Old Buckenham Women's Institute

Hearing about lowland rescue
The new President, Kate Lloyd, welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the year, including one new member. The evening began with Mike Bartlett explaining the difficulties with fund-raising for the re-thatching of the church roof and encouraged all to attend the meeting on Tuesday 20 February.
The Christmas charity collection had raised £104 for the Leeway Domestic Violence and Abuse Services charity.
After the business of the meeting which included information about lots of opportunities for craft, sports and educational events, there was a most informative talk from Jim Whiteside on the work of Norfolk Lowland Rescue.
This is entirely run by volunteers who, along with Mountain Rescue, Cave Rescue, the Coastguard and the RNLI, form an invaluable service searching for people, saving over £4million from paid resources. People go missing for a variety of reasons. They can be lost, usually on mountains. It is not easy to be totally lost in Norfolk as sooner or later you will meet a dwelling or a road. There are those who are voluntarily missing, those with dementia or having had an accident or child abduction.
Lowland Rescue is called in following a report to the police and research statistics enable them to identify the most likely areas to search. They are trained in techniques for efficient searching which includes flood response and they are keen to teach water awareness.
After a break for refreshments there was a great deal of discussion on the five resolutions shortlisted for final voting at the WI Annual Meeting in June. These resolutions are generated from individual WIs across the country and cover issues deemed worth campaigning for. Each member had one vote; these will be collated and the two subjects accruing most votes will be discussed again at the May meeting.
Overall winners of the 2017 competitions were awarded tokens. Kathy Fleckney won most points for the monthly competition and Susan Hunter won for Flower of the Month. The evening ended with birthday posies distributed and the raffle drawn.
The next meeting of Old Buckenham WI is on Thursday 22 March starting at 7.30pm in the village hall when the speaker will be Fay Jones on the 'Wonderful World of Stinging Nettles.'