Danny Bryden and The Great SHWI Bake Off

Anna adds another GBBO star
to her photo collection!

Laura Bainbridge's 
chocolate and cherry cake

April’s meeting was the first time since we moved to Electric Works that the Helter Skelter sat unused and forlorn. After all, who needs slides when you have over 20 different cakes?!

This month’s meeting saw Great British Bake Off 2012 semi-finalist, the wonderful Danny Bryden, come to speak to the group. And with a baking expert at hand, it seemed appropriate to host our own SHWI Bake Off with Danny as judge. As I am already a great friend of the Great British Bake Off Stars (see April 9th’s blog post!) I was obviously very blasé and nonchalant about this particular SHWI Meeting. Er, yeah RIGHT! I had been dreaming about this meeting for months and excitement had reached fever pitch over the few days prior to it when we started getting hints dropped by SHWI members about their impending cake creations. There were two categories to enter – upside down cakes or flourless. And yet again, SHWI ladies showed their fantastic imaginations and mad skillz in the kitchen. The entries were as follows:

Upside Down Cakes

Pina Colada Sandwich Cake
Pear and Walnut
Orange and Lemon
Pineapple, Lime and Chilli
Cherry and Almond
Banana
Pear and Nutmeg
Salted Caramel, Apple and Pecan
Rhubarb and Ginger
Pear and Chocolate
Apple and Cinnamon
Pear and Pistachio

Flourless Cakes

Rose and Raspberry mini loaves
Cherry Bakewell
Lime and Passionfruit Drizzle
Raspberry and Chocolate
Fig, Pecan and Maple Syrup
Lemon Polenta
Vanilla and Strawberry Rainbow Battenburg
Carrot Cake
Hazelnut and Praline
Clementine and Almond
Cherry and Chocolate Brownie Cake

Louise Worn's amazing
rice flour rainbow Battenburg

Drool, cakey goodness… Sorry, back to business! Committee member Grace had done a wonderful job of organising the 23 entries into their relevant categories and walking round the corner to be faced with the display was quite frankly like walking into utopia – SHWI has some very talented members. The table was laden with beautifully presented cakes of all flavours and types (more of which to follow). Danny was to judge them based on three criteria – appearance, texture and taste. With my mind already boggled by the amazing array of baked delights, I decided to channel my inner April O’Neil (the journalist from the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, non-80s kids) and make notes about all the cakes on display so I could remember them all and note some of Danny’s comments. I wish I had the time, space and superlatives to describe in detail every cake, but actually I think I’ll let the accompanying photos do the talking. Danny’s first job was to judge on appearance so that Grace could slice up the cakes for the taste and texture judging (and also to feed the hungry hordes come break time). I can exclusively reveal (get me!) that she gave a special mention in terms of appearance to Sam Cleasby’s Pear and Walnut upside down cake – she loved the rustic presentation and thought the glazed pear decoration was a fantastic touch.

Danny's next job was to judge taste and texture. She approached this with slight trepidation as 23 slices of cake is a lot in anyone’s book. However, it says something for the quality of entries that she told us she enjoyed every single bite! She was bowled over by the brilliant concepts and beautiful presentation, but as the cliché goes, the proof of the pudding (or cake) is in the eating. She thought the Clementine and Almond cake was beautifully citrusy, the Cherry and Almond had very clean and distinct flavours and she loved the gorgeous home-made marmalade on the Orange and Lemon Cake, these are just a few of the many, many positive comments she made. 

As you can probably guess, the judging was EXTREMELY tight and faced with the prospect of ties, Danny asked myself and Grace to give her a second and third opinion on the taste of her favourite few. It’s a hard life. It just so happened that we were unanimous in our opinions and so after an hour of cake scoffing, the judging was over…

SHWI members enjoying cake!

