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

A starry night...

Well, let me start with a big Happy 6^th Birthday to Malago WI!

It’s really been 6 years since this lovely little branch of the WI began to grow – have you been with us since the start?  No?  Well it’s never too late to jump on board.

If you’re not a fully fledged Malago WI members, October is the perfect time to change that.  New membership opens so you can register for 2015 for £36 and you will get the last 2 meetings of 2014 for free, so come, join us, we’ve so much great stuff planned.

Last month the serious topic of personal safety and awareness was delivered in a fun and practical manner by Andras Millward from FAST Defence.   Simple skills to take forward through everyday life, others that we hope we won’t ever have the need to use – Set, knee!

However, on to our October meeting, we’ll be getting crafty once again making a variety of star decorations.

We’ll have several demonstrated star crafts, including origami, crochet and sewing as well as committee made decorations ready to be embellished.  These will go towards our entry in toTreefest and for selling on our stall at the Windmill Hill City Farm Christmas Fair on Sunday 14^th December – more on that next week!

We’d love you to bring along any of your own ideas that fit the star decoration theme if you’d prefer to ‘freestyle’, or maybe you’re a dab hand at a craft that adapts to our theme and you could share with us – contact us if that’s the case!

We have a fairly decent supply of stuff, but it’d be really helpful if you have anything you could bring to use or share such as gel pens, glitter glue, paint pens,  odds and ends of fabric, felt and wool, paper – and if colours are glittery or festive, then so much the better!

Also, please bring a crochet hook if you fancy having a go at crochet stars – we don’t have enough of those to go round.

This is going to be a lovely informal meeting, in which everyone will be able to produce a few star decorations using a variety of techniques, and enjoy a good chat with fellow members and of course enjoy a slice of cake because we’re also celebrating the 6^th birthday of Malago WI!

In addition to all of those goings on, we’ll also be unveiling our first, bespoke, designer Malago WI tea towel – you’ll be able to get your orders in first to beat the rush when they go on sale at the Windmill Hill City Farm Christmas Fair.

Finally, for those that are already Malago WI members and  would like to get a bit more involved, we’d love to have  some more of you  joining our committee - as someone once said, teamwork divides the work and multiplies the success, so who’s up for it?

See you all on Wednesday,

MWI x

September news...

Hello Malagowers!

Thanks to all who came to last month’s meeting with John Wright.  He knew a thing or 2 about mushrooms, but has anyone been brave enough to go mushroom foraging after listening to his stories?
Not me!  I’ll stick to spotting them and taking a photo but I was thoroughly entertained listening to all he had to tell!

Now, September’s meeting is approaching and the nights are drawing in.  We’ll be covering the subject of personal safety and self-defence, with tips and strategies about awareness and boundaries and using assertive body language and verbal strategies to dissuade an attacker.
 Dress in comfortable clothing and be prepared to get involved a bit too.

We’ll also have some news about a new WI choir group, so if you fancy stretching your vocal chords, you’ll want to come along and hear about the plans for this.

Finally, we’ve started to look for local winter or Christmas fairs that Malago WI could get involved with in order to raise both funds and our profile.  We’ve made some enquiries and will hopefully have news by next week, but if you know of an event that you think would benefit from a Malago WI presence, then do let us know,
 
Until Wednesday 24th,
 
MWI x

What's happening in August...?

Hello Malagowers!

Thanks to all who came along to Aldwick Court Farm for our summer outing last month – I think it was a grape success, don’t you agree?! (See what I did there?)

I don’t think they were anticipating selling as much wine as they did to a Women’s Institute group, although we did tell them beforehand , we’re not your regular WI bunch (unintentional grape related pun).

So from wine to mushrooms in one short month, August’s meeting is just over a week away and we’re really looking forward to welcoming John Wright, wild food and foraging expert.  You’ll probably know him best for sharing his knowledge with us and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the River Cottage TV series.

Don’t forget, you can bring along a friend to a meeting too – they’ll just need to pay £5.00 as a guest, which is a bit of a bargain for an evening with a fungi like John Wright.  (Foraging related pun – geddit?!)

Also, bring some cash as John will have copies of his book for sale.

We’re expecting it to be a popular night, so please arrive in good time for an 8pm start or you may find there’s not mushroom left!  (That’s anoth… oh, okay, I’ll get my coat…)

See you on Wednesday 27^th August, don’t be late!

Until then,

MWI x