Latest from Old Buckenham WI

Local friends and the National Trust
Old Buckenham WI were pleased to welcome members from New Costessey Evening WI to their July meeting. This link between the two WIs was established about 30 years ago when members went on a WI holiday to Hampshire together. Since then they have met on a biennial basis and it is always good to meet up and exchange ideas.
After supper and a glass of wine, the speaker for the evening was Hazel Gillingham who talked about the life of Octavia Hill, who was born in Wisbech in 1838, the eighth daughter of a prosperous corn merchant and former banker. Although known as a co-founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill was an energetic campaigner who did much to improve the lot of impoverished city dwellers, especially in London. She was a pioneer of social housing who believed that there were better and more humane ways of arranging accommodation for the poor than through the state. Aided by her friend, John Ruskin, she bought houses and let them to the urban depressed. Octavia Hill provided an early model of social work, did much to preserve urban open spaces and was the first to use the term “green belt”.
September is always a busy month for the village WI – there is a group meeting (when they meet with other WIs in the area) and then there is the very popular Village Produce Show on Sunday 14 September. A copy of the schedule was sent out with the June edition of the village newsletter so search yours out and see if you can enter. They would love to see you (and what you have produced) there at the show in the Village Hall.