The next part of the meeting was Danny’s talk and what a captivating talk it was! It was her first time speaking to a WI group and she had planned her speech around the assumption we’d want to know about her Bake Off experience and baking in general – she certainly knew her audience! Firstly she explained how entering the competition had been, in her words, ‘a bet that got out of hand’! She had first developed an interest in cooking at school thanks to her inspirational Home Economics teacher (and of course Delia) and also due to the fact that she wanted to be able to eat things she liked and nobody else in her family was particularly interested in cooking. She has always cooked and baked, especially at Christmas, and was renowned for her skills amongst her family, although she stressed it was not something she did avidly. Danny is not much of a TV watcher herself but her sister is a cookery show fan but not much of a cook herself (something I can definitely relate to). She and her husband encouraged Danny to enter GBBO because they felt it was the most suitable show for her, as she is a vegetarian and shows like Masterchef generally involve a lot of meat and fish cookery.

Upon submitting the LONG application form, Danny was selected to progress to the next stage of a lengthy application process. She had many phone interviews, spot tests on baking, screen tests, techinical challenges and more! Danny says she felt confident about these tests and attributes this to her job as an Intensive Care Consultant, where her medical training conditioned to jump professional hurdles and look for the next. Perhaps it was this attitude (as well as her amazing food!) that got her into the final 12.

Danny then let us into a few secrets behind the filming of the series which we couldn't possibly tell! 

Danny and SHWI

However we can tell you that TV isn’t all glamour and fun. The 6am starts and long hours left the contestants feeling exhausted and Danny admitted that she was happy to get to the semi-final as it had given those who had invested time in supporting her so much pleasure to see her progress, but that personally she was more than ready to go. 

All the contestants got on really well and many keep in touch still – Danny recently had lunch with Brendan and is working with James on a medical article about comparing medical feedback with the feedback you get on TV. SHWI Vice-President Jen was also able to pass on a message to Danny from fellow contestant Cathryn who told us to say hello to Danny after we met her at Manchester’s Cake and Bake Show recently! Danny said that although she doesn’t intend to pursue baking as a profession she has gained a huge recipe library and has infinitely developed her baking skills so that she has the confidence to tackle difficult recipes with gusto and was proud to be able to bake her Mum’s 90th birthday cake recently.

After her amazing talk, Danny proved again what an all-round inspirational lady she is by promoting a charity close to her heart, the Sheffield Hospitals Charity's new initiative, Charity Chef. This encourages charity supporters to host a dinner party and ask their guests to make a donation to the Charity in return for their food. For more information on how you can get involved with Charity Chef go here. 

The final act of the night was announcing the winners of the Bake Off. And (drum roll....) the prize winners in both categories were as follows:

Upside-Down Cakes:

1st Blanche Spataro’s Cherry and Almond cake

2nd Sam Cleasby’s Pear and Walnut cake

3rd Jen Marsden’s Pina Colada cake








Flourless Cakes:

1st Caryl Carson’s Carrot Cake

2nd Samantha Duffy’s Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

3rd Amy Grange’s Hazelnut and Praline Cake


Well done ladies! Although all entrants should be very proud as it was a VERY tough decision! The prize winners were presented with rosettes to mark their accomplishments. A fitting end to a fabulous night! And, of course, the icing on the cake (boom boom) for me was adding a picture with Danny to my burgeoning collection of GBBO contestant photos!


Finally – SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT! If this blog post has whet your appetite, why not come to the next SHWI Dining Club event on Friday 24 May at the Showroom cinema?! 

Notice that I used the word ‘event’ rather than meal – because we are having a TUDOR BANQUET! A bespoke menu has been created for us and in the words of the Tudors themselves, you’d be a massive fopdoodle to miss it! Look here for more details.

Anna Pilson

SHWI Committee 

Photos by Laura Bainbridge

Cake and Bake Show and a little bit of modelling...

A sneaky peek of one of our calendar pics...(photo by Laura Bainbridge)

On Saturday 6 April, some of our members had a busy day visiting the Cake and Bake Show in Manchester before hot-footing it back to the seven hills for our second SHWI photo shoot for our 2014 calendar. 

