Fivepenny Farm - Jyoti Fernandes talk

Yes, the time has come around again. What better way to start the academic year than to come along to a talk by Jyoti Fernandes of Fivepenny Farm, The Land Is Ours/ Chapter 7/ The Land magazine, The Peasants Co-operative. Here is a little summary from the Food For Life website about Fivepenny farm:

Fivepenny Farm is a 43 acre low-impact, sustainable smallholding where Jyoti Fernandez and her husband Dai Saltmarsh, with friends Oliver and Kerry Goolden, grow organic fruit and vegetables, and keep a small number of cattle, chickens and pigs. They specialise in growing traditional and heritage varieties of vegetables including many different tomatoes, selling their seasonal produce in Bridport market.
There is also timber-framed, thatched barn with solar and wind power, which provides a local food processing facility for a co-operative of mainly organic farmers and producers. They have an orchard, planted 5 years ago when they bought the land, two small areas of woodland and are restoring wildflower meadows.

Here at the W.I we’re all about sustainability, conserving the environment, learning new and traditional skills, resilience, thrift and women’s craft. Jyoti’s lifestyle fully encompasses those things. I have heard her speak at a conference, and she was really inspiring. I wholly recommend this week’s meeting. Tell your friends, bring them along.

7:30pm, The Town Hall (School Lane, Gillingham), Thursday 1st September

facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265728523445772

see you there!

Cake decorating photos

Cake decorating went well last session. Some of us were better than others.

The expert at work.

My cake (I'm writing Sci Fi, so made a space themed cake)

We all had an excellent time and are now equipped with the skills to make delicious looking cakes for all occasions.

Cake decorating II

Apologies for the lack of posts; I've been pretty busy.

We're continuing our cake decorating stuff on Thursday, so come along and make some of your own very professional decorations.

Check out this cake made by an American cake company I've admired for a while:

And here's the company's website: http://blog.pinkcakebox.com/. It's all very inspiring. I can't guarantee you'll be making stuff to this standard, but you'll be some of the way to learning the craft.

Charlotte introduced me to cake pops when I was over at her place. Look at these bees cake pops! Awesome.

It'd be great to make some of these and sell them at WI stalls.

So get some skills to pay the bills and come on over to Riversmeet this Thursday 5th July at 7:30pm.

June's meet

The image is from this awesome blog I will feature in more depth at some point in the future: http://emmabradshaw.blogspot.com/

Gardening

Alys Fowler's garden

I'm very interested in gardening because I like to eat food and it makes sense to me to grow as much I can. That way I know what's gone into that food, and it gives me a lot of pleasure beyond that of eating it.

I will be writing a few posts about food security because it's something that the WI has always been involved with and I think it's something that should continue. Resilience comes from having independent access to the basic things that we need to survive. Food is one of those things.

But we needn't get too boring about it. Most of us living here in the countryside have access to some land, usually our own gardens. Gardens are wonderful places to sit and relax and feel connected into nature. I love flowers and I don't want to forgo my love of colour in the garden.

I came across Alys Fowler a year ago, and have applied her gardening approach to my own garden and allotment. Here is an article that touches on her style, but I recommend looking at her book The Edible Garden. It's a real inspiration to me and my garden. I look at it often.

If you are interested in gardening, pop over to my blog: http://jump-into-the-void.blogspot.com/ where I often post things about my garden and living in this rural place.

Amazing Women

After that big block of text I thought I'd post a nice easy video.

There will be a regular item on this blog where we will feature amazing women who inspire us, who remind us that in this world of bland conformity there exist passionate, creative, independent women who strive to bring something special to our culture, our world, our lives.

I'm going to start with Bjork. That might seem weird to some people. But I find Bjork so totally amazing. She's a true artist, someone with a fresh and original vision, who is not afraid to experiment and be true to herself.

Get in touch if you want us to feature a woman who has inspired you.

Minutes 5th May

Last meeting was lots of fun. We brainstormed ideas for our programme and now are on our way to having an amazing year of learning, fun and making.

Also, I am now the president! I'm a really shy sort of person, so this is really weird for me. I'm glad that the group is full of amazing friendly and supportive girls, otherwise I'd never be able to do it. Thanks to everyone for your help, support and enthusiasm. Together we will make something amazing, I'm sure!

Here are the minutes, any problems with them, let me know:

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Minutes for 'Nothing Like W.I' meeting of Thursday 5th May 2011 - Held at Riversmeet Leisure centre, Gillingham at 7.30pm.

Our second meeting was held on Thursday 5th May and there were 16 members

and 5 guests present.

The meeting was chaired by Jennifer Newbury and we were informed of Maddie's decision to step down as President due to other commitments.

Jennifer is happy to take over the position and it was put to the group who decided in a unanimous vote that she should be elected as our new president.

We wish her the best of luck and our full support in this demanding role.

This meeting was the first that we tried a raffle, to great success (donations of raffle prizes welcome!) and we charged for drinks, raising a grand total of £30 - this effectively means we got the hire of the centre free so it was worthwhile and easy to do. We will have a volunteer system for baking the delicious refreshments we have become accustomed to - thanks to Denise for her lovely cakes.

Jenny is very keen to keep in touch with the group via e-mail, blogs and Facebook. All members were reminded to give Jenny their e-mail address so they can view the minutes and keep up to date with current news. The issue of room hire was again discussed and we were given a few more suggestions of places which may be cheaper - Bisi was a great help and it seems we may be entitled to reduced rates at the Town Hall as we are a charity - Charlotte to investigate options.

