This summer Maggie, Jayne and Rosemary presented a basketful of beautifully knitted baby hats and, blankets and a cheque for £200, to help fund a water fountain, to midwife Jenny Logan and the staff of the maternity department of our local hospital, the Whittington.

Having spent many months knitting away, the knitting group as well as other members of our WI have produced over 150 baby hats. As word of our project circulated we found friends and relatives were keen to help as well. So we were given wool and hats and a blanket or two by them. A truly combined effort!

Jenny and her team were so delighted with our knitting expertise that they have commissioned a new project for us. This one is a little more unusual and involves knitting breasts! Jenny tells us that they are a great aid to helping new mums learn techniques of breast feeding. We are delighted with this new project and we have already had a prototype produced by Jayne. So knitting group here we go!!

July saw a classy meeting for The Alexandra WI with Sacred Gin teaching us all there is to know about gin, how to taste it and some of the botanicals used to flavour this tipple.

The session started with a lovely martini, followed a tasting of not only Sacred’s standard gin, but 6 other gins with heavy flavour accents of significant botanicals: juniper, grapefruit, orris root, cardamon, coriander and liquorice. We then got to try our hands at mixing our very own gins to enjoy as a gin and tonic or to take home!

It was a fantastic relaxed meeting, perfect for making friends and enjoying a long summer night. We might just have to arrange to have a welcome cocktail every month!

The year seems to have zipped by and we have already come back round to the yearly event that is the Annual Meeting. We were lucky enough to be able to welcome the ladies from our new Federation, Middlesex, who came to act as WI Advisors for the evening and oversee the election of the Committee and the President.

The round up of all this year’s activities from Maggie, our Secretary, went to show what an exciting and varied year we have had and highligted how much progress we have made in the last 12 months. Not only have we had some fanstastic meetings but we have also reached outside of our membership quite a lot in the last year and worked with lots of local groups and other WIs on a range of events and activities.

The Committee were duly elected and is made up of: Laura Dauny (who was also re-elected as President), Maggie Weatherby (Secretary), Charli Payne (Treasurer), Jayne Fowler, Helen Parkinson and Rosemary Pettmann. We would love to have one or two more committee members so if you are at all interested, in even just seeing what the Committee does, drop us a line and come along to a Committee meeting.

We then had an inspiring presentation on Linus Quilts and the wonderful work they do in providing a ‘hug’ to children in need, as well as marvelling at some of the beautiful sewn and knitted quilts they are gifted. The Anunal Meeting also saw the launch of our Sewing Group so maybe we will be able to gift some of our very own Linus quilts during the next WI year.

Finally the Meeting broke out into a craft session with little packs for hand sewn projects being handed out for everyone to start at the meeting and complete at home ready for sale at the June stall at Fair in the Square. All in all, a jam-packed Annual Meeting!

April’s meeting saw local photographer, Henrietta Garden, share some of her wisdom about how to take great photographs – just in time for the launch of our photography competition!

The competition has four categories; People, Places, Flora & Fauna and, finally, the theme ‘Summer’. The competition will run until the October meeting on 7 October 2014 when the members and a specialist judge will review all the entries and choose the best overall photograph, together with a winner in each category.

Following an enjoyable visit to one of our meetings from Park Theatre last Autumn, we decided to have a WI trip to see a production at the Finsbury Park venue. We chose well with the Stephen Sondheim-Richard Rogers musical Do I Hear A Waltz. This was a rare revival of the musical, which is set in Venice. The actors did more than justice to the songs and the icing on the cake was the humour much of which was focused around the language differences between the Americans and Italians typified by the song “No Understand’. We have all been there!

Park Theatre was new to most of us and turned out to be a cosy but comfortable venue. The bar cum cafe buzzed and both bar and theatre were almost full which is not bad for a Tuesday evening in March. Fifteen members went home having had an uplifting evening and the best bit was that home was but a short bus ride away.

March’s meeting saw Susan Bennett come to talk to us about her green fingers and how she, and her beautiful garden, became involved in the National Garden Scheme. Susan lives in St Regis Close and has a garden that has gradually grown to the size of 3 tennis courts and includes all many of gorgeous plants and even its own temple!

Susan described how the NGS came into being as a way of raising funds for district nursing and how it survived during the war. The premise was simple; opening usually private gardens for the public to enjoy for a small fee and over its history the gardens included have ranged from ordinary home gardens to Blenheim Palace! Susan’s garden has been included in the NGS for a number of years now and she is also involved in funding and assessing new gardens for inclusion.