The Cake and Bake Show is one massive event over three days with talks, masterclasses and workshops from some of the biggest names in the baking industry, as well as featuring a whole host of companies giving demonstrations and samples of their baking goods and wares. 

Laura and a Fabulous Baker Brother

SHWI members Laura Bainbridge, Anna Pilson, Di Coupe, Jen Marsden and myself booked some half-price tickets, unsure what to expect. Would we get sufficient samples? Could we meet any Great British Bake Off contestants? Would we get Laura get a cuddle of a Fabulous Baker Brother?

The answer was yes. On entering the venue, we paid £5 for the Cake and Bake Show goody bag with an event programme, free copy of the Telegraph, vouchers, Green and Black's White Cooking Chocolate and some Silver Spoon cake decorations. 

Most stalls had some good tasters, from chunks of focaccia to dip in balsamic vinegar to homemade fudge. Stalls like the Lakeland section sold all the essentials (and more) for the potential baker and companies like Dr Oetker handed out even more goodie bags. Other stalls had some very interesting cake toppers (naked baby iced figure, anyone?).

Di and Edd

But some of us had our eyes on the celebs. The name at the show who drew the biggest crowds was Eric Lanlard but I confess that I'm not that aware of his programme or previous books. 

We'd missed Mr Paul Hollywood who had been there in person on the Friday but there was still plenty of GBBO contestants to spot. I'd spied Ruth Clemens (series one) entering the VIP area, Holly Bell (series two) handing out leaflets for Sainsbury's and Laura and Di spotted series one winner Edd Kimber.

One of the most popular events of the day was the Bake Off featuring previous GBBO contestants. We were there on the front row (well, sat on the floor in front of the front row) to watch John Waite (series three winner) and Natasha (series three) team up with a volunteer from the audience to make tweels. I was first with my hand up and a question for John, asking him what he's been up to since winning the show. As soon as the Bake Off finished, Jen and Anna rushed to meet James Morton (series three hottie) and Catherine Dresser. 

Jen (left) and Anna (right) with
GBBO's Catherine and James

Laura and I watched a soda bread demo by Fabulous Baker Brother, Tom Herbert, who MADE HIS OWN BUTTER. And we got to try it. 

Tom also got a picture with everyone who watched and tweeted it to his followers...and we got in on the pic!

Anna also managed to meet the fabulous Brendan Lynch outside the venue who was happy to pose for a photo and grab her arm. 

After nabbing all our freebies, we enjoyed lunch and a few beverages (ahem) in Manchester before heading back to Sheffield on the train. 

Brendan and Anna

We met more SHWI lovelies at the Showroom cinema before decamping to our first shoot location of the night: The Leadmill. The idea was to have everyone dressed to the nines and in the queue for the club. After a few variations, we got some great shots.

Next up was the 'Cutting Edge' at Sheffield station (random fact: our President Lindsay's Dad installed this sculpture!). 

I won't give the game away but the setup involved sparklers which were a devil to syncronise. After a few gos (and a crazy drunk guy harrassing us for a while) we got the shot before we got pneumonia. 

The results are amazing and I can't wait to see the finished calendar! All that modelling meant that we deserved a few drinks at the Sheffield Tap.

Kirsty Bowen
SHWI Events and Programme Officer

SHWI gets crafty

Our March meeting saw our first craft session of the year and we welcomed Yvonne of Make and Made to lead us in making a jam jar pincushion. (Make and Made is a new shop on Leopold Street - check it out!).

It was a busy one with over 80 members and guests rocking up to Electric Works, mini jam jar in hand, to learn how to turn it into a pretty pincushion. We also had a photographer from Prima magazine visiting us to take photos to go with a feature they are doing on the WI in June - exciting!