We had a group 'brainstorming' session to finalise our plans for speakers over the next 12 months and we agreed on the following subjects/speakers:

Card making from our very own Teresa - to take place in June

G.A.N.G (Nature group)

Bright Moon Crystals

Bisi on Bees

Threshold Centre

Fanny Charles

Fun and Frugal

Cider making

Terence Cuneo (we are very fortunate to have his daughter in our group so this should be excellent)

Indian Head Massage

Alexandra Pope - womens' cycles (Author of 'The Wild Genie')

Joyce Greenfell Monologues

Jyoti Fernandes- self sufficient smallholding and environment campaigner.

Looks like we have a full calendar of events (they will need to be confirmed) - They have been carefully chosen to be both interesting and not too expensive (frugal!)

We decided we will meet in August - anyone who can't attend can keep up to date by logging onto the blog or via e-mail.

FUND RAISING

There is a Lions Club table top sale on Saturday 18th June - 10am -12pm at the vicarage school room. Many thanks to Jill, Angela and Maria for volunteering to help out - we are going to have a tombola stall with bottles as prizes. Members were asked to donate a bottle, alcoholic or not, at the next meeting.

Other ideas for fund raising included asking Waitrose to allow us to take part in the token system, Bingo, Nearly New Sales and sponsored events. We decide to form a sub-committee for fundraising - Jenny, Bisi, Charlotte, Teresa, Denise and Ann will form this group.

Meeting closed at 9.45pm - committee meeting 26th May and next general meeting 2nd June.

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Thanks Charlotte!

Dorset Wildlife Trust Events

Yesterday's meeting flagged up an interest in the Dorset Wildlife Trust. So here's a list of events happening locally to us Nothing Like WI girls, and below that a list of county-wide lectures. If anyone is interested in going along to any of these, let me know and we can share lifts. For other DWT things going on outside the Gillingham/ Shaftesbury area click here.

Sunday 8 May 2011

Open Wildlife Garden

All are invited to come and enjoy this spectacular wildlife garden, by kind permission of Miss Tina Wright.

Sunday 15 May 2011

10:00 North Dorset Volunteers

Assist with the monthly volunteer tasks at North Dorset reserves.

Sunday 29 May 2011

10:00 Photographic and Video Group Field Trip

Butterflies and Wild Flowers at Fontmell Down

Sunday 12 June 2011

10:00 North Dorset Volunteers - Orchid Identification Day

Join Dorset Wildlife Trust Warden Steve Oliver on a guided walk to discover the orchids of Fontmell Down.

Sunday 17 July 2011

10:00 North Dorset Volunteers

Assist with the monthly volunteer tasks at North Dorset reserves.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show

If you are visiting the show, come and see us at the Dorset Wildlife Trust stand.

and here is a list of lectures/ talks county-wide:

Wednesday 18 May 2011

19:30 Illustrating Britain's Flora

An illustrated talk by Christina Hart-Davies.

Thursday 19 May 2011

19:30 To Bee or not to Bee

An illustrated talk by Paul Mann.

Friday 20 May 2011

10:00 Wet and Wonderful Plants at Higher Hyde Heath Nature Reserve

A walk around wet heath and woodland areas taking in the internationally acclained aquatic biodiversity of these wet habitats.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

19:00 An Introduction to Plants and Their Parasites in Typical New Forset Wet Heathland

Discover the heathland flowering plants, ferns and their allies and the leaf-miners, galls and micro-fungi that live on them.

Minutes of the meeting and a little report will follow in the next few days/ week or so.

Come

What About Me?: Men & Women film

I’m posting this now before I forget. Back in November a friend of mine called Mary linked me to some really interesting videos. They are no longer online, at least for the time being. The videos were short documentaries on different subjects with a distinctively philosophical and musical approach.

One episode was about men and women. All sorts of points were raised, from the hard-core feminist to the absolute chauvinist. One point that I particularly found empathy with was Marianne Williamson’s view that feminism/ current gender ethics has resulted in “a generation of hard women and soft men.” And I agree to an extent. Here is a trailer for that video. For the time being you can’t watch the full video, but if it’s ever back online again I’ll post about it.

Here’s something I wrote a while ago and I still stand by these words:

Boys and girls are different, suited to different things. Feminism seems to have become hypocritical, given that many feminists are almost saying that women should be more aggressive, go-getting, forthright and ambitious. These things are very masculine. There is nothing bad about femininity, femininity is beautiful. I do not want to be masculine, but I grew up thinking that women should be masculine, lest they betray the sisterhood. I see myself as a feminist because I want to celebrate my femininity; I want to celebrate my passivity, my desire for a simple and ordinary life, my joy in domesticity and family. I do not mean that I am meek or submissive, I mean that I think ambition and greed and forthrighteousness is ugly and unsustainable. Life is a balance. A world that becomes too masculine will be a world that destroys itself.

Launch

Welcome to the new Nothing Like WI blog. It’s been two weeks since our launch meeting so it’s about time we shared what went on.

The Town Crier came along to officially announce our beginning. I’ve seen this guy in town before wearing four stripes on his red coat, hollering almost too loud to hear. It was nice to hear him talk at a normal volume about his job and adventures around the world shouting about stuff.

The rest of the meeting was spent brainstorming ideas of what kind of things we’d like to do. We’re still working on it. There’s so much we want to do, it’s just a case of finances and finding the things that most of us are keen to experience. It seems that there’s some talent hiding within the group, so maybe we can learn from each other too. For those who want to read the detailed meeting minutes please click on the picture below. (They’re not signed off yet, so are subject to change).

Things to do between now and the next meeting: ask around about speakers on interesting subjects. If you know someone with something amazing to teach or say then find out if they’d come and speak for less money than they are worth (because we’re not rolling in it yet).

Pop back here between meetings for ideas, recipes and links. This blog will gather together all sorts of interesting things related to gender issues, life, community, culture and more. If you have something you want to feature on the blog then get in contact with me.