Susan was such an inspiring and enjoyable speaker sharing lots of snippets about her life and the interesting history of the NGS. From the pictures she shared with us, her garden was a real inspiration for many of our members and so a private visit of the garden will be planned soon!

February saw our first proper meeting of the year with a fantastic attendance from members and lots of new faces!

Local interior designer extraordinaire, Debbie Neal, took us through the world of interior design and how we can maximise the space we have rather than moving. We learnt some of the science behind the use of colour and the golden rule of 3: never have more than 3 colours or materials in any one room.

We were then set the challenge of designing our own room to a client’s contemporary brief and picking out everything from the paint and fabrics to the furniture, flooring, lighting and window dressings. We ended up with an interesting array of results before Debbie revealed the final design that the client had agreed! An inspiring start to the new year for the Alexandra WI.

Our meetings in January are always so soon after new year that a relaxed meeting is what is called for to enable members to bow out if necessary! The Clissold Arms on Fortis Green was our chosen location and we had a fantastic turn out of members and new faces eager to see what we had all got up to over the Christmas period and what was coming up for 2014.

We chatted about everything the Alexandra WI has got up to this year, the things people loved and what we could do better and came up with an exciting list of potential speakers, outings and group activities. It was lovely to see everyone in a different setting from CUFOS and it was also fantastic to hear how much the members have enjoyed 2013: onwards and upwards!

December’s meeting was filled with christmas tunes, mulled wine, mince pies and dose of crafty inspiration as the lovely Sarah from the Hornsey Garden Centre came to teach us how to make your very own floral table decorations and wreaths.

We were each given a host of foliage and the necessary tools to create a beautiful decoration and Sarah took us through each step in detail so that we each knew the basic skills to make the perfect wreath. After much cutting, wrapping and arranging we each had a circle of moss and pine and we were let loose on the oranges, pine cones and ribbons to bedeck our creations to our heart’s content.

I was really impressed at the high quality of everyone’s efforts and it was such a lovely meeting. A fantastic way to start the month of December!

 

Tamara, one of our members who spoke to us earlier this year about her love for the 1940s and her 24/7 commitment to dressing vintage, opened her home for an evening of vintage clothes shopping. Not only did we get to try on, buy and ooh and ahh over a fabulous selection of pieces, we also got to investigate Tamara’s beautiful home which has been heavily inspired by the 1950s.

It was a really fun evening with more than a few purchases being made and everyone came away with a bit of glamour to add to their wardrobes in time for the Christmas party season! A fabulous evening which hopefully we can repeat again!

As the nights draw in and we all turn that thermostat up what could be better than using those cold evenings and weekends to create a rag rug? Not much, which is why Helen, one of our members, took us on a guide through rag rugging and demonstrating some of the basic techniques.

Not only that but we also got the chance to look at some of her own handiwork and admire some of the wonderfully creative (and published) designs of her mother-in-law.

We were all doubly spoilt by another member, Mary, who ran a card making session so we could all get a head start on the Christmas cards!

It was a fantastically fun meeting and it was lovely to be able to talk to old and new members and bond over a mutual love of crafting. Rag rugging was so popular that there was a serious fight for our raffle tickets through which could holders win a bodger, a fantastic rag rugging tool, so we can expect some beautifully made Alexandra WI rugs anytime soon!

On the 28th September 2013, 15 of our members had a visit to the The Library and Museum of Freemasonry in Covent Garden. Freemason’s Hall was built after World War One in art deco style as a tribute to all the Freemasons who lost their lives, but there has been a Masonic meeting place on the Great Queen Street site since 1775.

On entering, we were ushered into the museum, which was full of  masonic artifacts and information on past members including Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill and the artist Hogarth.

We then were taken to one of the meeting halls where members are initiated into the Masons.The room was completely dwarfed by 3 enormous chairs. These were specially made for one of the past Grandmasters, George IV who weighed 30 stone.

Trevor, our guide, then lead us to the Grand Temple which lies in the centre of the building and provides a meeting place for the various Masonic Lodges including the Grand Lodge.

The art deco detailing was amazing and you could see why the building was in demand as a film location.

Trevor was happy to answer our questions, all of which I think were asked by women! As the Masons realise, in order to grow and recruit new members it has to be more open. It was interesting to find out that the secret handshake developed in order to identify master stonemasons as they moved about the country to seek work at a time when most people were illiterate.

It was a really interesting visit and I for one really enjoyed, it even if I still don’t know if and why they roll up their trousers!

October’s meeting was a creative affair with each of us picking up our charcoal and pencil for a little life drawing. The lovely Judy Purbeck warmed us up with a few quick 5 minute poses then got us flexing our artistic muscles with some longer poses and teaching us how to use a pencil to help with proportion.