Yvonne brought lots of lovely material and ribbons for us to choose from and our members set about sewing the mini cushion together, stuffing it, sticking it to the lid of their jam jar and decorating. It was quite a simple project to do, but really effective, and everyone did a great job of making something lovely!

It was a fun meeting and it was lovely to see lots of new guests attending. 

See you next month when we will be visited by Danny Bryden, semi-finalist from the last series of the Great British Bake Off! 

Remember, if you want to take part in our SHWI Bake Off (which Danny will be judging), you need to register via email by 17 April. Details of the categories can be found here. 

See you soon,

Lindsay
President, SHWI

(Photos by Laura Bainbridge)

SHWI does International Women's Day

The SHWI Cosmo..made with jam, of course!

International Women’s Day is celebrated on the 8 March and to get involved, Seven Hills WI decided to hold an IWD event a week later on 15 March, at our home in Electric Works!

Now, I like to think that every monthly meeting we have is a little celebration of womanhood but the IWD event was open to EVERYBODY (even men!) allowing both members and non-members to see what SHWI was about and support some good causes in the process.

Grace and Hugh at Blousey's Bar

There were various stalls for people to peruse, one providing info on SHWI and the NFWI, a table of fabulous raffle prizes generously donated by various local businesses (there's more on that later) and another stand set up for Oxfam to show how they support women and raise some money.

SHWI committee member Grace brought along her boyfriend Hugh and their new business venture Blousey’s Bar along to treat the attendees to some scrumptious cocktails: a super gin-tastic Tom Collins and the fabulous, not to mention incredibly popular, SHWI Cosmo! (which was invented by Hugh for a SHWI meeting a couple of years ago). Of course, in the interests of fairness, I had to try both - and both were deliciously lethal. The drinks seemed to go down very well with everyone - which is a good job, since 10% of the money made went to Oxfam.

Another SHWI member (and past speaker) to 'set up shop' was Chella Quint with her 1913 Exhibition - celebrating 100 years since her grandmother was born. A timeline of personal and international events from a century ago was pinned up for people to check out - along with a piece on the zip! Invented in 1913 - the zipper is perhaps something we take for granted. Chella encourages people to count their zips and plot them on a board to see if there is pattern between age and number of zips worn. I prefer an elasticated waistband myself - it helps with all the cake and cocktail intake...

Speaking of cake - it wouldn't be a true SHWI event if we weren't flogging baked goods for charity! This time round, our friends at Oxfam benefited from money made selling homemade treats such as mini strawberry daiquiri cupcakes, chocolate chip muffins and slices of fruit cake.

As a WI - it’s all about supporting local charities that benefit women, which is why the proceeds from our ticket sales went to SWWOP - the Sheffield Working Women’s Opportunities Project which supports women involved in street prostitution. Perhaps some may think a slightly controversial choice of cause to support, but as we would soon find out, the WI has a history of radical choices when it comes to resolutions and causes they help.

Donna, Blanche, Lindsay and Kim with Jane Robinson (centre)

The main event at our do was the lovely Jane Robinson - social historian and author of several books relating to women and their battles with equality. She came to give a talk on two of previous books and arguably the book that held most interest for us SHWI members was 'A Force to Be Reckoned With - a History of the Women‘s Institute'. A lot of members have already read it and it featured in our Book Club a couple of months ago. I won a copy of this book on a SHWI raffle, and at first I wasn't that fussed about reading it, but when I actually bothered to pick it up - I found I couldn’t put it down. Never has a book affected me so emotionally - tears pricking my eyes as I learnt how much the WI had done during both World Wars, anger rising as read about the struggles the founding members had fought past and the warm glow that followed when I realised that I was part of something much bigger than our local Sheffield group. 

But Jane wasn't here to only acknowledge the WI - she also spoke of that book’s predecessor 'Bluestockings', a history of women’s fight for education. Her talk was illustrated by some great slides, and, as the group Photographer, it was fascinating to see pictures of WI ladies larking about in cornfields, or dressed up as Toby Jugs, and serious looking University students posing for class photos. 

