April has been a busy month!

Members of the craft group met at Carole’s for a pot luck of activities.  Carole had researched a pop-up card, but was not happy with the design, so we all did our own thing.  Several people painted their papier mache “wild animals”, but others felt theirs were too wild to be useful!  Others decorated flower pots with decoupage, which looked very colourful.  

At our monthly meeting, our speaker was Dr Simone Paulson who talked to us about working in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in Southampton hospital. You can read about it here.

Our Darts team had a tournament with Barton Bees and won. Congratulations to all our team for their hard work.

We had a Skittles evening, organised by Karen, with a fish and chip supper.

Out Lunch Club meeting was a brunch instead of a lunch which took place at Esme’s. The food was enjoyed as was a chat and companionship.

Kim led Quilting sessions. Our quilts are coming together nicely and in our last session we looked at colours of fabric for finishing them off and for some of us, how many more blocks we still need to make! Thanks go to Kim for hosting these events, for her great teaching and also the wonderful cakes!

Rita has continued to host bandage-making sessions, making much needed bandages for Ukraine.

Janette, Elaine and team organised the refreshments stall at the Needlework Fiesta. This is our major fundraising event of the year which helps to fund our meetings and activities. It was a very busy weekend! Thanks go to everyone who helped at the event and all those who made cakes.

Julie took part in the Great UK WaterBlitz today with help from Young River Guardians New Forest. We were testing for Nitrates and Phosphates, which in 3 of our 4 locations were thankfully low. However, downstream from a water treatment plant, Nitrate levels were higher than upstream levels! Our results are on this map here. We were also taking samples  to be tested for E.coli . The results for this will follow as some samples are being incubated and other samples will be laboratory tested.

We ended the month with a walk and coffee morning to fundraise for ACWW for part of their “Walk the World’ day. Eight Brockenhurst WI members were joined by Jane and Martha and we enjoyed a walk around Wilverley. We were delight to see 4 foals and be serenaded by birdsong, especially the Skylarks. After the walk, we enjoyed tea/coffee and cake. So far, we have raised £68.52 for ACWW. The donation tin will be at the May meeting for those who wish to donate, but couldn’t attend.

Hot off the press, two of our WI members have just received awards in the Brockenhurst Citizen of the Year awards at the Annual Parish Meeting. Our President, Liz was awarded ‘Brockenhurst Citizen of the Year’ for all that she does in the village and Julie was awarded ‘Brockenhurst Friend of the Year’.