Roll up, roll up, roll up...

The circus is coming to town!

It really is, sort of, because our first guest of 2015 is Nell Gifford.
Nell is the driving force behind the magical Gifford’s Circus and is going to talk to us about how she went from Oxford University English Graduate to Circus supremo. 
She’s written a couple of books on the subject too, they’ll be available for sale on the night, so bring your cheque book or cash so you don’t miss out.  It’s going to be a fabulous evening, behind the scenes tales of circus life - I can’t wait!

Hopefully we’ll see plenty of you next Wednesday, all refreshed after a fun and festive Christmas season and happily settled in to a bright new year.  
 Did lots of you get to Treefest at St Mary Redcliffe church and see our lovely tree, or get to Windmill Hill City Farm Christmas fayre, where we had a successful stall?  There was no meeting in December, but it was still an active month for Malago WI!

Anyway, membership is open now for new members and it’s also renewal time for our existing members.  It’s £36.00 for 2015 membership or we continue to welcome guests at £5 per meeting, if you’re undecided about joining.  Again, cash or cheque is the accepted form of currency on the night!

We’ve still got our lovely Malago WI tea towels for sale, so since you’ll be bringing cash with you, you might as well buy a tea towel too, don’t you think?

It’s very important that we have enough cake to eat next week, of course!  We’ve got a few confirmed, but another 1 or 2 would be great, so please drop us a line here if you can bring along some form of baked goods.

Looking ahead to February, we’ll be holding a raffle of unwanted/surplus/duplicate Christmas pressies , so if you’ve got anything lying around that you know isn’t going to get used (unused, in good condition), bring it along to the January meeting and we’ll hold on to it and co-ordinate the prizes for our February raffle.  The money we raise will go in to our funds so we can continue to bring in exciting and interesting guests throughout the year.

Phew, lots going on, but that's all for now.

Until Wednesday...
MWI x

Christmas is coming...

There, I said it! 
Apologies if you’re in the ‘not before December 1^st’ brigade, but it’ll be a real struggle to bring you up to date without mentioning the ‘C’ word.

First off, October’s meeting was a craft fest of starry proportions with origami, crochet, sewing and salt dough decorations being created for our Christmas tree at the lovely Treefest event at St Mary Redcliffe Church.  
It takes place the week beginning 8^th December and we’ll need a few people to help set up and decorate (and possibly a tree too…details, details)!  Let us know if you’ve got a couple of spare hours on the Monday and want to be involved.

If you’ve continued with your crafty talents and made more decorations at home, please bring them along to our meeting next week.

Speaking of which, we’ll be welcoming back Liz Ferguson next week – she taught us how to make fabulous tissue paper pompoms last time she was with us.  This time she’ll be sharing and demonstrating her gift wrapping ideas, from the budget end through to the more luxurious, with a generous smattering of funny tales from the life of Liz!

We’re still after volunteers to help on our stall at the Windmill Hill City Farm Christmas Fair, on Sunday 14^th December – have you put your name down for an hour or 2 yet?  If not why not?!  Come on, season of goodwill and all that…

Finally, bring along some cash to next week’s meeting, there’ll be opportunities-a-plenty to part with it.
If you’re not already a member of Malago WI, membership is open so why not join us for 2015 – we just need to relieve you of a mere £36.00.

We have received our beautiful, tea towels, designed by the very talented artist and Malago member Emily Ketteringham, so they’ll be on sale for £6.00 each.
Finally, we’re clearing out our cupboard to make way for a new load of goodies, so we’ll be flogging stuff such as glitter, beads, sequins, art pad and anything else we can find!

Any money raised will go back in to making Malago WI as fabulous as we can.

See you on Wednesday,
MWI x

November news...

What a great October Blackout party!
We enjoyed a sociable and relaxed evening of themed food, music and movies. The hall had never looked so good, decked out in fantastic vintage bunting and 1940s memorabilia.
Hats off to all those who entered into the spirit of the occasion and came dressed up in style and huge thanks to the girls from the pop-up parlour who performed their 1940s hair and make-up magic on lots of lucky Malagowers.

We also got down to business with the formalities of the AGM, looking back on another successful year for Malago WI and feeling in good shape as we look ahead to an exciting programme of activities for 2014.
Thanks to our hard-working committee, with special thanks going to Nancy, Shelly, Jacqui and Emma who are taking a well earned break from committee duties and a very warm welcome to new members Lucy Culliford and Suzanne Bech.

We do need more committee members so would you just like to join us in helping to keep Malago WI a thriving, fun group?
Maybe you have a flair for photography or a great idea or contact for a future meeting? Maybe you’re keen to get a spin off WI group off the ground – a crochet club, book group or knitting circle? Whatever your reason, a warm and friendly welcome awaits you, not to mention tea and cake! Just get in touch or speak to one of us at the meeting and we’ll go from there!

Looking ahead to our final meeting of the year on Wednesday 27th November we’ll be getting into a Christmassy mood with a glass of punch and mince pies before Xanthe from Ivory Flowers demonstrates how to make a Christmas floral arrangement.

We’d like you to bring along some flowers and foliage from your own garden (or foraged if you prefer) and maybe you have a container that you think would be great for a flower arrangement but have never quite got round to working out how to make it look good?
Bring it along and Xanthe will create some impromptu displays using some of these and give us tips on how to create a lovely display with often overlooked foliage.

Xanthe will also have some goodies for sale so bring along some cash or your credit card, she’ll be telling us all about her new shop that’s soon to open on North Street too…exciting times!

Don’t forget that membership is open for new members to join for £34.70, existing members will need to renew in January, although if you’d like to do it at November’s meeting – that’s fine with us!

And if that hasn’t got you in a festive mood, don’t forget our December informal Christmas drinks get together, on 11th December from 8pm in the Tobacco Factory.

See you next week,

MWI x