Guests mingling in the club area at
our fab venue, Electric Works

I can’t have been the only one moved by Jane’s speech - a lot of women in that room will have benefited from a university education and some of those women will be members of the WI, both 'old' and new. It’s thought-provoking to find out what the women of yesterday went through to give the women of today the freedom to choose.

All-in-all, the night was a huge success! But we couldn't let Jane leave without a quick hurtle down the helter skelter and I was only too happy to take her - it’s becoming a bit of habit, me taking speakers down the slide!

Laura

SHWI Committee

(Photos by Laura Bainbridge)

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Message from Lindsay, SHWI President

We raised a fantastic £400 for SWWOP through our event and we'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who made that possible: Jane Robinson, Electric Works, Blousey's Bar, Chella Quint, everyone who bought a ticket and the SHWI Committee members who worked on the night: Kim Whelan, Jen Marsden, Katie Mountain, Anna Pilson, Anna Tebble, Vicky Porteous, Leanne Sunter, Blanche Spataro, Grace Tebbutt, Donna Yeates, Kirsty Bowen, Vickie Riley and Laura Bainbridge. 

While we're dishing out the thank yous, we can't forget all those lovely companies who donated raffle prizes. Here's a list of the prizes (pretty good eh?) and those brilliant people who gave them to us...

·       Beautiful flowers from Campbell’s Flowers (www.campbellsflowers.co.uk)

·       A chocolate chip cookie mix jar from Heather’s Cookies (auntieheathershomemade.wordpress.com)

·       Two sets of Our Tiny Bees British honey beauty products (www.ourtinybees.co.uk)

·       Afternoon tea for two at Martha Heritage, Millhouses (www.facebook.com/MarthaHeritageUK)

·       Two cinema tickets for the Showroom (www.showroomworkstation.org.uk)

·       A sewing class courtesy of Robyn’s Nest (www.robynsnestuk.co.uk)

·       Four tickets to see Bromheads at the Leadmill on 25 April (www.leadmill.co.uk)

·       A £20 voucher to buy a fascinator, hat or hair accessories from Imogen’s Imagination (www.imogensimagination.co.uk)

·       A voucher for a cut and finish from Boudoir Hair, Ranmoor (www.boudoirhair.com)

·       A voucher for Cocoa Wonderland on Ecclesall Road (www.cocoawonderland.co.uk)

·       Two signed books by Sunday Times bestselling author Milly Johnson (www.millyjohnson.co.uk)

·       A voucher for a meal for two at the Red Deer, Pitt Street, S1 (www.red-deer-sheffield.co.uk)

·       A cake from Tipple Tails (www.reallygreatfruitcake.co.uk)

From Arctic Monkeys to Seven Hills WI...

Committee members Anna, Sarah, Lindsay and Katie with Timm (and an NME Award)

February’s meeting was my first in the Electric Works and my second as a fully paid up member of the WI. So, after unpacking my short bread biscuits and leaving them with some very delicious mojito mini cupcakes I went to explore the new home of SHWI and was surprised with the building. I won’t bore you with the details again as Laura did a great job of describing the Electric Works in January’s blog, however I feel the need to say HELTER SKELTER!

We were very lucky this month and did not only have the planned speaker, but we also had Jo Davison from the Star newspaper. She talked to us about a new women’s supplement that she is working on and how she would like us to be involved. Many SHWI ladies gave Jo their details so they can get involved in doing things like baking features, beauty and “the last five things I bought” (I couldn’t do that, I have to sneak many of my purchases home and then if anyone asks claim I have had it for ages...!).

Some of Timm's photos..spot a famous album cover?

This month's speaker was Timm Cleasby and he spent time talking about his life as Tour Manager for Sheffield's own Arctic Monkeys, who he worked with for five years and saw rise to huge fame. Timm's career so far has also included DJing at the Leadmill (where he met his wife whilst hanging out of the DJ box!), going on tour with Bon Jovi and the Darkness, and now being the festival director for Tramlines, managing Sheffield band Dead Sons, and running a successful photography business (www.thepicturefoundry.com)...busy guy!

