Plenty, Bounty...Glut

So, before we bid a fond farewell to a well deserved warm and sunny Summer, let's recap on our August meeting with Bracey Interiors.
It proved a lively session with Malagowers sifting through an array of sumptuous fabrics brought in to dazzle and inspire.
Ben Bracey and his team romped through some of their style and design tips and completed projects to an appreciative audience who left the hall buzzing with design ideas and laden with tantalising brochures and catalogues.

Just a few days later, Malago WI were providing cakes to the masses at the International Kite Festival at Ashton Court. The weather was warm and sunny and the cakes were a hit with just about everything selling out by the end of the Sunday.
Thanks so much to everyone who helped out and made this a success, we've boosted our funds by over £650, and hopefully raised our profile too.
 

Now as September lives up to its reputation as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness we look forward to this month’s meeting, entitled Plenty, Bounty…. Glut.
The session will be led by experienced food and cooking tutor and gardener Shannon Smith who is also involved in the Horfield Organic Community Orchard project
 

The full flow of late-summer harvest can feel both a blessing and a curse but Shannon will show us how to enjoy one more courgette, and that there’s more to apples than crumble.
This ‘cook and taste’ session features savoury and sweet foods –as well as recipes that children can help cook.
 

Members are invited to bring samples of seasonal produce – familiar and unusual – from the garden, allotment, or gathered from the wild, for tasting and inspiration.
 

It's gonna be a good 'un, see you there...

MWI x

Summer Summer Summer time...

Well, hello Malagowers
It was lovely to see so many of you at July's meeting.
What a fun and lively session we had with Liz Ferguson giving lovely idea's and tips for creating an eyecatching and appealing stand or stall for an event and sharing her wonderful albums of projects (not least of all her daughters wedding) and regaling us with her plentiful supply of warm and funny anecdotes .. all that and then on to the hands on activity of making tissue paper pompoms.
Weren't they fabulously frou-frou?
So simple and effective, but a real punch of colour - I like them a lot!

At August's meeting Bracey Interiors will be talking to us about interior design, less paper pompoms and more paint palettes I suspect!

I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that we are nearing Kite Festival weekend, it's not too late to offer your services if you haven't already and we'd love to have you with us whether it's helping on the stall over the weekend or bumping up our cake numbers.
The money raised will go towards making your WI even better by keeping up our tradition of interesting, varied and fun speakers so any little contribution you make, really helps your Malago WI.
Drop us a line at wearemalagowi@gmail.com and make us an offer or hopefully we'll see you at Wednesday's meeting and we can talk then.

Until Wednesday...
MWI x

July..

So firstly we must extend a huge thank you to Deb Pearson for the fantastic life drawing class she brought to our June meeting. It was the most enjoyable, inspiring and meditative drawing lesson I’ve ever had and I hope you all feel the same.

Another first for Malago WI, this was an opportunity to try drawing for some, for others a chance to improve their craft, but for all a very calm and peaceful time studying the human form.

 It was great to hear so many positive comments from everyone there when we paused for tea and cake.

Her relaxed air and handy hints meant that everyone at the meeting learnt new skills and came away with a picture or 2 to be proud of and maybe even the inspiration needed to check out some local drawing classes.

Another creative month for July sees us welcoming Liz Ferguson who will be teaching us simple, effective ways to style and dress a party or event. 

This is a hands on session which will have us making some decorations as well as getting lots of tips and advice from Liz that will help us with hosting anything from a small children’s party up to, ooh, I don’t know … having a cake stall at a large, successful event such as The Bristol International Kite Festival!

We hope to see you all there,

MWI

Drawing you in to June...

 

So, how good was May’s meeting?  It really was a huge success and proved a great social occasion as well, a great set up for a good chat with edible treats to boot!

 

Sue Duggan from Teach Me Sugarcraft let us into some of the secrets of decorating cupcakes and under her skilled tuition, within minutes we were all turning out artistic creations everyone could be proud of. A big thank you to Sue and also to our May cake makers.

 

The relaxed format of the session meant we also had a chance to chat and meet one another which has resulted in lots of suggestions for our 2014 programme, but do keep the suggestions coming through all the usual channels as this will take some time to finalise.

June’s meeting will be challenging our skills in the art of life drawing. Deb Pearson has spent her life around art – she is a life drawing model, passionate collector of art and a regular at the RWA Drawing School.

 

Deb will lead our session, starting with tips and advice on life drawing before taking up a series of poses for us. (NB there will be nudity involved!!)

Please can everyone bring a sharpener and rubber and if you have your a favourite sketch book do bring this along too. But don’t worry if you don’t have your own as there will be paper, art pencils and charcoal provided – so avoid pale clothing with all that charcoal and graphite around.

 

As the summer kicks in just a reminder that July’s meeting will be a hands on craft session with Liz Ferguson making all sorts of beautiful decorations for our WI stand at the Bristol International Kite Festival (31 August/1 September).

 

If you can help with our Kite Festival stand in any way, whether it's baking cakes, loaning props or decorations, your time to (wo)man the stand over the event weekend, advice, previous experience, storage space... anything!  Please do let us know, many hands make light work as they say.

 

See you all next week,

 

MWI x

May the sun shine!

 

 

With a spring in their step Malagowers arrived ready for an evening of style tips and image-boosting with Karen Lowe, only to find, instead, local JP Bob Bennett, as Karen had to cancel at the very last minute!

So with a quick switch to our mind set, from clothing and fashion, to crimes of passion (ahem!), the energetic Bob quickly won us over with an insight into the role of a magistrate, followed by a mock crime which, through filmed interviews with the victim and suspect, encouraged us to question our attitudes and perceptions as the case progressed. 

An interesting fact of the evening: Bristol has the highest number of female magistrates in the country, go us!!

Huge thanks to Bob who stepped in at the eleventh hour and we’ll be seeing Karen at our February 2014 meeting.

On to this month’s meeting, Sue Duggan from the wonderful Teach Me Sugar Craft  will be inspiring us with her crafty cake creations.

 She will demonstrate how to decorate our cupcakes before letting us loose on four of our very own to take home…or eat in the break. They may or may not look something like the wonderful picture above - but that's really down to you!

Sue is a font of knowledge when it comes to cake decorating both large and small scale, and will be happy to answer any of your decorating questions or queries, she'll also be bringing some decorating paraphernalia which will be for sale so you may want to bring some extra money with you.

We will provide everything you need to decorate the cakes, but you might want to bring an apron just in case, or our fabulous Malago WI aprons will be on sale for you to purchase on the night for the new, reduced price of £8.00.

For those who took a WI Spring bulbs catalogue at the end of April’s meeting, please make sure you bring your order form and either a cheque for the total amount payable to ‘Malago WI’ or cash, so we can make the order before the beginning of June.

As a committee, we've begun thinking about our programme for 2014 meetings and would love to have some input from our members, so we'll be looking for your suggestions this month. 

We will have an anonymous suggestions box in the hall, and suggestions slips on every table. Malago is your WI and we really value any ideas you have for meetings. If you know anyone who might be willing to run a meeting or maybe you have a skill that you would like to share or a topic area that you'd like to see included, then this is your opportunity to let us know.

Finally, we are looking for new members on the committee, so if you are interested or would like a bit more information about what being on the committee involves, please speak to any of us during May’s meeting and we will be happy to tell you more. We will all be wearing blue name stickers on the night so you can spot us!

 

See you soon,

 

MWI x