Camberley WI
Previous Meetings
More photos may be found by clicking on the date of the meeting.
16th January 2024
Former Surrey Heath Mayor, and local businesswoman, Sarah Jane Croke, came to talk to us about how she'd been keeping busy since standing down as a local Councillor. She has certainly not let the grass grow under her feet, and has been building up her wedding planning business alongside her millinery, and has also recently been appointed as Charity Manager for Surrey Heath Age Concern. She spoke passionately about the work the volunteers do to improve the social lives of elderly people in the borough, and how this in turn alleviates their loneliness.
20th February - Rag Wreath Making
We found a fun way to use up scraps of fabric - tie them around a metal frame to make rag wreaths! These can be made to suit any time of year, from Spring to Christmas, by altering the colour combinations used. Thank you to Mandy for leading the session, and to the Creative Chaos craft group for preparing piles of fabric scraps.
19th March - Forensic Scientist
Camberley WI had a huge turnout at our March meeting to listen to speaker Hayley Scott of The Forensic Experience.
With 14 years experience as a former Crime Scene Investigator for the Metropolitan Police, Hayley gave a fascinating talk on the world of forensics. Sharing processes followed when investigating crimes, along with facts and anecdotes from experience of examining over 15,000 crime scenes, we were kept enthralled. Who knew that our unique fingerprints are not genetic but formed at between 6-20 weeks in the womb?. The Amniotic Fluid pressure on the pads of the hands forms the ripple like lines. How mind blowing is that! Each person has their own unique fingerprints, even identical twins!
Sue MacKenzie, owner of ’The Fish Shop’, on the Frimley Road in Camberley, came to talk about her life and role as a Fishmonger, at our April meeting. Highly regarded within the industry, Sue was made the first female Vice President of the National Federation of Fishmongers in 2022.
Sue gave a brief history of her life and passion for all things fish. Getting up at 3am everyday to plan stock for the next day is true dedication and love for your job! She brought along various examples of crab and prawns, sharing facts and information including how to sex a crab, how to de-vein a prawn without peeling and how to check the ‘health’ of a mussel!
Huge thanks to Sue for a very informative and entertaining evening.
We had a go at Silk fabric painting at our May meeting, to produce a greetings card. We used pieces of silk which were pre-printed with gold gutta, to form a little border between each area of colour, then we used special fabric paints to paint the pictures. We had a good selection of flower pictures and choice of paints, and the finished results looked amazing. This was a very accessible activity, with both beginners and more experienced painters all enjoying the experience and able to produce a great result. Many thanks to Melanie Strauch for the hours spent organising and compiling all the kits, and the hard-working committee who covered the tables with newspaper, made sure there was clean water available and then cleared up afterwards. It was a lovely sociable evening, at which we welcomed some new members, and there was plenty of chatter in the room!
18th June - Social & Cream Tea
At the beginning of our June meeting, we had a talk from Karen McCartney from Voluntary Services North Surrey about their Time to Talk befriending service. Karen explained how valuable this service was in reducing the loneliness and isolation felt by the local people who were visited once a week by the volunteer befrienders, and how much the volunteers themselves also got from this interaction. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying a delicious cream tea, with homemade cakes and scones beautifully presented on cake stands, and tea served by the hard-working committee. In between mouthfuls, we discussed potential speakers and activities for next year. It was a lovely, relaxed evening to which we welcomed several new members.
16th July - All about Cheese!
At our July meeting, Camberley WI welcomed Rosemary Horton, a Cheese Maker. A former student of Studley College, Warwickshire she shared her knowledge of the history and process of cheese making which was filled with so many interesting facts and stories from her time in the industry. We learned that the early nomads made cheese by chance, then recipes were passed down through time by farmer’s wives, and now nearly all cheese is made in factories. Surrey still has 2 farmhouse cheese makers - in the Silent Pool complex & at Pierrepoint Farm in Frensham, and in the UK we currently have 800 varieties of cheese - more than the French!
