Tea and Tents 2016: Wendy's tale

I am new to SHWI having only joined in December and had been looking for a way to get stuck in and get to know other ladies in our group. Brilliantly I was lucky enough to get my hands on a ticket for Tea and Tents 2016 (they sold out in ten minutes!) Even more brilliant was the number of ladies from SHWI who also got tickets.

Tea and Tents is the most organised chaos I have ever witnessed. On arrival I was assigned my volunteer slot to be a ‘Pixie’ on Sunday evening, every single participant had a volunteer slot, to help their fellow campers be it manning a booking stall for events to litter picking and being the person everyone turned to for help with tents (Sarah W that would be you).

The SHWI camp was set up with military precision, the urn was on the cakes were out and we were all ready for a great weekend. Our first evening was spent around the campfire whilst lots of ladies finished off crocheting their soil by head torch for the yarn bomb. (This was an excellent allotment).

There were so many activities to get involved in; some of our group took part in the more energetic activities of Axe Throwing and Shooting, whilst others participated in crafting activities or led activities themselves. Laura hosted the very popular beer swap on the village green, where as soon as she began more and more ladies turned up with their brews in hand ready to share. Sarah hosted our evening with the stars, we found planets and learned something new about the night sky, and she even arranged a shooting star to finish the session off. There were talks on all sorts of subjects by some inspirational women and lots of opportunities to network and get ideas.

Aside from all the marvellous activities my favourite part of the weekend were the evenings sitting around the campfire talking and listening to each other’s stories and life events, and getting to know everyone. We all dressed up as women of steel one evening and welcomed ladies from other WI groups to join us for a natter around the fire, and s’mores and singing.

What can I say? I thoroughly recommend as a new member of SHWI to get involved in activities outside our monthly meetings as it gives you a better opportunity to connect with people.

Unfortunately Tea and Tents is taking a break next year, maybe we do a mini Tea and Tents just for SHWI ladies? My lasting impression of my weekend away is that I came home with a load of new friends and a happy feeling of sisterhood and a resolution to be brave and try more new things and get to know new people.

Raising money with cake at Eroica Britannia Festival

We've just about recovered from a weekend in Bakewell at Eroica Britannia festival - and what a fab weekend it was! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

It was at the beginning of the year when Eroica invited us to have a stall at the festival. They had seen how successful we had been at events like Sheffield Food Festival and wanted us to bring some WI flavour to Eroica. 

Eroica (not Erotica like some people think!) is a 3-day family lifestyle and cycling festival in the Peak District not far from Sheffield. Now in it's third year, the festival is based on the original L’Eroica (meaning 'the heroes') cycle ride held every year in Gaiole, Tuscany, since 1997. It's a of good old-fashioned cycling before carbon fibre, lycra gear and energy gels.

But it's not just cycling - there's lots of vintage clothing, crafts, music, entertainment, and most importantly for SHWI, food! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Grace and I worked together on organising our stall like previously at Sheffield Food Festival. We try and divide it straight down the line - she deals with our WI volunteers and I sort the logistics and liason with the organisers. 

This time we were camping which provided an extra layer of complexity! But luckily, we had some excellent help all weekend from Charlotte, Brook and Cat who helped Grace and I get fed and stay dry. We had been concentrating so hard on our stall that we forgot essentials like toothpaste, wellies (we arrived to a mud bath on site), and food. 

We were supplied with extra hands bringing fresh cake every day too which meant we got to have a wander round the festival, soak up the atmosphere or go for a much needed kip! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Saturday was our best day and we had a steady stream of customers buying our brownies, flapjack and lemon drizzle cakes. It was great to see so many WI members too from groups around the country! Grace and Lucy had entered the Best in Show cake competition and Lucy came third place. Other competitions included Best Dressed, Best Home Brew, Best Dressed Dog and Best Moustache! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Sunday was the day of the big bike ride and cyclists set off from Bakewell early to ride 30, 55 or 100 miles through the beautiful Peaks. It was a quieter day for us as families and friends were busy watching the ride. However, we still had a good day and loved watching all the bikes arrive at the finish line. 

We're so happy that we raised another £600 for Light Sheffield, our charity of the year who support families affected by perinatal mental health illnesses. 

