The history of Malago WI

Malago WI - the inaugural meeting

Malago Women's Institute began in October 2008. President Karen Bowers and Vice President Lottie Storey met while pregnant and became good friends during their maternity leave. Their antenatal group became a close-knit support group, just one of many similar groups of women in south Bristol and indeed across the land. When it came to return to work, Karen and Lottie wanted to preserve some of this camaraderie which proved so vital during the more testing child-rearing times - a striking parallel with the original aims of the very first WI 111 years previously.

Karen and Lottie decided to form Malago WI to provide a focus for all women in the community to come together each month, learn new skills, meet friends and generally have a jolly time. Joined by eight capable friends who together formed the first committee, Malago WI took off, buoyed by the renewed interest in the WI that was sweeping the country at the time. Since then, Malago WI has programmed exciting and diverse meetings and welcomed 15 speakers, over 200 women, and continues to provide a focal point for all women to meet up each month in south Bristol.

Malago WI hopes the original values we started with still lie at the heart of everything we do. That heart is filled with joy to see there are so many women out there who get as much pleasure from Malago WI as we do.

Malago WI fundraising

In order to fund our monthly meetings, Malago WI has to undertake regular fundraising activities. Previously these have included the Best of Bedminster show, the Southbank Art Trail, the Tobacco Factory Christmas Market and others.

We rely on the generosity of our members, who make cakes and other products to sell, help with logistics/buying/selling/sourcing materials, as well as staffing stalls and making tea. Without this support, we could not take part in these activities, and we regularly request help at meetings for this sort of thing.

If you would like Malago WI's Marmalade Cafe to provide our famed tea and cakes at your event, please get in touch:
wearemalagowi@gmail.com

WI campaigning – a potted history and process

The Women’s Institute has its origins in Canada. Following the avoidable death of her infant due to contaminated milk, Adelaide Hoodless set about campaigning for domestic science to be taught in schools. She addressed a group of farmer’s wives in 1897, who were inspired to form the first WI, mirroring the ‘Farmers Institute’ and including an educational programme.

The organisation grew rapidly and was replicated in Britain from 1915. It was backed by government for the duration of the First World War, with a remit to promote domestic food production. 


Over the years the Women’s Institute (WI) has campaigned on a wide range of issues that matter to women and their communities, including Equal Pay in 1942, Breast Cancer Screening in 1975, Aids in 1986 and the introduction of new legislation EU to reduce the threat of hazardous chemicals in everyday products in 2006. Today our campaigns range from climate change and ending violence against women to the plight of the honey bee.

Every year WI members have the chance to put forward issues or ‘resolutions’ that they would like the national body to campaign on. These resolutions go through a year long debating and consultation process by the membership. Once the resolutions have been short-listed by the membership a select number are chosen for discussion at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in June. If passed, these then become mandates and form the basis of campaigning activities in the years ahead. This process ensures that our campaigns have been through a democratic process involving all members and come from the grassroots of the organisation.

The Public Affairs Department carries out the campaigning, lobbying, policy and research work of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI). The department aims to ‘enable WI members to turn their concerns into campaigns, and thus bring influence to bear on decision-makers and opinion-formers about local, national and international issues.’ We achieve this through the resolution/ mandate process. The department represent the NFWI at a national level with policy-makers, produce supporting notes for resolutions and material and information to raise awareness, enable all members to lobby and campaign, and to take personal action on the mandate.

The national resolutions process is as follows:

June  
Resolution submission form sent to WIs.

September  
Resolution submission deadline.

October  
The ‘long-list’ of resolutions is sifted and reduced to a ‘short-list’ of approximately 10 
resolutions. The sifting is done by a committee made up of federations representatives
(rotated between feds), NFWI officers, members of the Public Affairs committee.

November  
The short-list of resolutions competed with background notes are published for members to 
consider.

January  
Members have the opportunity to vote for their preferred resolution by completing the 
voting slips received through WI Life. These should be handed to rep within their WI, who 
then forwards them to the Federation by 31st January.

April/May  
WIs discuss the final resolution and individual members use their voting slips received via 
WI Life to either support or oppose the resolution becoming a mandate.

June  
The resolution is discussed and voted on at the AGM. WIs are represented.

Federations and individual WIs are also able to campaign as they see fit. They should be selected democratically and approved by the organisation, which is both non-partisan and secular.

If members have a concern that they would like turning into a campaign, either at local, federation or national level, then speak out and let your committee know.

Join us!

Merry Malago Christmas!

Did you eat, drink and be merry? We hope so, we sure did. Funny how all that eating and sitting around and TV-watching can be so tiring.

First things first, please don't forget that there is no December meeting, and the social once planned for Wednesday 29 December will now not be happening. The next date for your diary is Wednesday 26 January, when we will meet at 8pm, usual time, usual place, for candle-lit storytelling with hot drinks and cuddly blankets. Sounds like we're planning for a power failure, doesn't it? It's supposed to be atmospheric and exciting...

It feels like a long time ago now, but we'd like to extend thanks to all those who helped out on our Tobacco Factory Christmas market stall. It was freezing, but we made a few pennies for our coffers and Alice made our stall beautiful as ever. Lots of people picked up our posters and cards, so we're hoping that might translate into oodles of new members.

If you haven't been to a Malago WI meeting before then this is the perfect time to come along, find out what we're about and sign up for a year of thrills, spills and copious quantities of tea and cake (but don't worry if you don't bake, that's not obligatory). For just £30 you (and your friends) can become a member of Bristol's most exciting WI group - membership is already over a third full so don't delay. We're cheaper than the gym!

And so as New Year's Eve rolls around, we look back at an exciting year of MWI - highlights include Jane Brocket and her beautiful quilt extravaganza,  Morph-making with Aardman, Bollywood dancing, our second birthday party and pudding club, and the meetings in which we made do and mended - crochet, present-wrapping, and badge-making. Oh, they were all good actually. And we went hell for leather with our 10:10 commitment but there's still a way to go there - please have a look and see what changes you could make. Talking of our commitment to all things local, community and sustainable, Malago WI backs the Stop Sainsbury's campaign. Please take the time to send your objection to the council to help stop a superstore killing our community - we know it's the third time we've asked you to do this, but we're hoping it'll be three strikes and out this time.

Spread the word, tell your friends, and raise a glass or two to auld acquaintance this Friday eve.

See you in 2011 for a cup of Malago kindness!
MWI x