The Swallowtail WI Summer Social 2019

Cake is an essential part of the WI. We’re known for our Victoria sponges and on Norfolk Day we showed that we’re capable of  baking much more: WIs across the county made cakes to share with their local communities. It was a great way to meet new people and help reduce isolation and loneliness, one of the WI’s resolutions.

I think cakes are a little bit of magic. Not just the way basic ingredients become delicious food, but in the way they bring people together and get them talking. The coffee break is one of the best parts of the Swallowtail meetings; it’s the perfect opportunity to get to know other members and I love taking time out from all the committee work to have a chat. Over the past four years, familiar faces have become good friends.

During our August meeting we had our annual summer social and potluck.  If sharing cake helps start a conversation, having a whole meal together helps deepen the connections and friendships.

It felt a lot like a harvest festival and it reminded us of how much we have to be grateful for. We wanted to find a way to pay forward our abundance, so we decided to spend the rest of the meeting upcycling old t-shirts and turning them into shopping bags as part of an initiative between Norfolk WI and the Norwich and Kings Lynn Foodbanks.

The aim is to help reduce plastic waste, by making fabric bags for the Foodbanks to use instead of carrier bags.

If you would like to make a bag too, we’d love for you to get involved. The bags can be any design or material, but they must be a minimum 45cm (18”) square, with long handles to go over the shoulder. It’s a great way to use up stashes of fabric or repurpose old garments, like we did with the no-sew t-shirt bags.

​By the end of the evening we had enjoyed good food, good fun and good conversation. Hopefully the bags we made will be infused with our joy and will bring those same experiences to others.
 
           
Contact us at fedsec@norfolkwi.org.uk