Photo: Ellie Last

Thank you to everyone who made cake or volunteered, or came to buy some cake from us! And a big thanks to Eroica for inviting us. 

Our next fundraising event will be SunFest - Abbeydale Brewery's beer festival at the Rising Sun, Fulwood Road, Sheffield. 

President's blog: Thoughts on 2015

It’s been another fantastic year for Seven Hills WI. We’re still at maximum capacity for members and we’ve had a brilliant programme to keep us entertained. Personal highlights for me include Cheerleading and Dr Nate Adams. 

Cheerleading in 2015

Fundraising has become such a huge part of our group and I’m happy to say we’ve continued to raise massive amounts of money for our charity of the year, Sayit. Our total this year is £1055.69 so well done to everyone who baked for Sheffield Food Festival or came along to our Centenary event. Next year I would like to organise an extra fundraising event or challenge for our charity so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. 

Sheffield Food Festival 2015

One of my personal goals as President is to make members feel welcome and more included in the group. It can be hard when we have such a large group and when I’m personally very busy trying to get things ready at the start and end of meetings. I think we have got better at making members feel more included. We’ve had more and more newbies get involved, join spin-off groups and even feel like they want to join the committee after one year. I’d like to thank Lucy and Kat for organising a record number of meals out for SHWI Eats. Events like these really help people get to know each other and I think we’ve had much more than the usual faces come to events other than meetings. There is more to do and I hope we can build on this next year. 

Spin-off SHWI eats event at Bhaji Shop

On to the committee. We’ve had a few people stand down this year so I’d like to thank them for their hard work. Caryl Carson, Chella Quint, Leanne Sunter and Carly Sunter - thank you for everything you have done for SHWI and I hope you to see you at meetings in the future.

Our committee for 2016 is:

President - Kirsty Bowen

Secretary - Laura Bainbridge

Treasurer - Vicky Porteous-Medley

Vice President & Programme Co-ordinator - Jennifer Marsden

Assistant Secretary - Grace Tebbutt

Assistant Treasurer - Bex Lissaman

Meeting Attendance Secretary - Jodie Winters

Newsletter Editor - Sam Foster

Programme Co-ordinator - Rachel White

Meeting Co-ordinator - Liz Needes

SHWI Ambassadors - Anna Pilson, Alice Bullas, Sarah Willougby, Karin Safwenberg-Barnes, Chelle Cook

Next year we have a fantastic programme of events - more details to be announced soon!

Finally I’d like to say it’s been an honour to be President in the Centenary year. I’ve been lucky enough to have some fantastic opportunities and represent you in this year including appearing on the Great British Menu. 

BBC/Optomen Television Ltd/Andrew Hayes-Watkin

I will be stepping down at our AM in 2016 and I hope then, I will be able to look back at another successful year where the WI has enriched our lives and helped people where we can. 

The WI has been a force for good and for change for 100 years. I’d like to finish with a saying inspired by our WI friend, Joanne Croxford’s own motto - "Deeds not Words":

‘Fine words butter no parsnips’

I hope to our WI can continue to make positive change for our lives and our wider community in 2016. 

Kirsty Bowen
President

SHWI Getaway III: This Time it's Personal

So once again I have returned from the SHWI Getaway. I am writing my account of the weekend from my sofa, curtains closed on the beautiful sunny day outside, swaddled in my classy brown  dressing gown and jogging bottoms, RuPaul’s Drag Race soothingly providing the background noise, a Square crisp sandwich and a can of Diet Coke on the table in front of me. Basically, this year, rather than trying to recreate the atmosphere of the weekend through words, I am stubbornly refusing to believe that I am not in Currer Laithe and am actually attempting to physically re-enact farm life. I think I’m doing pretty well. I have the comfy clothes, hangover beverage, ‘nutritious’ food sources and a load of beautiful cross-dressers in my eye-line (more of which to come)...

