Thursday 21 October 2010

A busy week

A week ago I was in Bishop Aukland; this week I was in Ulverston in the Cumbria Westmorland federation to celebrate their ninetieth anniversary. I shared the bill with Gyles Brandreth, the very person who shared the bill ten years ago with a certain Prime Minister. He was as hilarious, as intelligent and as clever are ever; it is always such a treat to see him perform.

I always marvel at how swiftly we can travel around our country, and what beautiful scenery we can view at leisure from a train window. I had the pleasure of travelling past Morecambe Bay and the flatlands, which are now covered in grass with sheep grazing. The smooth dips and hollows of magical shapes full of shimmering water were really quite delightful and completely justified such an early start.

Yesterday it was back to 104 for a meeting of the Public Affairs Committee where bees and fast fashion, the next stage of the milk debate and ACWW were discussed, along with a whole host of other fascinating issues.

We met with the new World President and Treasurer of ACWW last week, May Kidd and Alison Burnett respectively; to discuss the many projects WI members had funded during the last year, and future involvement with the UN Women's Commission.

It never ceases to amaze me just how many other organisations the WI has been involved with at their inception over the last ninety five years. The British Standards Institute recently revealed to us that the WI was one of the founders of the original committee on standards some 60 years ago in 2011, which is just another string to the bow that was fired at the time of our Keep Britain Tidy era in the early 50s.

I was lucky enough to hear Bill and Melinda Gates speak at the Science Museum about international aid on Monday evening. Their latest venture, “Living Proof”, aims to demonstrate that international aid really does work, for example vaccination to prevent measles for children has to be a positive. I am eagerly awaiting the rest of the talk; unfortunately technological problems meant that it had to be cut short. I will, of course, share more when I can.

P.S. By popular request, here is a photograph of my daughter’s wedding.