October started off with some workshops for making Christmas Tree Decorations for Brockenhurst WI’s upcoming Christmas Tree at St Saviours Church. The theme of our tree is WI Campaigns. Icicles and fish represent the Clean Rivers campaign, Blood droplets have been made to represent Stem Cell donations and tooth fairies to represent this years Dental Health Matter campaign

For our October monthly meeting on Monday October 14^th we had the return of speaker Jane Glennie -“The Experimental Housekeeping of Jane Austen’s good friend Martha Lloyd”. You can read more about it here.

Workshops have also be run for the Group Show classes.

We have received a message from New Forest for Ukraine

For the time being we will not be sending any items for premature babies. According to Wendy the demand for specifically premature baby boxes has diminished. The birth rate in Ukraine has dropped considerably. However, what items we currently have WILL be sent and Wendy has reassured me. 

 Quote from Wendy:  ” Whatever you have I will make sure it is disseminated to the right place. Nothing will go to the wrong place. We will use and send everything. After that a temporary stop for now” 

We have been asked to continue sending  baby boxes for regular newborns as there are still maternity hospitals that will take these along with blankets, quilts and of course baby food, nappies(especially the larger sizes) ,toiletries, children’s underwear, baby grows and other baby essentials. To those of you making the little octopuses, please do continue with these as they are of benefit to all babies. 

Wendy is very conscious of the effort that everyone puts into what you all do and believes we should be responsive to demand. What is being requested by her are larger knitted items for older children  (infant and junior school age)such as cardigans, jumpers, hats, gloves and  scarves. etc.  These will be distributed between all the NGOs that we support. 

There are maternity hospitals across Ukraine that we will continue supporting via HUC (Help Ukraine Centre) as well as through Wendy Warrington so please do continue to support us by sending your very special baby garments for non prems. The quality and quantity of what you are sending is absolutely staggering…in a good way!

As far as other knitted and crocheted items are concerned, garments for adults are always required( gloves , scarves, snoods, hats, balaclavas, shawls etc) . And of course big blankets. Again these will be distributed between NGOs.

Thank you for your overwhelming response to our appeals so far this autumn . The knitting team and I have been kept extremely busy!  Let’s keep it that way! 

I hope that I have explained everything clearly…doing my best! Many thanks for all that you are doing. 

Just to remind you that we start the month of November with a join walk with Greener Brockenhurst to ‘March for Clean Water’ on Sunday 3rd November, starting at 2pm at the Watersplash at the bottom of Brooklet Road. This is a short family-friendly walk for all, so please bring your family and friends to show our support for the march taking place in London on the same day.