Photo by Seven Hills WI

As usual, Friday night was pot luck buffet night. As usual, there was too much food. And as usual it was fitness personified. I hope you don’t think I’m being a bit blasé in skimping on my description of a SHWI pot luck supper, because as we know, there ain’t no buffet like a SHWI-made buffet (slogan copyright A. Pilson, SHWI Getaway 2 blog post, 2014). However, if I start raving about every dish, I’ll never stop! Suffice to say, we had enough left over for Carolyne and Tebble’s Patented Packed Lunches the next day. So what of the evening’s entertainment? Well, as usual, ice-breaker games took place, as usual they were, er, revelatory and as usual, I will decline to divulge any further information and move swiftly on…

The gang at the Bronte Parsonage

 A rainy Saturday saw us heading back to Haworth and revisiting the Bronte Parsonage for a talk and walk. Despite having visited the Parsonage on our first Getaway, we heard a completely original talk on the Bronte family, thanks to the fantastically knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff member who led our activities. We enjoyed listening to tales of the lives and personalities of each of the Bronte family, as well as discussing our perceptions of the picture sources in the presentation and I personally was chuffed to drool over the Lord Byron pics. He kind of reminds me of a cross between Mr Darcy, Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender...sigh. Anyway, I digress. By the time we had finished our talk, the drizzle had done one and we were able to enjoy a guided walking tour of the village, taking in some of the Brontes’ favourite haunts. These included the spot where Charlotte used to secretly rendez-vous with her future husband Arthur Bell Nicholls, who was initially perceived as undesirably too low-class a match for Charlotte. A little like Charlotte’s most famous heroine, Jane Eyre, and Mr Rochester but in reverse, if you will.

Photo by Ellie Last

 Whilst I would love to continue with my literary musings further, alas I must revert to detailing the weekend. Although, I’d just like to point out that if we accept that Kirsty is SHWI’s own amalgamation of Michael Winner and Jay Rayner due to her take-no-prisoners judging role on the Great British Menu (and swarthy good looks, of course), then through that critique I must SURELY qualify as our own Mark Kermode? What with my retro (i.e. dated) hairdo and dead good knowledge of films and that. DISCLAIMER: I was going to compare myself to one of the world’s premiere literary critics, but, erm, I couldn’t think of one, so I turned to my trusty pal Google. That came up with the name Salvatore Quasimodo and I just couldn’t see ANY similarities between me and that namesake AT ALL. AND NEITHER CAN ANY OF YOU, ALRIGHT? AND YES, I’M AWARE THAT JANE EYRE IS A BOOK BUT THERE HAVE BEEN ABOUT 20 MILLION FILM VERSIONS OF THE VARIOUS BRONTE WORKS, SO I CAN GET AWAY WITH LINKING IT TO CINEMA, OK? Phew, glad we got that straight.

Now where were we? Ah yes, Saturday night… Our fancy dress theme for this year was men. Yeah, you read it correctly, men. I mean, given that this year has been all about celebrating the wonders of sisterhood through the WI centenary, it seemed only right that we acknowledged that men have done some decent stuff too - through the respectful medium of drag, naturally. And who’d have thought given the delicate femininity that exudes from the pores of every SHWI member (moi especially), that we’d make such HOT blokes? We had historical hunks (Thor), geektastic guys (Einstein), movie men (Rambo, Garth Algar and Frank N Furter), literary lads (the Bard himself), AND (tenuous phonics alert) tuneful chaps (The King, Freddie Mercury, Conchita Wurst, Adam Ant), televisual todger-owners - GROAN, jeez Pilson – (including the Hoff, Father Ted Crilly, Marcus Wareing, Michael O’Hare, 118 man, Richard O’Brien) and, OF COURSE, no evening would be complete without a sexy drag mermaid.
 

Photo by Ellie Last

Saturday night proved to be a potentially life-changing experience for me. Firstly I immediately began to question my sexuality when I saw Grace’s ruff (snigger). Honestly, who knew Shakespeare was so damn shexy? (Imagine this said in Sean Connery voice and then the spelling makes sense, honest guv). But it must be stated, I was certainly not the only one to find my hormones pulsing in a most unexpected manner. In fact, it turned out that I, as Marcus Wareing, was responsible for most of the, er, ‘confusion’ felt by some of the ladies. Look, I’ll be blunt – it turns out I am one damn fine specimen of manhood. Who’d have thought during all these years of waging a constant battle against my body hair, that if I’d just let it grow to its hirsute heart’s content I’d have been a STUD? All I can say is I’ve never felt more like myself than when wearing chef whites, having a face-full of stubble and bellowing in my best angry Cockney accent. Sigh…

