The 107th Essex County Annual Meeting was held on 22nd May at Grays Civic Hall and was attended by more than 400 WI Members. The meeting began with Jerusalem, led by Doreen Potter from Billericay WI. Moyra Jackson, Essex Federation Chair, welcomed us to the meeting and spoke about the many activities WI Essex has undertaken in the last year, including the ongoing sponsorship of Women’s Essex Cricket and Essex Women and Girls Rugby.
Sponsorship of Women’s Essex Cricket has paid for a softball cricket programme offering free to enter games, this year and next increasing from 8 team to 34 teams. So far, this is more successful than hardball cricket! As part of our sponsorship, WI members can benefit from free tickets to Essex Women’s and Sunrisers matches. Find out more from WI Essex.
Sponsorship of Essex Women and Girls Rugby for the last two season has allowed new kits for the under 18s and an ongoing increase in awareness of the WI and what we stand for as the team proudly wear our logo on their shirts.
We lost 9 WIs this year, with many members moving to other local WIs to continue their membership. Despite this, our membership has continued to grow this year.
The Essex Resolution
FEWI’s Resolutions Co-Ordinator, Laura Pisaneschi (Chafford Hundred WI) and the Resolution Proposer, Frances Simmons (Wanstead WI) launched an Essex Federation Resolution to improve Palliative and End of Life Care Services. The resolution was briefly introduced, and we were all invited to a free Zoom discussion on the 10th June 2024 at 7pm regarding the proposal. Laura and Frances will discuss the proposed resolution and to hear more about the proposal and the steps involved to get an Essex Resolution up and running to campaign level. Everyone is welcome – if you are new to resolutions, or have been following them for years, come along and hear about this important issue.
Sally Gunnell OBE was our guest speaker and she spoke about how she went from farmer’s daughter to Olympic medal winner. Sally told us of the many sacrifices she made to pursue her sporting dreams and what it takes to become a highly successful athlete. She spoke about resilience, dealing with setbacks and the effects of positive mindset, all things we can apply to our own lives. She finished by showing us a video of her winning the Gold medal for the 400m hurdles at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, it was a powerful moment which left us all in awe of her outstanding achievement.
We were entertained by Doreen Potter of Billericay WI who recounted several of her amusing mishaps and interactions with the locals not long after she had moved to Billericay from ‘the frozen North’ as she called it.
We also had entertainment from Paulus and Michael Roulston with ‘Waiting for Me Friend’ a Victoria Wood tribute. Paulus sang many of Victoria’s famous songs and regaled us with many of her famous sketches and told us all of the impact she had on him personally throughout his life.
Other parts of the day included the opportunity to take part in the raffle with some fabulous prizes to be won! We also had the opportunity for some retail therapy with a range of sellers attending with their goods which included gin, cheese and pies, a fine selection of bags, clothing and accessories. We also had the chance to get to know what WI Essex is doing across its many activities including Show the Love and the many events, workshops and outings they organise.
The meeting closed with Doreen Potter leading us in the National Anthem.
