Competition - AN AMUSING QUOTE

Come along with your ideas for speakers, and a bowl, spoon and glass

Competition - FRUIT

Competition - INSECTS

A fun evening was enjoyed by a lot of our members, as they were tutored in how to draw a naked male life model. All the results were definitely recognisable as a person - well done everyone !

An interesting talk was given by Gary, about some notorious characters of London, and the crimes they committed

A useful evenings instruction in how to use the Defib. A lot of us would now feel more comfortable in knowing what to do, although we hope the situation doesn't occur

Competition - FISH

Grovelands, Roughton - 6.45pm for 7pm

Please remember to bring your Secret Santa gift and card

Please bring a plate and a glass

An informative evening was led by Neale from Clapham and Collinge, a local solicitors, detailing wills and LPA's.  There were lots of questions which Neale took the time to answer, and then sent us off with lots to think about and act on.

A fun evening was had by all, playing a game of social bingo. This entailed us going round each other with a bingo card to find people that matched the clues on the squares.  It was a good opportunity to chat, find out more about each other, and speak with people we might not get the chance to usually.

Please bring a bowl and spoon

We welcomed back Julie Porter, who again entertained us with another murder mystery to solve.  There were lots of red herrings along the way, but a good team of detectives solved the murder by the end of the evening !

We were entertained by Gal Tina, who told us tales of her life since childhood, through stories and poems, as she recalled people she had met. Many of the stories were very humorous and it was a lovely evening

For our May meeting, we were treated to an evening with Kevin aka Miss Dee Licious. Kevin briefly told us about his life and previous careers, and how he became a drag artist. He presented an evening on the artistry of make up for his drag act, and showed a video of how detailed it all is.

The evening was extremely enjoyable, with plenty of questions asked, and we all admired the wigs, and even more so the shoes, which the majority of us decided we wouldn't be able to stand up in, let alone walk !!

A highly recommended entertainer, and very likely we will be inviting Kevin back before too long.

Mark and Eddie gave a presentation of the work of Cromer Green Spaces and how they help maintain areas around the town, to benefit the wildlife.  Volunteers help with activities throughout the year, such as scything the wild flower meadows, and there is also an annual competition for the best wildlife gardens, which 2 of our members have previously won.  This year in particular the concentration has been on increasing the bee population by having public events and encouraging the planting of wild flowers.

Keith Jones, from the North Norfolk Astronomy Society (NNAS) , gave a very informative talk to our members on basic astronomy.  He went through the planets, explaining their characteristics, such as Venus being the hottest and upside down - spinning the other way to all the others!  We were also shown the variations in size of each planet with the use of various round objects, all to scale.  On the way home I am sure many of our members were staring into the night sky to see if they could pick out any of the planets !

An evening of bingo was enjoyed by our members - thanks to Liz and Gill for organising the games and prizes.

After the business part of our meeting where we voted on the resolutions, we had time for socialising over a bowl of homemade soup and bread.

The Cliftonville Hotel - 7pm

Please pay Anthea, and send your menu choices to Pam

November's meeting was a very informative illustrated talk from Peter, on the history of the Jarrolds store.  He told us how all the first born males in each generation were named John until more recently.  The original John was born in 1745, and after being orphaned at the age of 12, started to write down 13 things needed to be a good tradesman.  When he received his inheritance at 21 he moved to Woodbridge where he opened a shop and put the skills into practice.  At one point the entire Jarrolds business was stolen by a solicitor (Cooper) but years later he paid back the family.  Further Johns ran the business over the years, opening a shop in Norwich in 1823. Over the years they expanded, buying a mill to print from, as that was their main business, and opening further branches, including London.  The business still evolves to this day, owns more buildings around the original Norwich store, has franchises instore, instore dining, property development, business services, community involvement, and the John Jarrold Trust that gives to good causes, especially education and the arts.  We all learnt a great deal.

The meeting was followed by the AGM, overseen by WI Adviser Gail, and the election of the Committee and officers for 2025 took place, along with the anuual reports.

