WI COMPETITION

(photo courtesy of winningways.org.uk)

At the risk of boring you I’m going to talk about the latest event at my WI. I look at it this way ... if I can’t brag on the blog where can I sound off about what I consider is an achievement?

This is all about The Walmley Cup, a competition created in an effort to stimulate interest in something new, starting small and hopefully building into something big and beautiful. This month was the first.

There are three institutes in the district, all meeting in the same hall on different dates. My institute owns the hall and the other two pay rent on a monthly basis.  All the groups have been in existence for a good many years but mine is the oldest at 83 years.

The first competition was a learning curve so we organised it on a small scale to see if it would be accepted by the members. We chose five categories: flower arrangement, knitted draught excluder, favourite photograph, and two cooking entries namely a Victoria sponge and cheese scones. Surprisingly there were 27 entries overall. Not bad considering we only have 28 members. Of course, some entered more than one category but it was still a good effort considering all the years when no craftwork was done and no competitions entered. As you can see, I took a few photographs, but didn't get one of the delicious looking cheese scones.  

 

Judge remarking on the first Victoria Sponge

We invited two from each WI to act as judges. They’re not qualified as such but they’re old enough and wise enough to know what to look for in the entries. They were as impressed as I was with the turnout and did a great job with dedication and good humour. All of them expressed a desire to extend the competition to include their institutes ... I hope this will be possible.

It was my idea to start the Walmley Cup and as organiser I was delighted with the response. I foresee great things in the future, not just for my institute but all three that share our hall.

(Guess the winning draught excluder)