A recurring theme throughout Timm’s story was how he set himself goals, reached each one, and the rollercoaster that journey was. Throughout his speech there was a reel of photos which were taken by Timm during his many adventures and the saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words' was definitely true of those that Timm shared with us.

February’s meeting also gave us a chance to vote on the charity we will support in 2013. Our President, Lindsay, gave an honest, moving explanation about the charity that she had nominated and the reasons why (the Parents' Association of Children with Tumours and Leukaemia - PACT- because her three year old niece has been battling cancer since last summer). I did well up towards the end of this, and so did many others, and I'm pleased to say that PACT won after the voting was completed during the break.

Jo Davison talks to us

Also during the break some of the committee members had their pictures taken for this blog and it would seem that there are some potential models on the committee (I won’t go into detail about what kind of model).

Finally, if anyone hasn’t bought their SHWI Women’s Day event ticket, there are still some left. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate women, drink cocktails and meet Jane Robinson? These are selling quickly, so get yours now!

Janine, SHWI member

You are invited to our International Women's Day event!

Exciting news...to mark this year's International Women's Day we're holding a one-off extra special charity event at Electric Works on Friday 15 March.

Author Jane Robinson, who wrote A Force to be Reckoned With: The History of the WI as well as lots of other female-focused books, will be coming up from Oxford to talk to us about the remarkable story of the first women to fight for an education, as well as a bit of WI history! You can see more about Jane here.

There will also be charity stalls, information from Chella Quint's 1913 exhibition and a chance to find out more about Seven Hills WI and other WIs in the area.

Since the event is held at the start of a weekend it seems fitting that our friends and Hugh will be bringing their cocktail bar, Blousey's Bar, along, and there will also be tea and coffee available if cocktails aren't your thing.

Tickets for this one-off event are just £3 per person (plus 83p Eventbrite fee)  and anyone (male and female, WI and non-WI) is welcome to attend, as long as they are over 18. We do only have 100 spaces though so make sure you snap up your tickets fast as we've had a lot of interest in this event already! Buy tickets here!

All profits from ticket sales will be donated to a local women's charity which we are still to confirm but we'll let you know as soon as we do.

Doors open at 6pm and we'll be starting at 6.30pm sharp. The event is due to finish at 8.30pm.

Hope you can join us!

New year, new venue, new members and a talk from the lovely Paulette

Kim, Vicky, Paulette and Lindsay

After a couple of pints of stout, surrounded by soft falling snow, everything starts to look a bit magical...which is a good job, because I can't have been the only SHWI lady with mixed feelings about our new venue. We'd been at St Matthew's rooms for a few years now, we officially started there! Isn't a church hall exactly where a Women's Institute should be?
But now, walking towards our new, modern, bright venue, it started to feel exciting... I mean, St Matt's doesn't even have disabled access, let alone an indoor slide!

I needn't have worried. The new place, Electric Works, is perfect for us. I arrived to find a rather official - if not a tad excited - looking Miss Mountain on the brightly coloured reception. To my left was THAT helter skelter. It was at this point I went, as my Grandma would have said, "as giddy as a kipper".

Wonder how many other WIs
have a helter skelter in their venue?!

Suddenly, all at once, I had to run around the building and see what's what, say hello to everyone, get my cupcakes out and on display (not a euphemism), see where tea is made, realise I don't really need to make tea anymore (win), take photographs of anything and everything, go to the toilet, put my committee rosette on, greet the guest speaker and find a place to dump my bags whilst I carried on running around annoying everyone. And then I went on the Helter Skelter. 