Based at Milton Keynes, Medical Detection Dogs was formed 15 years ago.  The centre trains bio detection dogs, and medical alert assistance dogs.

There are over 300 million sensory receptors in a dogs nose, and the bio detection dogs are trained to respond to specific disease fingerprints. They work for up to 20 mins, 3 times a day, and live with a volunteer fosterer.  They are working on projects being trained to recognise Parkinsons, malaria, Covid-19, prostate cancer and animal cancers.  The charity is also working with others to create an E-nose for the future.

There are currently 14 breeds used as the medical alert dogs, which take 18 months to 2 years to train. They support people with complex health conditions when they are in danger, or having a potentially life-threatening medical alert, helping to prevent hospital admission. They can alert people to things such as Diabetes type 1, nut allergies, PoTS

It was a very interesting talk, and we were all amazed at what the dogs could do, both medically and as assistance dogs.

The meeting consisted of members making suggestions for next years programme - speakers, outings, fundraising events etc., and then after all the hard work we enjoyed cheese and wine together.

Everyone had an excellent evening, felting a sheep card.  One of our own members, Hilary, provided us all with similar kits, and after instructions we all got to work.  All of the resulting cards were great, and it was interesting to see the various designs made.  At the end of the evening one was selected by Hilary as our competition winner for the month (Lin)

Jane told us how she had started with 1 medlar tree, received by herself and her husband, as a wedding gift in 2010. After receiving some medical treatment, she became aware of the health properties of medlars, and wanted to give something back to the local hospital as a thank you for her successful treatment, and some of the proceeds of the sale of her produce are used for this. 

Jane now has several trees (her orchard is a Plant Heritage National Collection) and grows the fruit, handmaking preserves and educating people about the fruit. The medlar is a member of the rose family, and native to Turkey and around the Caspian Sea.  There is evidence it arrived here with the Romans.  The tree flowers in May and fruits are ready to harvest November time.  They are stacked in crates until they blet (ripen) and then they are used in jellies, chutneys etc.  They have a medicinal use and can be helped to treat various digestive issues, and are a rich source of nutrients.

Jane's talk was very informative and you could feel her enthusiasm for reviving the medlar.

This was a return visit from Megan, after the success of her previous talk. 

She explained that Blickling meant 'water meadow around the stream' and that the original footprint of Blickling Hall was created in 1378.  Anne Boleyn was born in the house, prior to the current building, and it had only been owned by 2 families. The current house was built by Sir Henry Hobart.

There are 4,600 acres in the estate, along with the mausoleum (Pyramid), a temple and a tower (built as a grandstand for horseracing).  There are lots of buildings the estate looks after including a mill and school building, and of all the NT properties there are the most buildings to look after at Blickling.  In the house there are Jacobean features such as the ceilings, which are rare to find. It houses the largest NT library in the country, with 12,000 volumes, which are still being catalogued.  The yew hedge along the driveway dates back to at least the 1700s.

Our instructor for the evening, Annamarie, told us all about how she had got into teaching exercise, before we joined in a short session of seated exercise.  She originally trained with the Womens League of Health and Beauty which started back in 1930, and whose motto was 'movement is life'. This later changed its name to 'Fitness League' and now Annamarie leads many classes for all ages, sexes, and abilities.

We had an exciting evening of ladies frantically searching in their handbags to find items being asked for by the 'caller'.  Some teams were particularly fast, while others seemed to be an item behind for a few of the turns.  In the end one team was runaway winners, and must have crammed lots of items into their bags in anticipation of what would be asked for.

Unfortunately our booked speaker had to cancel, so instead we were lucky enough to be able to welcome our own member, Brenda Stibbons, speaking about the history of Cromer Hospital, following the publication of her book on the subject.  

We learnt how, before Cromer had a hospital, the nearest was Norwich, reached by horse drawn transport. In 1866 Cromer cottage hospital was opened. It was the 2nd in Norfolk, and had 6 beds, with ladies forming the committee. The hospital expanded and moved several times in subsequent years, and eventually in 1932 it officially opened on its current site on Mill Road.