Grace and Sam the sheep dog - Photo by Ellie Last

 Once again, I’m afraid I cannot reveal any more of the night’s shenanigans, so I shall move onto Sunday (but I’ve got to just say: Holly, Tebble, Corinne - Marcus enjoyed your moves). The order of the day was a lazy morning for some, a trip to Saltaire for others and some serious veg prep for the rest. This toil resulted in a once-again EPIC Sunday roast, with particular props going to the team for the care taken to cater for us veggies, many thanks. This year quite a few people had to depart on
the Sunday evening, leaving a small group of us to enjoy a quiet evening of reflection. By which of course I mean we caned the Singstar for approximately 5 hours. We discovered that most people had fairly decent pipes on them, that Zoe is now probably addicted to karaoke and that pretty much any song can be improved if performed in an angry Cockney or jaunty German accent…

So Monday arrived and due to clock-change confusion, we ended up leaving mega-early. But it’s probably for the best given that every year it gets harder to leave. For serious, man. So once again HUGE thanks to Kirsty and Grace for their organisation skills and thanks to all the ladies (and gents) for their fantastic company. I feel massively privileged to have been lucky enough to attend all 3 Getaways so far and feel that I should probably be magnanimous enough in 2016 to stand back and let others attend. HAAAAAAAA! AS IF! Roll on Getaway 4! Because, to be honest, the fact that I have to be female to attend the SHWI Getaway is pretty much the only thing stopping me hotfooting it to Tijuana to get the op to turn into Marcus full time…

Photo by Laura Bainbridge

By Anna Pilson
Committee Member

Happy 6th birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEVEN HILLS WI!

Wow what a great night! As a relative new comer to SHWI I wasn't sure what to expect from a birthday party for a WI. Would there be party hats and cake, pass the parcel or singing birthday songs to each other?

Birthday cake!

Well, there was definitely cake amongst the vast array of yummy food everyone brought for the pot luck. I spotted a few fancy hats too, including a fascinator made from tights, very WI I must say.

After the usual business, we all formed a very orderly polite queue for the food - then could be seen shovelling in Guinness brownies, stilton bread, onion tartlets and sticky toffee things to name but a few. As we quietly stuffed our faces, we were ushered into a semi-circle ready for the next portion of the night.

Just some of our party food

This was in the form of Dotty Winters, a fabulous women with a penchant for telling fibs and poking fun at herself and others. In her defence, she did admit to the fibs after she'd lured us in so convincingly with her comedy act so I think we can forgive her. To be honest, I think we can forgive anyone who can pull off wearing a cape to do their weekly Tesco shop. This, I hasten to add, was not a fib as she brought it with her to prove it while giving us a warm and funny insight into her life as a female comedian. It was both refreshing and sometimes a little gritty to hear of her experiences as a women in a male dominated world, which is surprising to say in 2015. But her lust for the centre of attention and passion for making others giggle soon had us rolling in the aisles.

Jodie, Chella, Dotty and Jen

All too quickly the night came to an end with huge rounds of applause and leftover food snaffled up, we all went on our ways after a great night, looking forward to what the next 12 months will bring.

Jodie Winters
SHWI Member

President's blog: Being a guest judge on the Great British Menu

It was the day after our former President Lindsay stepped down that I got the call from a researcher about possibly appearing on the Great British Menu. Talk about starting with a bang!

In case you haven't seen the show before, chefs from different regions around the country compete to have one of their dishes at a special banquet. The theme for this year's banquet was the WI's Centenary and the producers of the show were looking for different members to appear as guest judges. Seven Hills WI would represent the so-called 'New Wave' WI - more recently established groups, mostly in cities that tend to have younger members and participate in with less traditional activities. They were looking for a President from a particularly foodie group and we fitted the bill.

To say I was nervous about taking part would be an understatement. To be honest, I had no desire to be on television. But I knew that I couldn't turn down the chance to take part. The role of President requires you to represent the group at a national level and our group deserves to be recognised for the hard work we put into Sheffield Food Festival and our love of all things culinary. Plus Anna P, fan of the show and committee member would actually kill me if I didn't part (a vegetarian herself, she told me that if I got to take anyone to the banquet, she would forego her dislike of meat and try everything).