Yes, yes.. I may be 30 this year, but I could not wait to get my feet in the sack and hurtle down the chute. After mildly bullying everyone else down and taking pictures of their horrified faces, I got to try it myself. Yes it was worth the giddiness - I want to do it EVERY MONTH. 

Finally I sat down, able to admire our new room. This was not the cold conference centre I was expecting. Our beautiful bunting was hanging around us, the new logo was splashed on the walls, the familiar gingham table cloths ready to catch crumbs and spills...it was warm and inviting. But best of all, there was plenty of space for us. It's now possible to walk around the tables with relative ease! Not only did I have an actual chair to sit on (as opposed to the floor) but I had a chair for my bags!

Our first speaker for 2013 was meant to be Toby Foster - but unfortunately he had to cancel last minute. Luckily for us, Mr Foster didn't want to disappoint a large group of ladies and found us a replacement - his BBC Radio Sheffield colleague Paulette Edwards. As an aside...I just think it's worth pointing out how lucky we have been with "replacement" speakers. Not once have I felt that I have missed out on the original. Good work everyone!

The fabulous Electric Works

Paulette was friendly, funny and seemed genuinely surprised that she had ended up on radio, having started her career as a teacher. She spoke of ambitions and dreams, encouraging us to keep an ongoing list of 10 things to do or achieve. Apparently, if we write them down, they are more likely to happen - certainly worth a try? She seems a great lady and up for a good laugh - she was first down the slide, despite her initial fears, was amazed at the edible glitter sprinkled on my cupcakes and was disappointed to learn that SHWI hit full capacity at 125 members at the meeting.

As another aside, not only have we had some fabulous speakers over the years, but some of them must think we're pretty fabulous too - several of our members first came to as speakers!

The evening ended with more helter skelter action and the comforting thought that now we have access to a dishwasher, I won't be spending so much time washing up on the third Thursday of the month.

Finally - I just want to say a massive thank you to the wonderful ladies at Electric Works for making this happen. I apologise in advance for any future helter skelter related nonsense. And, just in case I haven't said it enough...HELTER SKELTER!

Laura
SHWI Committee

Our bunting archive needs YOU!

After we did bunting making back in 2011 (gosh, was it that long ago?), we came up with the idea to chronicle our activities in the form of bunting triangles. What better way to record the shenanigans of a Women’s Institute than with a bunting archive? 

Following this brainwave, our lovely committee made a bunting triangle for each of our meetings in 2012, depicting everything from Bollywood dancing to sexual health. This year, we’ve decided to throw it out there and ask you - our members - if you’d like to add your handiwork to the growing chain. Each meeting, we’ll ask for volunteers to do bunting triangles to represent that month.

Fancy kicking us off with January’s meeting? If so, just let email sevenhillswi@live.co.uk or let us know at this month's meeting. All you need is a small amount of fabric, needle, cotton, decorations and a bit of imagination (all we ask is that you put the date of the meeting on the triangle somewhere). 

Our bunting is made up of isosceles triangles, 10” across the top and 11” down the two sides. Just leave about an extra half an inch at the top for stitching to the bunting tape when we join it to all the others to add your piece of craftwork to our growing history.

But why stop there? Think you'd quite like to have a go for fun? How about a bunting triangle to signify what SHWI means to you? or to depict a particularly enjoyable Supper Club? We’re open to ideas and would love to make this year's bunting archive bigger and better. If you want to have a go, you don’t need to ask. Just bring it along with you to the next WI meeting and pass it to one of the committee (we're the ones wearing the rosettes).

If you need a bit of inspiration to get you going, maybe a glimpse of our triangles so far will give you an idea! Here’s Vicky, our treasurer (above), decorating the Winter Gardens with our bunting for our stall at the Sheffield Food Festival 2012, and some of the triangles our members made at our bunting workshop in 2011 are in the photo on the right.

Jennifer
SHWI Vice President

Willow weaving, 42 new members and farewell St Matt's...

Goodbye St Matt's

One member of Specs and Tits!

