ploughman’s Supper to which other institutes were invited.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members. Please click here >>> for more information.
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