My role would be to judge the two finalists of the North East region heats. Three chefs from the region had been cooking all week and the top two went through to Friday. On Friday, the judges eat all the dishes and the winner is the one who scores the best. The winner then goes through to finals week.

So after a conversation over the phone with a researcher asking me some questions, a couple of days later said researcher was meeting me in person at my workplace and interviewing me on a camera. Later the next week, I got an email to say they'd love me on the show if I could make the filming dates. I tried to put it all out of my mind until after Christmas. I was told to keep it a secret too - which wasn't too hard as I was so scared about it!

The filming took place on January 30th. I got the train to St Pancras the night before where I was met by a very smart eastern european driver in a suit with an earpiece, leather gloves and a black Mercedes. It was like being in a spy film. He took me to a very nice hotel in Marylebone where I spent the night in a MASSIVE king size bed. Oh the hardship! I had to be really careful not to fill up to much on the breakfast buffet - but it was really not to tuck into all the pastries, fruit, breads, cereals etc. There was even an egg station! At 8am, I had another driver whisk me to the studios in Kentish Town.

I was greeted by the production team who were totally lovely and looked after me all day. They tried to put me at ease and explain the day's filming. The chefs who we were judging were Michelin starred Tim Allen and Leeds-based Michael O'Hare. There was real anticipation in the air about the food and the team told us we were in for a real treat.

After hair and make-up by the brilliant Heather, I was taken to the judging chamber. The chefs were already busy in the kitchen and they would take it in terms to plate up their food in order of starter, fish course, main course and dessert. I was introduced to the judges - Oliver Peyton, Prue Leith and Matthew Fort. All three were really nice and asked me lots about questions about my WI. They had a great sense of humour and a real interest in the food and the chefs.

I ate some fabulous food - highlights included Tim's delicious starter (I can still taste that ham and egg), Michael's fish (like nothing else I'd ever seen) and beautiful main course, and Tim's gorgeous pudding.

Tim's pudding

It's not all glam and gorgeous food though. It was a really long day. You have to wait for each course to be served and there's a lot of shots to set up and repeat. These shots don't take up a lot of screen time but they are essential to show the food presented correctly. It's also important not to scoff the food down quickly. I had to take my time as we'd be talking about the food for a long time and because only certain snippets would be aired, we needed to keep food on the plate as long as possible.

Michael's fish course

After lunch, I was taken into the kitchen to meet the chefs and talk to them on camera. I had to tell them a little bit about myself and how the judging was going - without giving much away! I could tell they were both quite nervous about the result so it was hard to tease them. But they were both such nice guys who clearly enjoyed being in each other's company and the friendly competition between them.

Michael's main course

When it came to announcing the decision, it was quite nerve-racking. We were asked to score them after every dish and then the points were added up. I was given a few lines to say on camera after the result had been announced based on my thoughts and criticism during the judging. The chefs were brought into the room facing the judges desk and we had to stare at each other for what felt like years as the camera set up the shots. Finally, Matthew was able to announce that Michael had won. He had only one chance to get this right or the surprised reactions would be lost. Luckily, this went ok and I then said my line.

Michael's dessert

After filming, I said goodbye to the judges and was whisked away in a car to the station and back to Sheffield. But just before this happened, the Producer asked me "Would you like to come back for finals week?". To be continued!

Ready? Ok! SHWI does Cheerleading

I am sad to say that I haven't made it to many SHWI meetings this year and I was especially gutted to miss Sam Cleasby last month. Yet, I'll also admit that I wasn't totally psyched about cheerleading; it's hard when you're as badly coordinated as I am! But, as usual, I had a brilliant time. And I'm pretty sure everyone else did too.

We started the meeting with the usual updates from Laura.  That really doesn't do the "Bainbridge News n Views show" justice at all as she manages to make the announcements intriguing and enticing and hilarious all at once. We are really lucky to have such an entertaining secretary! Before we began working up a sweat (and I really did, sorry!), we sang Happy Birthday and Jerusalem for Winnie - a lady in Sheffield with few family or friends who is about to turn 100! Happy Birthday Winnie!!

