Minutes of the meeting of Winteringham W.I held on Thursday 19 January 2012 at 7.30pm in Winteringham Village Hall

The President welcomed twenty three members and two guests, along with the speaker, Ann Barnes, paying a very welcome second visit.

Apologies were received from twelve members unable to be present.
 
Minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 15 December 2011 were read and agreed to be a true record. They were signed by the president.

Matters Arising/ Presidents reminders
1 Everyone had enjoyed the Christmas meeting.
2 The Annual Dinner at the George Hogg was much enjoyed.
3Jackie Bateman has maintained steady progress and will be allowed home as soon as the care package is in place- possibly in one week's time. 
4 Resolution forms need to be handed to Pam tonight for forwarding to WI House
5 Subs £28 are due tonight - please pay Val Hayton.
6 Members were reminded to send a postcard when out and about- 33 received since April and there is time for lots more before the AGM
7 Mega Mouth - the members were in favour of the purchase of this microphone.
8 Scunthorpe Museum - Gadgets and Gizmos was approved by the members for the outing in June and is to be followed up.
9 Members agreed that a publication should be produced to commemorate the 85th birthday. Its exact form is yet to be decided, but reminiscences very valuable.
10 Members agreed to provide craft items for a display by the Camera Club on Saturday 19 May. Cakes and stewards will also be needed.
11 2012 Programme- the date for the December meeting should be 20th and not 15th.  Sack the proof reader!
12 Further directions for those visiting RAF Scampton were detailed.
13 This year the quiz heats will be at Appleby Village Hall on Tuesday 21 February. Sufficient members volunteered to have two teams.

Correspondence-none

Federation Newsletter
Normanby Hall Walk with Soup Lunch Wednesday 29 February 2012
*Fair Trade Lunch WI House Thursday 1 March 2012
*Humber Bridge Walk for International Women's Day Thursday 8 March 2012
Easter Workshop WI House Saturday 10 March 2012
Beauty and the Beast Lyceum Sheffield Thursday 22 March 2012
Annual Federation Day The House Saturday 31 March 2012
Hearing Dogs Centre Beilby, York Thursday 12 April 2012
Getting to know your Sewing Machine WI House Saturday 14 April 2012
Cleethorpes Walk with Ernie Brown Wednesday 18 April 2012
Water Colours with Lesley Treacher WI House Saturday 21 April 2012

Federation will be holding a Garden party to celebrate the Golden Jubilee.

Finances: C/A £1078.75 Bursary A/C £143.87 Cash and Cheques waiting to be banked £290.00

News Slot There will be a film for children at the Chapel every other Wednesday beginning at 6pm next week.

Christine welcomed Ann Barnes whose subject was Three Plant Heroes.
Ann has been a member of the WI for fifty years since she married at the age of 17.  She made her first visit to Denman for her 18th birthday. She said that her garden had been decimated by the severe weather last winter and so her arrangements would contain greenery and silk flowers rather than the herbs and blooms which she would have preferred to use.
Her first plant hero was Nicholas Culpeper, the herbalist born in 1616 to a wealthy Puritan family who had a deep mistrust of the crown. The tragedy which dogged his life began when his father died a week before he was born. He was a clever child, brought up by his strict grandfather who beat him soundly for studying a book of female anatomy at the age of 13. He went to Cambridge at the age of 16 where he took up drinking and smoking the newly discovered tobacco. His Catholic sweetheart, Judith Rivers was on her way to meet him when her coach was struck by lightning and she was killed. Nicholas' grandfather cut him off and he left college and became apprenticed to a Francis Drake, apothecary. He married Alice Field who brought him a large dowry, enabling him to begin his life's work. Motivated by the suffering of the poor, Culpeper used his knowledge to produce treatment for their ailments and was the first man to be concerned about the lack of care for women in childbirth and attempt to remedy it by training women to care for them. This concern may have been prompted by the fact that his marriage to Alice resulted in eleven pregnancies, only one of which resulted in a child who survived beyond the first eight weeks.  The English Book of Midwifery was one of thirty seven which he wrote. He died at the age of 38 in 1654.

Whilst speaking Ann made a lovely arrangement of greenery and peach coloured flowers in the Tudor style, topped by a bridal token of a dried orange with flowing laces. Next, she introduced us to Joseph Banks, a Lincolnshire man born in 1743, who lived in Revesby Abbey and the Lawns in Lincoln. He set sail with Captain Cook in 1768, paying £31,000 for the privilege of taking part in the seven year expedition.  His barrels of pickled lemons and limes cured the sailors of their scurvy (hence the expression Limeys) and he was the first to collect and identify the Eucalyptus. A cutting from the first tree still survives in the conservatory at the Lawns. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society, founded the Royal Horticultural Society and instigated Kew gardens with its World Seed Bank. Joseph Banks left a legacy to provide fuel for the poor of North Scarle which is still in existence today. A modern arrangement containing 'Dunelmus Plasticus' represented Joseph Banks.

Finally we met Gertrude Jekyll, vividly brought to life by Ann's description of a rather unattractive, eccentric genius who played such a large role in the Art and Craft Movement of the late nineteenth century. Handicapped by poor eyesight which deteriorated to near blindness in later life, she was a friend of Conan Doyle who named one of his characters after her and later met Edwin Lutyens who became a lifelong friend and with whom she collaborated on many architectural and horticultural projects. In the course of her life she designed over four hundred gardens and wrote over nine hundred books. She was amongst the first horticulturalists to introduce the strongly coloured wide herbaceous borders so representative of her work. A wonderful basket of stocks and delphiniums reflected this.

Sadly for us, Ann is to give up flower demonstrating in March but is already bubbling with enthusiasm for her summer project - her need for greenery for demonstrating has dictated the contents of her current garden, but she now plans to re-design the plot incorporating as much colourful flora as possible.
Christine Hammond expressed our thanks to Ann for sharing her heroes with us and for bringing her encyclopaedic knowledge to such a fascinating subject and giving us an entertaining and very enjoyable evening.

The Competition judged by Ann was for a plant pot holder and very well supported.
1st   Janet Campbell      2nd     Donna Goodhand       3rd    Jean Taylor  

Mystery Parcel winners were
Marjorie Smith who chose Ann's floral donation, Faye McNeill, Margaret Johnson, Caroline Carolan and Donna Goodhand


Next Meeting:
Thursday 16 February 2012   at 7.30pm when the subject is 'Take a scrap of Fabric'
Competition: A small item made of fabric
Hostesses and Mystery Parcels: Margaret Kitchen, Fay McNeill and Mary Christoffersen