The BEWI Gardening Club met on Monday and it wasn’t raining!  The weather, of course, has been a much discussed topic and our inability to get out into our gardens.  Vicky, our gardening host, didn’t appear to have stopped working in her garden and it was a delight.  The acer was a stunning red as was the blossoming crabapple tree.  Plants appear to fall over themselves to impress.  The would-be knowledgeable gardeners puzzled over some plants with shield shaped leaves and strangely shaped blooms.  In the end, with the aid of Google, we decided they were Friar’s Cowl plants, that was until we check with local horticultural guru Bob who identified it as Mouse tail or Mouse plant, Latin name Arisarum proboscideum.  The plant thrives in woodland and we’ve all learnt something new.  Leaving Vicky’s vivacious garden we visited Christine’s charming garden with carefully laid our contrasting colourful plants.  Heuchera leaves and hellebores thrived with tulips making a great show.  The greatest fun of the gardening club is the sharing of ideas and helping one another.  Our thanks to Vicky and Christine for a lovely morning.

send her to the Gym”

This was a headline grabbing comment from our speaker in March and Dr Hugh Bethell certainly had our attention during his talk on “exercise, fitness and health”.  Coincidentally, as it is Nutrition and Hydration week (11-17 March 2024) the WI this week worked with England Netball & TheWellHQ to produce  some useful resources and information starting with the question “do you drink enough water throughout the day? ”  BEWI members were given lots of information on Tuesday and, hopefully, members will take heed of the need to exercise and hydrate, after all we all want to live a healthy life.

Next month our speaker is Diana Mitchell, Highclere Castle’s head guide. She leads a team of around thirty enthusiastic guides who help to ensure visitors to the ‘real Downton Abbey’ get the best out of their experience. BEWI are visiting Highclere in the summer.

If you are interested in finding out more about BEWI, come along to a meeting.  Let us know by clicking on the Join Us tab.  I’m off to have glass of water now.

Bransgore Evening WI is part of a Ringwood Group of WIs.  Members of each WI have the opportunity of meeting up a few times each year and that’s a great time to exchange ideas and find out what our sister members are planning.  It was at one of these events that we learnt about Susan’s (Ringwood WI) plan to visit a village in the highland region of Uganda to support the charity NECS.  Nkuringo Education & Community Service works with a primary and secondary school.  The Charity says ” that it takes a village to raise a child, well, thank goodness that we have a fantastic group of hardworking, passionate and dedicated volunteers to help raise our NECS child!”  This has inspired Susan to go and help.  We decided to help her by collecting specific items for women and girls.  Susan has an allowance of 46 kgs of aid and BEWI has helped by donating undies, the sort of thing we take for granted when we pop into M&S.  Susan was delighted with the generous donations from BEWI and we wish her good luck with her trip to Uganda in May.

more info via this link:  NECS

The nine wooden skittles that are ten inches high and shaped like a stunted cigar, with the diameter in the middle being typically 4.5 inches should be easy enough to knock down with balls are made from heavy wood (or rubber or resin).  Well it is always a laugh and some members do have a knack of dispatching the skittles accurately.  BEWI’s evening at The Walkford skittle alley was a success with everyone chatting, eating and having a go.  Thank you to Carol for organising a fun event.

In February, BEWI Camera Club invited Steve Hogan to tell us about his ongoing love and joy of photography. Steve, who lives in Mudeford, only commenced photography 6 years ago when on a cruise. He was rather bored and decided to purchase a small inexpensive camera to take pictures of the trip.  It was the start of a new passion and since retiring, photography has almost become a full-time job.  Steve was happy to share tips on taking photographs and advice on great local locations ideal for taking them.

He suggested we study the weather to see if it is going to be misty, sunny, cloudy red-skies etc. The ‘Clear Sky’s’ app is an excellent one to download and updates every 15 minutes.  Look at other weather apps too, to get a broad idea of the coming conditions. Keep going once you have decided to go out even if the weather changes.  Photography is all about light and even if it is raining you might catch a rainbow.  Wait, Wait, Wait is a good maxim to have with photography, keep looking around. You never know what you might see or happen.   Also always take a change of footwear and clothing  Layers are always a good idea, add a layer to keep warm!  Time will fly by when looking for that special picture, so ensure you take hot/cold drinks as well as a sandwich or two.

Steve showed us some of his stunning photos and said it is not necessary to buy an expensive camera. Mobile phones are a good option to always have on you enabling you to catch the unexpected picture.  He spent time explaining about composition and how to produce higher quality images.

The Camera Club were totally enthralled with Steve’s photographs.  Hopefully we can all remember what to do when we next go out with our cameras.

Members of BEWI camera club met up this week to review photographs taken over the Christmas period.  After just a few technical issues (non of us are IT experts) we were studying photos taken to illustrate ‘Christmas spirit’.  As usual everyone interprets the theme differently and we were treated to photos ranging from a grey Christmas seaside scene highlighted by a couple of brave would be swimmers wearing Santa hats to a  perfectly placed smoking Father Christmas (it’s a decoration with an incense burner) against a black back drop.  We all share our knowledge and, therefore, learn and improve, hopefully, the quality of the pictures we take.  Photos were taken at the meeting showing how to use light and allowing our cameras to adjust to the picture being taken.

The camera club are delighted to invite Steve Hogan, to give presentation covering Nature, Dawn/Dusk, Bird and Animal photography to their next meeting.

At this time of year the WI is  gearing up for its next Annual Meeting and in 2024 WI is returning to its “spiritual home” of The Royal Albert Hall in London.  All members of the WI are able to vote for one of the proposed Resolutions and BEWI will, as they do every year, debate these at the January meeting.  This meeting gives members to time to discuss current issues often with passion and usually all of us learn something new.

The proposed Resolutions are:

1. Dental Health Matters

2. Impact of poor housing conditions

3. Say ‘no’ to gambling advertising

4. Improving Outcomes for Women in the Criminal Justice System

Next steps:

Every member now has the opportunity to cast their individual selection on the resolution they support the most. There can, of course, only be one that passes – so we know these four issues will inspire discussion, debate and passion over the coming months!

“the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  This is what happened at BEWI November meeting.  Unusually, at the last minute,  our speaker sadly could not attend however, this does not stop a gaggle of BEWI members from having a good time.  With  more time than usual to chat, members happily talked to friends and challenged each other to play board games.  One of our members told BEWI that she had recently chatted to a Ringwood Group WI member who is volunteering in Uganda next year.  She hopes to collect items to take out to the community school and we hope to help.  So did we have a fun evening?  The photos show the smiles!