But alas, the time had come for me to flail my gangly arms and legs about out of sync and in the opposite direction to everyone else. It wasn't so bad at first as we did a nice little warm up; a bit of marching on the spot and some arm and neck stretches but then we had to clench and unclench our fingers quickly with arms outstretched - that's a lot more tiring than it sounds! So far so good though - I hadn't whacked anyone else or fallen over and everyone else was ready to start learning our cheer routine, and shaking pom poms.

The routine was set to the classic 90s rave song The Key: The Secret - great choice! We started with some basic footwork - got that. Then we did some arms - got those (forgot the name of the move though). Then we did them together - aaaaand that's when it all went wrong for me! Ha ha ha. But, everyone was having a great time and I didn't care! I was glad when it was our turn to move to the back so that other people could get a good view of the moves though.

We soon added some windmills followed by steps forward with arms and jumps backwards and then some sidesteps with turns and pretend pom pom shaking. It was all broken down into manageable chunks (phew!!) and then we got to practice in small groups with the pom poms!!!!!!!!! We were a little bit excited!

But, it didn't end there. We added some more moves - getting into a line and doing a coordinated arms up and down hands shaky thing and then stepping out on alternate sides before another spin and a snazzy finale of pom pom shaking. Once again, it was time for the pom poms but this time we had to shout "Ready! OK!" before we kicked off. We had to do our routines in three groups but that was great as it meant we all got to watch and cheer each other on (and I got to watch it again to try and remember everything!). I had to concentrate quite hard when it was my turn but I was very lucky to be stood behind the wonderfully coordinated Alice so I followed her lead. Obviously, we all nailed our routines!!!!

We had such fun cheering with Jessica!

By the end of all those moves I had definitely worked up a nice sweat and was very glad for the lovely warm down and a big glass of water.

Goooooooo SHWI!!

Leanne Sunter
Assistant Treasurer

We raised £1024 at Sheffield Food Festival 2015

Anna, Jen, Kirsty, Grace and Chelle help on the stall

We're very happy to say that our stall at this year's Sheffield Food Festival raised an amazing £1024 for our charity of the year. Our members worked really hard to bake some delicious treats and volunteer on the stall all weekend. Committee member Sam made two beautiful rainbow pinata cakes for us to raffle on both days. Thank you to everyone who helped, bought a cake or raffle ticket from us!

All the money we raised will go to SAYiT Sheffield. They provide support for young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) or who are affected by HIV.
 

One of Sam's incredible pinata cakes

SHWI Eats - The Bhaji Shop, Thali Cafe

SHWI member and blogger, Ros Arksey has written about the recent SHWI Eats trip to The Bhaji Shop for her food blog, Nibbly Pig. SHWI Eats is one of our spin-offs that organises trips to local eateries around Sheffield. She's kindly allowed us to post it below....

The Bhaji Shop, thali cafe, was our chosen venue for the March outing of the SHWI Eats group. This was my first visit to the cafe and first outing with the group, as I’m a ‘newbie’ Seven Hills WI member. Yes, it was inevitable that I was going to be drawn to the group which involved food…

Positioned on Chesterfield road, the Bhaji Shop is relatively new, having opened last year. It is run by brother and sister Matthew and Melissa, who between them and the wider Holdsworth family have plenty of culinary experience. (Many of you may be familiar with the famed bhajis from their dad's business ‘Masterchef’ based in Attercliffe).

As the name suggests, the food at ‘Bhaji’ focuses on spice, offering Indian-influenced wraps, curries,  bhajis and samosas - to mention a selection.  As we were taking over en masse (about 30 of us) we were lucky to have the opportunity to try a bit of everything from the menu with a buffet.

We arrived at 6.30 and were greeted by the colourful turquoise exterior and swathes of twinkling fairylights. The style made me think of the film Amélie with it’s warm kooky design and quirkiness. We even had our own special welcome written up on the blackboard.

Once everyone arrived and was seated, there was a real buzz and cosy atmosphere. Every table had a dish of poppodoms, chutney and raita, so we got stuck into those whilst watching the activity in the kitchen. It wasn’t long before Matthew let us know that the food was ready and served, then the queue formed quicker than you could say ‘bhaji’.

