At our July meeting, which was a busy one, our President Julie welcomed everyone, including our guests.

We had a talk and demonstration of how assemble a hand tied bouquet by our member Karen and also by Sue Rickman, the Chair of Brockenhurst Flower Club. Sue and Karen both showed us beautiful bouquets that they had made. The talk and demonstartion was informative and inspiring.

Rose introduced the WI Campaign for 2025-2026 which is ‘Bystanders can be Lifesavers’ and something we look forward to taking further over the next year. Rose told us of her first hand experience of needing to use the app What3Words in an emergency situation and how it can help the emergency services locate you in an emergency and urged everyone to download the app on their phone.

Rose also produced a display about the campaign.

Rose introduced a First Responder (and also one of our WI members) who kindly agreed to give a demonstration of CPR and how to use a defibrillator. We heard about the role of a First Responder, how they volunteer their time and do 20+ hours a month for our community. We found out that our First Responders training, uniform and phones are funded by South Central Ambulance Service and there was a collection tin for members to make donations. Members will also be able to donate at our next meeting to this great charity.

We were told the differences between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest. We were talked through all the stages of contacting the emergency services and what to do in an emergency situation.

Zena demonstrated how to carry out CPR. She also demonstrated how to use a defibrillator, which gave us all confidence of what to do in an emergency. Thanks go to Zena for a very informative and useful talk and demonstration.

Julie explained about British Heart Foundation’s RevivR free online training to learn what to do in an emergency. She urged everyone to do the training and then to ask 5 family members or friends to do the training. Then they recommend that 5 family members or friends to do the training and so on. This way, so many more people would have the knowledge and confidence if they ever needed to do CPR or use a defibrillator.

Julie also suggested that we familiarise where our local defibrillators are. Click here to go to DefibFinder defibrillator locator. Our local ones are currently at:

• Brockenhurst Village Hall
• Outside Tesco (right hand side wall -When looking at Tesco
• The Masonic Hall (although this currently says it’s not available)
• Brockenhurst College
• Brockenhurst Primary School
• Settley Ridge Farm Shop

We look forward to doing more with the ‘Bystanders can be Lifesavers’ campaign in the autumn.

Rita talked about our continued support for New Forest for Ukraine and her bandage making team.

This was our final collection for Honeypot and all these great items were donated for care bags for young carers. Thank you all for your kind donations and thanks go to Elaine who is going to deliver them to Honeypot for us.

Our ‘Competition of the Month’ was a ‘Summer Read. This provoked all sorts of interesting conversations and recommendations of what to read this summer. The winner (with the most silver coins – which are donated to ACWW) was Maureen’s book “The Luberjills’ by Joanna Foat (who was a speaker for us a couple of years ago).

We had our usual raffle run by Maureen and April

We do not have a meeting in August, so our next meeting is on Monday September 8^th 2025, which will be a craft evening. It will take place at Brockenhurst Village Hall – arrival from 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Wishing you all a good summer.