Witches of Belvoir
PRESIDENT Valerie Greenhill is experiencing the life on the ocean waves this month so Vice President Sue Wainwright stepped into Valerie’s shoes this month and welcomed members and a visitor to the September meeting of the Thorpe Acre WI held at the Thorpe Acre Church Hall on Tuesday, September 12, at 7.30pm.
The meeting began with a minutes silence as we all remembered Audrey Higgs who had recently passed away. She was a well respected, long-time member of Thorpe Acre WI and had served upon the committee for over 16 years. She will be much missed.
Several cards were given to those members with upcoming birthdays and Irene was congratulated on celebrating her golden wedding anniversary.
A letter was received from the ‘Save The Children’ charity thanking us for the donations they received at August’s meeting.
We will be hoping for an Indian summer in late September when we meet up for coffee at the café in Queen’s Park. The venue for November’s coffee morning will be at Goodliffe’s. October’s lunch will be at the Windmill.
Our Social diaries from now until the end of January are filling up rapidly. Carole and Jacqui confirmed that the arrangements for the Pie Night, the visit to the Greyhound races, our Christmas Lunch and the ‘Ukulele Crazy’ evening are all in hand. Tickets for the two events at the Town Hall, ‘An Evening with Gervaise Finn’ and ‘ The Glenn Miller Orchestra’ have been booked and paid for. The tickets for the Hathern Band Concert also arrived this month and a visit to the cinema to see Victoria and Abdul will be explored over the next week.
Teams A and Team B narrowly beat their opponents, Thrussington and Quorn respectively, in the fourth round of the Darts Competition. The matches for the final round have been made with Team A playing Quorn and Team B playing Queniborough towards the end of September. Depending upon these results Team A may be going through to the knockout stages of the tournament.
It must be autumn as the first skittles match has been arranged! We will be playing Ashby Spa at The Peacock.
Members were reminded that the first of two pompom making sessions to be held at Thorpe Acre’s Wednesday Craft Group will be at the end September and the second in October. Sue W. is looking into the feasibility of organising a one off, specialised craft session. She asked members to indicate any crafts they would like to know more about.
Correspondence from WI House was placed at the front of the table for perusal during tea and further information relating to these could be found in County News.
Sue W. drew our attention to an article in the County News featuring our ‘Great Get Together’ event. Fame at last! Some interest was shown in Kegworth’s Quiz Night.
As our Annual Meeting will be in November, Sue W. asked members to consider standing for the committee.
The Speaker this month was the local historian, Dave Jones, who told us about the ‘ Witches of Belvoir’.
He contrasted the lives of women before and during the Reformation when Witch hunting reached its peak. Parliament passed a Witchcraft Act in 1604. During his career the Witch Finder General sentenced around 300 women to death while the tests to prove you weren’t a witch were equally fatal! It was a very interesting talk. Sue Young gave the vote of thanks.
The competition, ‘An Item Beginning with W’ was won by Pauline Line, with Julie Hockley coming 2nd and Jill Pritchard, 3rd. The raffle prize was won by Linda Warboys. Refreshments were provided by Janice Newbod and Jill Pritchard.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday, October 10, at 7.30pm at the Thorpe Acre Church Hall. Julie Ede will be telling us about ‘Bess of Hardwick’.
Her talks are always interesting so if you want to drop in for a cup of tea, a biscuit and a taste of local history you’ll be most welcome.