Everything was served together, so you could do starters first  and come back up for your main course of curries. Alternatively, depending on your strategy, you could use your time efficiently and pile your plate high with a bit of everything!

There was a real mix of tempting homemade delights to choose from and the aromatic smells were tormenting to those of us near the back of the queue!! There were big bowls of golden crisp bhajis, sweet potato fritters and samosas, plus coriander and plain flatbreads, coleslaw and green salad. Then there were large dishes of more ‘mains-style' meals with prawn Keralan curry, chickpea and sweet potato tagine, chargrilled harissa lamb steak, earthy daal, chunks of crisp paneer and tender marinated chicken skewers and rice. There was a selection of condiments too, I enjoyed the sweet and sour pineapple chutney.

There was plenty of food so there was no danger of anyone leaving hungry. We were well looked after by staff, with water constantly topped up as well as a seamless flow of dishes being brought through from the kitchen. I managed a few trips up to the buffet table so I could try as many of the different dishes as possible, (but I only had a small plate!). I think I managed a bit of everything, I enjoyed it all but my favourites were the king prawn Keralan and the spicy chickpea tagine (which reminded me of chana masala).

It was an enjoyable evening with lovely food, as well as an ideal chance to get to know other foodie-minded WI members too. I definitely plan on returning to the Bhaji Shop - but next time it will be a more sensible portion, as I was still full the next morning!

Having checked out their Facebook page, the menu changes regularly (with daily specials) and you can grab a lunchtime wrap or salad, go for something more substantial with a thali selection with curry or just indulge in a cup of tea and dessert.

The Bhaji Shop

53 Chesterfield Road,

Sheffield S8 0RL

Facebook

We choose SAYiT as our charity of the year

At our February meeting, Seven Hills WI members voted SAYiT as our charity for 2015. A local independent organisation, SAYiT (Sheena Amos Youth Trust) supports young people who are LGBT or who are affected by HIV.

Fundraising events planned include Seven Hills WI’s annual baking stall at Sheffield Food Festival. Last year, we raised £1170 over two days by selling cakes and organising a best in show competition.

Sally Carr, Strategic Manager of SAYiT said “In the on-going quest to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in our society we know that we still have a long way to go, and the support of the WI will help to address this outdated and hurtful prejudice. We will use the money raised to continue our educational and awareness raising work which aims to make society a better place for everybody.”

Kirsty Bowen, President of Seven Hills WI said “I am very pleased that we have chosen SAYiT to be our charity in 2015, the WI’s centenary year. The WI has never shied away from important issues and we hope that we can make a real difference to young people affected in our local area.”

For more information on Seven Hills WI and our fundraising, email us at sevenhillswi@live.co.uk

SHWI does science!

Sadly, our planned speaker for January’s meeting was too ill to come and speak to us. However, the hard-working SHWI committee worked their magic and found all the lovely SHWI ladies someone equally interesting and entertaining! And, whilst I was looking forward to hearing Paul Cocker speak I have to say that as a geeky scientist by background, I was very excited when I heard that Dr Nate Adams was coming to talk to us about the science of colour and that’s why I begged Jen to let me do the blog instead of her!

We kicked off the meeting with the usual WI business; introductions for our new members, dates for the diaries, all the details on the spin off groups and asking ladies to think of a charity to support for the year ahead so that we can vote on this at the next meeting. So, don’t forget to send nominations and a short blub to our email by Wednesday 11th February! We had a quick break to make sure that cakes were eaten, tea was drunk and chatting was had but then it was time to start the main event.

Mary, Vicky and Chella meet Dr Nate

I must confess that I was busy doing lots of paperwork during the break and so when I sat down and was handed a party popper I was a little confused but at the same time glad that I had a front row seat for the science! It was almost like being at the Royal Society Christmas lectures…. A teeny teeny bit anyway!

Dr Nate introduced himself and explained how a post-doctoral research scientist came to be speaking to a room full of women on a Thursday evening. I don’t want to spoil any future talks he might do but since it’s also on his webpage I don’t feel too guilty saying that he failed to get into theatre school, his degree in Chinese didn’t work out so he chose to do Chemistry instead. It’s at this point I should confess that I have a PhD in molecular microbiology but sadly my career path was not at all as interesting and did not lead me to doing CBBC with Dick and Dom!