Our final meeting of 2012 was a busy one as always! We were delighted to welcome 42 new members to Seven Hills WI, taking us very close to our 2013 member limit of 125.

As has become tradition, I hosted my annual Christmas quiz and the winners (it had to go down to the tie break...it was tense) were the delightfully-named team 'Specs and Tits'. Well done ladies!

We then got to have a go at willow weaving as the lovely Sue taught us how to manipulate the willow and make pretty Christmas decorations with it.

Jollity aside, it was a meeting tinged with sadness as it was our last at St Matthew's Hall, which has been our home since October 2009. As much as we love St Matt's, we have outgrown it, and we are so looking forward to our first meeting in our new home - Electric Works - on Thursday 17 January. It has a helter skelter, what's not to love?!

Eye poking inevitable...

We're looking forward to a new year filled with more SHWI fun, making new friends and learning new things and I'd like to thank all our members for helping to make our group so successful. 

A huge thanks must also go to our wonderful committee who work so hard to make sure things run smoothly - thank you ladies! Here's to 2013!

Lindsay, SHWI President

Photos by Laura Bainbridge

Seven Hills WI visits Denman College

We've all heard lots about the WI's very own residential college in Marcham, near Oxford, and we were intrigued to find out more. So, just before Christmas eight Seven Hills WI members set out on a trip to Marcham to attend a New Wave Weekend - a chance to sample the delights of Denman College and meet women from other WIs across the country. 

In the sewing class with May Martin (centre)

We all had our reservations about what it would actually be like but we are pleased to report that it was wonderful, we loved it! Okay, so it might not seem the cheapest weekend away at first glance, but when you add it up it's really quite good value for money. We got two nights' accommodation, welcome drinks, breakfast, lunch and three course dinners, loads of tea and coffee, the best shortbread we've ever tasted, and three workshops for just over £200 each!

 
The workshops were great, I made a charm bracelet, some Christmas decorations and a door wreath (gave the latter to my mum, she loves it!) and I was impressed with the quality of the tuition. Our sewing class was taught by the fabulous May Martin who will be appearing on TV in March as the Mary Berry-style judge in new programme The Great British Sewing Bee!

We also met some lovely women from other WIs (hello Clare and Becki from Birchgrove WI, India from Gloucester Road WI, Meryl from Old Dalby WI, the ladies from West Ealing WI and our wonderful college host Sally!) and it gave us a great chance to talk about our groups and pick up tips and advice from other branches.

Now we've been to Denman we can see that the charm of it really is the old house and gardens (it's like being in Downton Abbey, seriously!) so the news that the national federation are looking at selling the house and gardens, and just retaining the new part, is really sad. 

There is lots of history to the college which you can find out about here, but basically the house dates back to the 17th century and was the former manor house of Marcham. It was bought by the WI with money raised by each WI branch throughout the country contributing £10 over three years - seems reasonable to me! 

Denman College, named after the first chairwoman of the WI, officially opened in 1948 and has been a big part of many WI members' lives since then. Each of the bedrooms in the main house are decorated by federations so each is unique and just being there really makes you feel that you are part of something.

We would love many, many more of our members to experience Denman College but we feel this experience will be much poorer if the house and gardens are sold. The national federation are currently consulting on the future of the college and we'd urge all WI members to complete the short online survey before 11 January. 

Kim on the beautiful Downton-style landing!

You can also help Denman College by attending courses there. It is open to anyone, not just WI members, and there really is something for everyone, see www.denman.org.uk  for more details or email us at sevenhillswi@live.co.uk if you have any questions (I'll try and help!).

Lindsay
SHWI President

Our 2013 Programme and new logo!

We are delighted with our new logo, we think it's really representative of what Seven Hills WI has evolved into and we love the modern yet retro feel to it!

Our programme for 2013 has also been announced and we think the content is the best yet...hope you agree! 

Our logo and programme were designed for us by Nick Payton (oneton_payton@hotmail.com)