The joy of ....

Women's Institute.

That title had you going for a minute, admit it!

I enjoyed a lovely meeting with my WI this morning, it was nice to see all our friendly ladies again and we're still growing!  When we started in November 2009 we had 12 founding members.  Subscriptions are renewed in January, and if all existing members renew, added together with the 5 new members this morning, then our register will stand at 64!!!  In the words of Julia Donaldson (author of The Gruffalo, and others), it's 'A Squash and A Squeeze'.

Two things make us unusual in the world of Women's Institutes:  We don't sing Jerusalem.  We meet in the morning.

When we started with 12 we'd only just met, and were too embarassed to sing Jerusalem, and that's the way it stayed.  There's no hard or fast rule about singing, and if our members really want to, there's opportunity to sing at twice yearly group meetings, or by attending the annual meeting of the National Federation.  I've heard reported that 4000+ women singing Jerusalem is something to behold and stirs the blood!  Whether it's blood stirring in a good way or like bagpipes I don't know...

We meet in the morning.  Oxfordshire Federation may have been being experimental by trying a morning group, but for our ladies it makes sense.  It makes sense for me also as when I joined my husband's hours of work meant he was unreliable in his evening availability to be at home.  I'd previously joined the badminton club but could't initially get there on time, and then latterly needed to be home sooner than the badminton finished, so it didn't really work.  The daytime aspect worked for me even when I was working part-time as I'd work my hours around WI.


In my new job (start date postponed as references stuck in the xmas backlog) the library is closed on Wednesdays, so I'm still OK for WI.

Wednesday morning suits our ladies as it's market day, and most of our ladies are of an age where they don't want to be out late in the evening.  Win-win.  They get to meet up, make friends, have interesting speakers, social time and a bit of fun.  We also organise outings - the Houses of Parliament and Cabinet War Rooms is coming up in April, and Bletchley Park in March, run raffles, and have dabbled in a cake and jam stall at the Royal Wedding festivities last year.

On the subject of raffles, we're trying something different this year.  After a lively debate this morning we're cutting down the number of raffles and not bringing in 'prizes' (something rubbishy we were given that we don't want).  Instead when the seasonal raffle comes round everyone will bring 1 item of fruit or veg, and we'll make up 3 or 4 hampers to be raffled.  We'll have a variation in the Winter/December raffle and will aim to bring a nice item to make up a food hamper or 2 - something we'd like to win!

Enough.  On my way into town this morning I popped by the police station to report a break in at the Bowling  Club.  Roly the dalmation gets short-changed on WI day as I whizz him round the park opposite us, instead of letting him have a leisurely romp around Faringdon Folly.  Anyway, on the return leg of the park circuit we pass by the Bowling Club, and the cheek of it, they've cut through the chain-link fence (5ft high) about half-way down, and then VERY neatly cut a 18"-2ft square hole in the back wall of the green shed adjacent to the club house.  So I'm mulling over whether this was a recent incident, and it seems to me that it is, because if the Bowling Club were aware of it they would surely have made some attempt to repair the damage...  So I took photos (on my phone) and popped into the police station to report it on my way to the WI meeting.  It hadn't been reported to the rozzers, so I felt I earned my civic duty brownie points this morning.  Ker-ching!

That's it for now, keep it sweet!  Kat

Quandry

I've just been admiring my photo of the Snowy Owl (2 or 3 blogs ago) taken at Beale Park in October 2011.

Beautiful, even if I say so myself.

But caged.

But how else will I see something so rare so close, how else to show the children?

I saw a buzzard (not a kite, didn't have a forked tail and the colouring wasn't kite) being buzzed by a couple of crows out on the dog-walk today, and by the time I'd retrieved my camera and set the zoom they were well out of shot, and it would have been good.  But the trophy of getting a shot of the birds in the wild, as opposed to the caged owl.  Not enough time to capture the wild, but the dilemma we face when faced with caged animals.

Conservation - back to sustainability again - needs to exist, I understand this rationally, but the emotional/'wild' side of me yearns to break open the cages and set them free.  Or is this just a metaphor, and I am the caged animal yearning to be free?

Answers on the back of a postage stamp to....... Kat (me-ow!) keeping it short!

... and another thing!

Happy new year by the way. Right enough of the niceties, let's get on with it.

Sustainability.

Can we drill this word/concept/idea/revolution into all school children/teachers, work places, hospitals, churches, cinemas, radio shows, TV, internet, newspapers, facebook, you tube, twitter, android, x-box, ps2, wii players and whatever other media you care to think of before we're all sunk....

It's a grey area, and of course, the newspapers aren't interested in sustaining anything other than their own growth and sales figures...

We're currently objecting to a proposed development of 18 houses on the 0.8hectare neglected field behind our property.  NIMBYism I hear you cry, and yes, we'd prefer that these dwellings were built somewhere else.  The reasons are many, but most strongly in our favour is that the piece of land in question lies in the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and is thus protected from this type of development.  There are practical issues on this field (it is low lying and any development would need a pumping station), and access is also an issue as a new road would be created bringing an extra junction within 150m of a primary school.  So safety issues accrue.

The developer states that the field is situated in a 'highly sustainable position' - which in planning terms means you can walk into town and access the amenities (bus links).  In our objection we pointed out that the proposed 18 families with 'x' many children needing schooling have already lost the places in the school 150m down the road, as the 200 new families in the 2009 Berkeley Homes development on the other side of the school, have already taken all the places, and many families have 2 or more primary school aged children at separate schools because the local school is full...

So building 18 more houses is sustainable, according to the planners/developer, and the Government in its wisdom is changing the planning rules to favour 'sustainable' development.  On the back of this the District Council have brought in a new interim housing plan - to deal with their ongoing shortfall (there is an approved plan to build 2000 or so new houses on a disused airfield, but the developers on that site are already 5 years behind, haven't started, and are unlikely to start anything in the current financial climate).  So they waive the rules and allow the small development behind us to go ahead.  Or do they?

Well, not for the moment, the latest application closes 18th January, and we'll keep fighting the good fight.  It is nimbyism, but also the principal of the matter.  If we let 'them' build on AONB there won't be anything outstandingly naturally beautiful of this country of ours to hand down to our children and our grandchildren.  I for one couldn't look myself in the eye and say 'I did my best'.

There are 1,000,000 empty properties out there (so I read) and surely brownfield (airfield) should be developed first before green fields are lost forever.  If you build on the green fields where do we grow the food to feed the occupants of the greenfield houses?  Chicken or egg?  For those who know me, this is where I start to (mis)quote Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi' - ... 'they paved paradise, put in a parking lot... don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone... they cut down the trees and put them in a tree museum, and they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em''.  That protest song was written in 1972 or thereabouts, and it's still valid today, more so, in my opinion.

Growth.  The other side of the sustainability equation.  And I'll tackle that next time...

Keep it sweet!  Kat