The evening commenced with the business part of the meeting. As we were all lookng forward to the promised desserts and wine, the voting and business were soon over, and the rest of the evening spent socialising, eating and drinking.

Competition - Silver

The evening started with a fish and chip supper, before the business meeting. Each resolution was presented by a WI member and then voted on. 

Competition - Black

A lovely evening of eating, chatting and dancing, was enjoyed by Roughton members at Cromer Country Club.  Everyone received a gift in the secret Santa, some openign them on the night, and others choosing to save them for Christmas Day.

Gary had been an officer in the British Transport Police, and his talk was full of humour as he recalled various parts of his career, and situations that had arisen.  It was a very interesting and enjoyable talk.

Juyna Lewis came to the UK as a child, from Bangladesh, with her parents.  As an 'incomer' she gave us an insight into people through the ages that were 'incomers', and asked us if we all thought we were - we agreed yes.

We were told how there was a Jewish community brought here with William the Conqueror, as they had money and expertise that he needed, and in 1158 they had a third of Norwich's wealth!

The Dutch came to Norwich, and brought canaries here, giving us the reason for the name and colour of the football team. They specifically bred the Norwich Plain Head canary.  The first printer in Norwich was also Dutch - Anthony de Solempne.

Juyna gave us details of other notable people, including Pablo Fanque, the first black circus owner, and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who fought with the Suffragettes for womens votes.

We were also reminded how, still to this day we have 'incomers', most recently the Ukranians.

The talk was very interesting, and caused several ladies to want to look further into some of the historical characters.

Please bring a plate, knife and a glass

Competition - White

At our August meeting, we were all asked to bring along a bunch of flowers, either from our gardens, or just a cheap supermarket bunch.  Liz, one of our members, and teacher for the evening, then provided us with a saucer and oasis, and bags of greenery to choose from, and encouraged us to create a flower arrangement.  We all had a great evening, and it was lovely to see how different everyones ideas were.

Our July meeting guest was Dr Amanda Hartley, who aims to inspire children to become scientists.  As part of her job, she looks and tests for genetic diseases, and helped to set up a forensic lab used by Norfolk police force.  

She now goes into schools and talks about DNA, and has written childrens books encouraging the reader to solve things using DNA, and to become scientists.  We were given a science lesson, made very interesting, and were told the basics of what DNA is - our own set of instructions that we are made from e.g. nails, hair, blood etc.  In our bodies we have 37 trillion cells, and each cell holds 2 metres of DNA.

All our tables were equipped with what we needed to extract the DNA from a banana, and we were then talked through the process.  At the end when we had conducted our own experiments, we were all amazed that we had managed to isolate the DNA, and that it was so easily visible to the naked eye.

It was a brilliant evening, and as we left, people could be heard chatting, and wondering if they had enough neat alcohol at home to carry out their own experiments !!!

It was a warm June evening, when our WI members (depleted in numbers due to several being on holiday) arrived for our meeting , in anticipation of an evenings entertainment of step dancing.  Our speaker/instructor was Fiona Davies, and she was accompanied by Malcolm (better known to locals as Razz the Clown).

Fiona told us how step dancing had been brought here in the 1600's by Flemish weavers, in the form of a clog dance, and that they would have danced to the rhythm of the looms.  It is a working class dance, and was popular in Norfolk with fishermen, farmers and gypsies - the fishermen would have worked on the farms in the Winter and met with these people, quite often at horsefairs.

Fiona told us how there are no wrong steps, and that it was more of a freestyle dance, and you become the percussion to the music.  It is a solitary dance, and traditonally flat soled, leather shoes would be worn, and you would dance with your hands by your sides.  The music would mostly be the tempo of a hornpipe, although sometimes a jig or even a waltz.  It is a good form of exercise for keeping fit.

After Fiona demonstrated some dances, we were all invited to join in.  Those who were able to, stood in a circle, while those who wanted to remain seated were able to join in too if they wished, sitting in their seats.  Finally we were invited to dance 'solo' and a few members chose to do this - some with lots of enthusiasm !!!!  We had an lovely evening, and were relieved to be able to sit down and recover during the business part of our meeting !

