Holyport WI Annual Report 1999/2000 Holyport WI Annual Report 1999/2000Holyport has enjoyed another busy and interesting year, with a wide variety of speakers, demonstrations, social events and extra activities.
We have had speakers on Wartime Education, Tales of the Supernatural, Imperial India, and the story of Clivedon. We have been told how to Improve our Memories, seen the Wonderful State Coaches, heard about the Centenary Trip to Canada, accompanied by some super slides, and been given a demonstration of the Art of Bookbinding.
Our Outings this year have been to Mapledurham, which included a river trip, to Canterbury, where we were able to have tea with a local WI in a lovely old barn, and to Bletchley Park, plus our usual visits to the Mill at Sonning and Windsor Theatre.
Our Social Activies have included a "Desert Island Discs"evening with guests from other institutes, a play and supper evening, the usual summer BBQ, skittles evening and a Christmas Social Evening.
We are still actively involved with the Talking Newspaper for the Blind, wwe took part in Holyport Fair, Holyport Village Show and the Remembrance Sunday Service, in which we lay a wreath jointly with Moneyrow Green WI. We also took part in the Apple Day held at Braywick Nature Reserve, and once again, in the Group Quiz. We had a special event in February when "Gardener's Question Time" visited Holyport. Two programmes were recorded, hosted jointly by Holyport WI and the Holyport Village Show. The Chairman apologised for taking 23 years to get to us, we first applied to celebrate our 21st Birthday in 1977! But it was a splendid evening, and well worth waiting for.
The Scrabble and Poetry groups are still thriving, as is the Drama Group who plan to put on a pantomime in November.
We haven't done too much fundraising this year, but have had our usual Jumble Sale, and sales from the Webb Ivory Catalogues to boost our funds. We were fortunate in being able to make donations to the WI House Maintenance and General Funds, and the Millenium Fund, as well as providing two Denman Bursuries, plus one local one.
We have started a Millenium Project, producing photographs of Holyport through the seasons, which we hope to market as postcards, drink mats or other suitable outlets. We staged an exhibition in the Maidenhead Library as part of the Maidenhead Arts exhibition in September, and our Website is still going strong and attracting attention.
One of our members has become a community governor at Holyport Primary School.
Our membership stands at 40, of which 5 are new members in the past year.
We celebrated our 44th birthday in February, and look forward to many more happy and successful years.