To finish the evening we enjoyed tasting the samples of cheese - the mango & ginger was a particular favourite! This was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative evening enjoyed by all.
Entrepreneur and co-founder of Raw Honey Distillery, Sam Robinson, gave a talk on his life and gin business at our September meeting.
With a Chemistry degree and work experience in wine estates across the continents, Sam teamed up with a couple whose wife imported honey from Poland and they started Raw Honey Distillery - in his parents garage!
They currently produce 2 types of gin, with exciting plans to expand their business into distillery tours and a larger product range in the future.
It was a lively, entertaining evening enjoying the fruits of Sam’s labour!!
15th October - Carl Giles - cartoonist
Barry Venning treated us to a very entertaining evening with a presentation about the life of Carl Giles, the Daily Express cartoonist. An Art Historian by trade, Barry grew up with a fascination of Giles & his animated drawings. Giles was a talented self taught artist and draughtsman. After a serious motorbike accident he moved to Suffolk to become a pig farmer and satirical cartoonist for the Daily Express. For 48 years he produced a daily cartoon inspired by his early life and topical subjects such as weather, politicians, the war & his hate of traffic wardens. Many famous people were fans of Giles, including the Royal Family, who have the largest private collection of original cartoons.
19th November - Annual Meeting and Bring & Buy Sale
At our November meeting we held our annual AGM and also had a fundraising evening. The AGM provided information to members on the past year and our financial standing. Congratulations to Melanie Strauch on being voted in as our President for a second year.
The AGM was followed by a Bring & Buy sale. We also had a 50/50 table, our President’s Jam and Preserves (always very popular ) as well as local charities KatCanDo and Phylis Tuckwell sellinng cards and fundraising. In total we have raised around £300 which will be sent to Phyllis Tuckwell, our charity for this year.
17th December - Christmas social
Our Xmas party & what an entertaining evening put together by our brilliant WI Committee.
Everyone brought some food to share, there were Christmas jumpers aplenty, and the wine flowed! The committee put on some entertainment for us all to enjoy. Mandy read us her adaptation of "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly". The Memory Game was a lot of fun as us ladies of a "certain age" had to dig deep to remember all the objects, (including the cuddly toy) that had been paraded by the Committee in the style of the Conveyor Belt from the Generation Game. And last but not least a game of Bingo where Melanie seem run out of numbers before Bingo was called!!
21st January 2025 - Seated Yoga and Nutrition talk
We started the year with a meeting focussed on our well being. Local Yoga tutor Jason, who runs a weekly session for some of our members, gave us a 'taste' of Yoga from the comfort of our chairs. He made sure that this was suitable for all ages and abilities, explained every move, and had us working through our body joints from head to toes, accompanied by some very soothing music.
Following this, local Sports Therapist Heidi, who has led exercise sessions with stretchy bands for us in the past, gave us a talk on nutrition. She reminded us of the importance of getting the right balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins & minerals, particularly as we age, and suggested that we cut down on unhealthy foods that we love (like chocolate, cakes, crisps and alcohol), rather than cutting them out altogether.
Two lucky ladies won baskets stuffed full of well-being products in the raffle, and rather than cake, we each enjoyed a handful of grapes with our cuppas.
25th February 2025 - A Schoolgirl's War
We thoroughly enjoyed a brilliant, informative & fascinating talk given by Mary Smith who was a Head teacher & English teacher at Maidstone Girls Grammar School from 2006-2014. She told us how the pupils had to deal with the challenges of their schooling during the Second World War, during air raids when their lessons would be conducted in the underground tunnels. The daily school life of the pupils & teachers were beautifully illustrated by Helen Keen, an art teacher at that time, vividly bringing to life the conditions they had to endure during these times spent in the uncomfortable, partly lit & cold air raid shelters, which are still accessible in the grounds of the school.
Mary showed us wonderfully detailed drawings and paintings from the original "Scrapbook" and told us anecdotes gleaned from talking to some of the "old girls" at the school.