At our May meeting, we listened to a very interesting talk from the National Trust's Megan Dennis, Property Curator, from Blickling Hall.

She told us all about their daily battles with various insects, and the ways they try to treat and eradicate the pests.

Clothes moth infestations are being dramatically reduced by the use of special micro wasps that kill the clothes moth larvae.

The holes we see in furniture are caused by the furniture beetle (woodworm) and are where the adults have emerged. Anoxic treatment is used, which starves them of oxygen.

Death watch beetle is evident by hearing their tapping - which is where they get their name from, as in folklore when someone died at night, the person keeping vigil could hear the beetles tapping, associating it with death.

Silver fish are wingless, nocturnal insects. They dine on starch and particularly liked the wallpaper and paste in the Chinese bedroom. We were told that unfortunately Blickling currently has highest number of silver fish in a NT property - a claim to fame they are aiming to lose !

Megan illustrated the talk with a power point presentation, and lots of people left at the end of the evening ready to do battle with the insects in their own homes !

Unfortunately the speaker cancelled, and instead we held a chaotic Beetle Drive.

After the business part of the meeting(s), members took part in some Valentines Day related acitivities - table quizzes and the eating of heart shaped biscuits !  

We started the meeting with the months business.  Resolutions were read to the members, to remind them of the options to vote on, and then there was a show of hands to vote on our preferred option.

Members also enjoyed a tasty fish and chip meal from The Fish Shop, Roughton. 

7pm Cromer Country Club 

A thoroughly enjoyable evening was once again had by all.  We enjoyed great food, exchanging secret santa gifts, and then danced the night away to a live DJ.

A lovely evening was had by all, as we enjoyed a selection of winter desserts made by committee members, and then a beetle drive, organised by Sue S.

An interesting evening about the role of a magistrate was presented to us by Andrea and Tony, who are both JPs, one in the family court, and the other, criminal.

We were told how magistrates sit as a bench of 3, and that the role is unpaid.  It is open to people from all walks of life, and between the ages of 18 and 75.  In England and Wales there are 16,000 magistrates, all of whom swear the judicial oath.  All the cases heard have a legal adviser present to implement the Law.

Everything starts at the magistrates court, and depending on the persons plea, they could then work their way up through the court system.  

After a very informative talk, and the chance to ask questions, we were given some scenarios to discuss, in small groups, and see what fine or punishment we felt they should receive.  This resulted in several varying opinions, some being quite severe and others feeling more lenient.  Tony then told us all what the actual outcomes would have been in the court.  At least we now all know who we would prefer to have judging us in a court room !!!

Please bring a plate, knife and glass.

An opportunity to socialise whilst joining in some table games.

The speaker at our July meeting, was Steve Norgate, a chef. He had previously been head chef at a nearby hotel, but was now running his own company, Chef Norgate, where he does mobile catering for dinners, parties and events, and has just taken on the training of some new chefs for a local establishment.

He spoke about taste, and how adding various ingredients creates a chemical reaction and can change the flavour. We were given a small sample of a tomato with sugar and salt added, and piece of chicken with lemon, and then he fried some choux pastry with added strawberries and salt and pepper. Some members who hadn't tried adding some of these seasonings before, were surprised to find how the taste was enhanced.

A very warm and energetic evening was enjooyed by all those attending

Linda gave a highly entertaining and very amusing talk, about her years travelling around the world with her husband Jim, and the US Airforce.  We would all have been quite happy listening to her for a lot longer!

Following on from a previous talk from Peter on Norfolk Gems, we enjoyed an very interesting April meeting, where he passed on more gems in part 2 of his talk. Everyone learnt something new, even people who had lived in Norfolk all of their lives, and it was commented that part 3 would be of further interest !

At our recent March meeting, our guest Katie, gave us a very informative talk on Henna.  We were all told about the history of it, and how it had originated in Egypt 9000 years ago, and how it is used for its healing and cooling properties.  We were also informed of the dangers of it if not used correctly or if obtained from a non- reputable supplier.  Several people were keen to actually use some, and we hope to arrange a workshop soon where we can do this.