For a bunch of ladies who generally profess a limited artistic flair we ended with some beautiful charcoal drawings – Judy even suggested some of us showed some Matisse-like prowess! Our gorgeous model Louise astonished me with her ability to hold a pose and we were all astonished how relaxing life drawing made us all feel by the end of the meeting. All round a fantastic meeting for an new autumnal evening.

September’s meeting focused on all things dramatic. The curtain rose with Melli Bond, creative director of our fantastic local playhouse the Park Theatre, Ally, a film writer, producer and director in LA, and Hazel the dog.

Melli and Ally gave us their thoughts on women’s role in the theatre and all that the Park is trying to do to encourage a bit more of the balance in the theatrical world! Ally surprised us all with the statistic that only 3% of this year’s US TV pilots were written by women, so there seems to be some way to go!

Then we all cracked out our thespian side with a drama workshop which mainly cemented our inability to act and, at times, even count to twenty!. It was a great night with lots of new faces and fun was had by all (especially Hazel)!

On 21 July 2013 we were part of the celebrations for the 150 years of Ally Pally. The park was turned into a community festival and featured all sorts of amazing things from local rugby and cricket, bands, a community and food market to balloon rides!

We were asked by the organisers to create a fantastic cake which would form the centrepiece of one of the day’s focal points. Not only that but it was to be cut by the Mayor of Haringey on a bandstand in front of lots of the visitors to the park! This was obviously not a task for the faint hearted but I am sure you will agree that we did the WI proud – why not have a look at our album of pictures?

As well as the cake, we also hosted a stall which gave us the opporunity to spread the word about our WI and make some fantastic contacts with other community groups. All in all it was a wonderful day and it was great to be part of the celebrations for this fascinating building on our doorstep!

July was all about taking some time out and de-stressing – something we all need a bit of help to do. The lovely Tracy Tutty, local herbalist, stress therapist and all round relaxed person led us through how we respond to stress and what we can do to combat it. After a few relaxation exercises we were all feeling pretty zen, so on to the action…

Next Tracy led us through the herbs our bodies need when we are stressed out and taught us how to make and taste our own herabl teas. We all tried our hand at making a tasty cuppa and needless to say some were more successful than others! What is certain though is that we all came away a bit calmer.

April’s meeting was a feast of Annual Meeting business and sugary icing – a perfect WI combination!

Firstly it was our Annual Meeting so we cast our eye over all the great things that we have done this year. We also elected some new committee members and said goodbye to our president, Tori, who has done more than a sterling job over the last two years. We have a lot to thank her for and I know our members think she has been a great President! Laura Dauny was elected President for the year 2013-14.

After the official business we donned our aprons and got to grips with our icing bags with the lovely Rose from Velvet Rose cakes! She taught us how to make a perfect bakery swirl as well as a beautiful icing rose so now we can all make cakes worthy of Mary Berry!

We were delighted to have welcomed Deborah Hedgecock, Curator of Bruce Castle Museum as our guest speaker to our February meeting. Deborah gave us a very informative short history of the house and grounds including many photographs of the present condition and lots from the museum archives, Bruce Castle is now a Grade 1 listed building and houses the London borough of Haringey’s archives and local history museum.

If you didn’t know already Bruce Castle is a 16th century manor house in Tottenham once known as ‘Lordship House’. The name Bruce dates back to medieval times when Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland owned land in England! It has been owned by many people over the centuries including the Hills family who were greatly into teaching learning and opened up a school for boys on the premises in the early 19th century. Rowland Hill was responsible for introducing the Penny Black postage stamp and the Penny Post system. There is a life size statue of Rowland Hill in the Museum The museum houses many works of art and objets d’art and has a detailed account of local history.

As you know, one of our intentions with the WI is to share and learn new skills so at our August meeting, Maggie put us to the challenge of designing and making a lavender bag by the end of the meeting. We scoured through a load of beautful fabrics and trimmings and worked our hardest to produce a beautiful set of lavender bags that we hope to sell on our December stall.

I am sure you will agree it was a good job by all:

As you will all know we held a stall outside Budgen’s on Crouch End Broadway in April 2012. Here we touted lots of WI handmade wears including scarves, jams, chutneys and biscuits.

We also got to display some of our handy craft skills with our beautiul WI green bunting and ‘The Alexandra WI’ sign, together with our aprons, which a team of members helped produce.

The stall was a great success raising over £100 and allowing us to spread the word about the Alexandra WI. Our next stall will be in December to sell all things festive, so get your thinking caps on!