The president welcomed visitor Leonie, and thanked Carrie for the beautiful flowers.

The next lunch will be at the Island Pool on April 27 at 12.30pm.

The next meeting in May will be the AGM. The Annie Harrison plate will be awarded to the baker of the best tray bake - so all hands to the kitchen! The evening will include a buffet supper, which will be bought out of the bursary received from Group. There will also be a display of jewellery and handbags - a light hearted end to the more serious AGM.

On April 25 we are organising a Vintage Tea at the Parish Rooms, to mark 100 years of WI. This will be open to everyone, so please try to sell as many tickets as possible.

It has been decided that the Raffle proceeds at each meeting will be given to a charity of our choice.

Members were asked to nominate.

This evening the raffle raised £38 which will be given to the Kemp Hospice.

Doreen had visited Joyce Pratt, who was in remarkably good form and spirits! She hopes to be able to attend the AGM next month. Doreen had taken flowers and she read out Joyce’s thank-you letter to the members.

It was revealed that this is the 50th anniversary of Doreen joining the WI way back, and she was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers to reward her for her devotion.

We then had a demonstration of Thai cookery from Nok. She made spring rolls, pad Thai noodles, and brought with her a Thai curry, all of which we tasted. We all saw the simplicity of Thai cooking, but were astounded at the diversity of flavour in the dishes. It just goes to show that spicing can be subtle and fragrance, not necessarily ‘chilli hot’.

Finally, Christine talked about the WI resolution which we voted on.

There is a growing need for social and medical care for the increasing elderly population, at a cost which is difficult to sustain. The essence of the resolution was that the two divergent means of funding social as opposed to NHS health care should no longer be treated differently.

Most members agreed this was necessary but all questioned where the funding would be found.

The majority of members abstained from voting for or against as the overall view was that the resolution itself lacks focus and would be impractical to implement.

Notwithstanding, we thank Christine for the time and effort taken to research the facts and present them to us so concisely.