We had several furry visitors (many of them male!!) at our February meeting. 

We were treated to a very informative talk from Susan, about the history of teddy bears.  This year in November it will be 120 years since they were created, and although most people know the story of the US one made for Roosevelt, in the same year Steiff created them too.  We were also told that bear collectors are called arctophiles!  Susan had some examples of bears she had made, from large to a very small one, that was fully jointed, and fits into her handbag!

After her talk, Susan looked at the bears that members had brought with them, and briefly told the owners a piece of information about them, such as age etc.

Our first meeting of 2022, started with a precis of each resolution, followed by a vote to choose our WI's most popular option.

Following the business part of the meeting, everyone present posed for a photo, with much hilarity, as balancing on chairs for the more able was necessary to fit everyone in!  We now have a nice new photo, taken by the husband of one of our members, and copies have been emailed to all the members, as well as added to the website.

At this meeting we also celebrated the 90th birthday of our WI's formation, with a birthday cake (made and decorated by 3 WI members), and of course some fizz !  The cake was cut by our president, Zoe.

Our December meeting, was an enjoyable evening out, as thirty of our members enjoyed a delicious Christmas meal at Cromer Country Club.

After we had eaten, a presentation was made to our out going President, Angela Newton, who has done a brilliant job over the last 4 years, and with steering us through the more recent Covid events.

Secret Santa gifts were exchanged, and then the more energetic among us enjoyed a time dancing the rest of the evening away.

We now look forward to 2022 and celebrating our 90th birthday at January's meeting.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Please see the latest newsletter that has been emailed to you, for information on prices and ordering your fish and chips.

Our meeting this month, was a long awaited Murder Mystery Evening, with Julie Porter, which had previously been cancelled due to Covid restrictions.

We all turned detective, and worked in small teams to try and solve the murder that had taken place in the village of Gravely, being given written and musical clues throughout the evening by Julie.

We all had our suspicions, and reasons for thinking who the killer was, but of course were not all spotting every clue. Some teams solved it correctly, while others had the right motive but wrong person.

We all had a great evening and will look at hosting another event in the future.

(Photo of Julie, the narrator in character)

Everyone was pleased to be able to attend our first meeting in the hall, after restrictions were lifted.

We were treated to a demonstration of how to make 3 different arrangements with easily found flowers and leaves, by Lynn, and a talk about arranging them and things we could add to our own arrangements at home.  The results were spectacular, and the arrangements were later raffled off to some delighted prize winners.

Unfortunately due to the latest Covid restrictions this meeting will take the form of a zoom meeting

Due to the current pandemic our meetings are held via Zoom. We review our meetings at our monthly Committee Meetings and our programme will be updated when new speakers are confirmed.

Due to the current pandemic our meetings are held via Zoom. The Committee review our programme on a monthly basis, our speakers have currently been confirmed up to and including our April meeting

Due to the current Pandemic our meetings are held via Zoom. We review our meetings at our monthly Committee meetings and currently our speakers for our meetings have been confirmed up to and including our April meeting.

Fish and Chips (£5 per member) 

Please bring a plate, knife, fork, glass and 3 pennies for judging the competition

Followed by Cheese and Wine 

Please bring a plate, knife, glass and 3 pennies for judging the competition.

Followed by Strawberries and Cream and a glass of sparkling wine.

Please bring a bow, spoon and glass and 3 pennies for judging the competition.

Meeting followed by Quiche and Salad 

Please bring a plate, knife, fork, glass and three pennies for judging the competition

Chinese food to be included

Bring and Share suppler please bring plate and a glass

Competion something Cream (Please bring three pennies for juding the competition.

Competition something Pink

Competition something Purple

Competion something Gold

Competition something Red

Please bring a bowl, spoon and glass.

Competition something Violet (pease bring three pennies for judging the competion)

Please bring a plate and glass.

Competition something brown (please bring three pennies for judging the competition)

Competition something Yellow

Competition something green

Please bring a plate, knife, fork and a glass.

Competition something Grey (bring three pennies for judging the competition)

Competition something blue