Dr Nate showed us a little bit of his research in the form of a very complicated equation and a graph that showed the increasing population on Earth, along with UN projections of what could happen in the future. It’s a bit scary to think that by 2050 there could be 9 billion people on the planet! There was a bit of audience participation as we were asked to think about energy sources and how we could possibly provide for that many people in the future and he expertly dealt with our suggestions and came to solar power last, so that he could show us another, much simpler, equation about photosynthesis. Basically, how plants and other organisms use energy form the sun to produce oxygen and sugars. This is what Dr Nate does his day job research on. 

Dr Nate makes fire bubbles

After a short explanation about light, Dr Nate gave us what we’d all been waiting for – demonstrations! It started off quite simple with just lighting a candle but quickly progressed to some really fun stuff with fire – wahoo!! We were strongly warned not to try it at home and Dr Nate was wearing safety goggles when he set fire to his hands using the foam produced after he bubbled gas through washing up liquid. It sounded a bit like Bonfire Night from the gasps and whoops in the audience. He also showed us some lovely red coloured flickering flames from heating a lithium salt; it was a very pretty colour and explained the science behind the colour. But it didn’t just end with the visible spectrum; oh no, we had a bit of UV light in the form of a torch, glow sticks and fluorescent bubbles. And, my particular favourite, he shook a little bit of 100% ethanol up in an empty water cooler bottle and (using a wick), lit it and there was a very quick and loud whoosh and bang!

But how does that have anything to do with his research you say? Good question. Well, Dr Nate works on enzymes, or as he liked to call them ‘nanobots’. And with a little bit of help from a room full of us eating Jacobs crackers without swallowing them (and yes there were several rude comments made at this point!), Dr Nate showed us how the enzyme amylase broke down the stuff in the crackers to make small sugars such as sucrose and how if you chewed for long enough it would taste sweeeeeeet.

Things got a little dicey after this though as Dr Nate walloped our very own Grace over the hand with a big mallet! Grace was quick as a flash and saved our beautiful hands from damage the first time but was sensibly somewhat reluctant to let Dr Nate try again but this time with her hand encased in d3o armour. It’s a non-newtonian fluid, like when you mix water and cornflour and it’s pretty awesome. How this relates to his research I can’t quite recall but it was fun! To be fair to Dr Nate he did also wallop himself too! 

Grace nearly gets hit with a mallet

He didn’t stop there though as it was Laura Bainbridge’s turn to volunteer to be a nanobot in one of Dr Nate’s experiments. There are some pretty funky and sexy science acronyms out there; AFMPFQNM (pronounced: a-fum-puh-fuc-num) isn’t one of them though! So, to demonstrate this to us Laura was a nanobot, waving her glowsticks around and doing her thing, and Dr Nate was firing x-rays at her in the form of light red balls. Sadly, Laura didn’t quite have the mindset of a nanobot initially and didn’t move away from the x-rays (balls being thrown at her!) but she soon cottoned on and we all had a lot of fun watching Laura running around with glow sticks trying not to be hit by balls! 

A bit of audience participation!

But, Dr Nate doesn’t just look at one nanobot (enzyme) at a time; he looks at how they interact with each other so Laura needed a friend and Dr Nate another volunteer. Feeling like this could be the closest I got to science for a while I volunteered to be Laura’s friend and got to hold hands with Laura whilst we both got pelted with red balls. The point being that we were much slower to move out of the way when joined together than on our own.That’s what Dr.Nate’s research is all about really; seeing how all the nanobots (enzymes) work together! Phew, sorry that was a bit long. Dr Nate explained it all a lot better than me and with a lot more fun (and fire!). And, not only is it all fun and interesting but hopefully one day it could be used to make biochips which could make lots of energy for us all in the future.

I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. I just want to say thanks to all the committee ladies once again for working so hard to find a speaker at such short notice and also send Paul Cocker a big ‘get well soon’ from SHWI. See you all for cake decorating in February!!

(Dr) Leanne Sunter
Assistant Treasurer