The last couple of weeks have been filled with meetings, meetings and more meetings! I know that's not what the WI is thought to be about, but someone has to make arrangements for everything to happen, which is just what the Board of Trustees has been doing throughout July. The first board meeting after the AGM was held in June and there was so much to look back on, and even more to look forward to!

In September, the WI celebrates its 95th anniversary so the real countdown to 100 years will begin in earnest. I'm sure most of the 6,500-plus individual WIs will be planning special meetings or events for 2015, but in the meantime, I expect many a member, like me, will be making sure that the garden is tidy and the chairs plentiful in readiness for the extra garden meeting. If yours is like my WI, it meets in a member's garden in the month of August. Of course, we have the 11 formal meetings during the year but my WI has August as the holiday month, rather than, say, January, as I know many WIs do.

Anyway, I am bemoaning the lack of green grass – we need a deluge of rain to transform the garden’s scorched earth appearance before early August! As for the chairs, we have a few now; it's just the table that we need now for the bring and share supper dishes that will appear with each member. Perhaps there is one more ingredient – a fine evening! – otherwise the garden meeting becomes a house meeting. I'll keep you posted.