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June 2025

At our monthly meeting we enjoyed hearing from Sergio of the Red Sky Foundation and the brilliant work they do to raise vital funds for babies, children and adults, who are born with or develop heart conditions and who are in need of cardiac care, by providing lifelong support to them and their families.

Sergio shared the value of having defibrillators available and of taking the right action when someone has a cardiac arrest - with the help of our own Elaine and Margaret!

Sergio’s light hearted and warm story telling helped convey some very important messages, it was a lovely evening and we thank him for joining us. Find out more about the foundation here https://redskyfoundation.com/

We also enjoyed another Supper Club at the Italian restaurant at the Prospect pub In Penshaw with 23 of our members. Great company, fantastic food!

Some of our committee members joined - virtually - the annual meeting held by the national federation of WIs.

The day began with a companies house meeting to cover the review of all four constitutions that lead our organisation, each level has its own constitution which leads our work.

All the new constitutions passed and are now the substantive constitutions for our organisation going forward. The next review will take place in 5-10 years.

The resolution was also passed so work will soon begin on the Bystanders can be Lifesavers campaign. Keynote speakers were Emma Bridgewater and Angel Strawbridge. The newly elected Board of Trustees and the Chair, Jeryl Stone, were introduced  

And finally, there are always lots of opportunities to learn new skills at the WI. One of our committee members. Julie Brown, this month joined a training session ran by Elaine Wright, federation treasurer, to become one of the Independent Financial Examiners for the Tyne and Wear South region. A brilliant session which stretched knowledge and developed new skills!

May 2025

The start of our 2025/26 year saw us welcome our members - and some new members! - to our new venue and share with them our new programme of events. Due to our numbers increasing, to now around 70 members, we decided to move to larger premises at Glebe Methodist Church for our monthly meetings. Our 2025/26 programme is packed with activities from meetings, speakers, dinners, parties and craft classes.

This was our annual meeting and elections, and we were delighted that Elaine Wright was once again voted our President. We then had a talk and presentation by Diana O'Hagan representing Tropic Skin Care with Linda, one of our lovely members, volunteering for a mini treatment.

April 2025

Spring is definitely here! At our monthly meeting we heard from Helen and Andy Redfern of the Green Heart Collective, a social enterprise based in Gateshead dedicated to reducing waste to landfill by providing an attractive and sustainable alternative to buying new. Their presentation certainly opened our eyes to the issue of textile waste and how we can all play a part in reducing waste. Helen and Andy run their collective from Gateshead to try to help tackle the problem.

Some of our members attended the Tyne and Wear South Spring Council. A lovely day that saw representatives from all WIs across the federation come together. 

March 2025

We can't believe it is March already! So far this month we have enjoyed a very creative craft class, open to all members of our Federation. In three hours we learned how to crochet - big thanks to Margaret for helping us learn this lovely craft.

More than twenty of our members enjoyed a Supper Club event at the Cantoro Lounge at Washington Galleries. Yummy food and great company!

February 2025

At our February meeting we heard from our member Chris O'Neill who shared her story of 42 years of supporting the Manzini Youth Care project in eSwatini, Africa. It was a very humbling and touching to hear about the moments of joy and sadness that Chris has experienced over her many years of support. Also in February some of our members enjoyed a Chinese meal at the Imperial Restaurant, Low Fell. The evening was organised by our Federation and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting with members of other local WIs for fantastic food and company.

January 2025

In January at our first meeting, we collected votes for this year's resolutions. 

December

Our December got off to a great start with our WI Christmas party night at the Ramside, with great food, music and dancing to xthe act - Diva Decoded. We also enjoyed a lovely Christmas lunch at Springwell Village Community Venue. Finally, our President Elaine presented a cheque for £200 to Daft as a Brush charity, raised by members, along with a card signed by all our members.

November

In November some of our members enjoyed the Federation Craft Class run by Margaret at Wrekenton. We created some amazing decorations for our Christmas trees and even made small gifts. Big thanks to Margaret for all her hard work! The sweet-toothed among us took up the chance to catch up with  The Canny Chocolate company, who spoke at one of our meetings this year. At a workshop we made truffles, chocolate bars, and tasted the best ever hot chocolate! Later in November Gillian Cain from Bowes Belles WI hosted a Christmas cracker making workshop at our meeting. They were fabulous and glittery, so thank you Gillian. We joined more than 100 WI members from the Federation at the Mother Goose panto at the Customs House in South Shields - what a hoot that was! A great show. And finally to top off our Christmas crafts, we made Christmas gnomes which were so lovely.

October

As autumn gets well underway we've lots going on at Washington Station WI. Our second supper club took place at Novello's in Washington, with more than half of our members coming along. We heard from Mitch Bridgewater at our monthly meeting. Mitch appeared in the Great British Sewing Bee after learning to sew during Covid. Ladies from across our Federation enjoyed a Festive Small Cakes workshop run by Margaret with special thanks to Katherine from Bowes Belles for all her help in arranging. And finally some of us got together for an evening out at Saba Indian restaurant in Sunderland. Big thanks to Joanne for organising.