Inner Wheel Aims and Objectives
Click Here to find out more about The Innerwheel Club of Church Wilne and Inner Wheel.

With no speaker visiting it was good to have a meeting with minimal business and much fun and friendship.
 
Kathleen lit the candle of friendship nearly setting herself of fire, much to the amusement of some. Yvette gave a briefish report from the International Convention that took place in Manchester from 7th to 10th May. Fantastic with over 2300 Members in attendance from 35 different countries. All put in place by District 22 Members Pam McConnell MBE and the late Margaret Day during lockdown in 2020/2, when they made a bid for GB &I to hold the Convention in the Manchester for the Centenary year 2024.

Jenny Lord received a gift for her special birthday from President Margaret.

Jane Page then set us a challenging quiz to guess the meaning of a number of unusual words. With a choice from three possible definitions, all of which seemed implausible for most of us it was a matter of guessing, some doing better than others. The best guesser was Christine Talbot and the not so good was Jenny Lord both receiving appreciated prizes.
 
Thank you Jane. It was fun.

Everyone likes to celebrate a birthday and Inner Wheel are no different so on Sunday 12^th May we enjoyed a special Sunday Lunch for the Club's 37^th birthday.

President Margaret was delighted to welcome 49 members and guests including District Chairman Mary Hind and her husband Richard, Claudia Jeffrey, President of Long Eaton Inner Wheel and President of Church Wilne Rotary Club Nigel Roberts and his wife Jane. It was a wonderful afternoon of fun, friendship and fellowship.

As you would expect at a birthday celebration there were also candles with the Candle of Friendship being lit by Margaret Lane and the Candle for International Inner wheel being lit by Jan Stopher Clark. Also, Cakes. A Charter Cake made by Andrew Thomas and skilfully decorated by Jane Page plus a small cake for Ken Watson the husband of founder member Rosemary, also celebrating a birthday."

Below a selection of photographs from our special time together.

Our meeting began with Susan Stalker lighting the Candle of Friendship and as you can see from the photograph she was happy to do so.

President Margaret was delighted to welcome Denise Hawley from the Hope Food Bank to our meeting. Denise started by thanking everyone for their very generous donation of many tins and packets of food which will be much appreciated by the recipients. A figure of 100 in tins, which had reached 3 tins high, part of our 100 for 100 Challenge.

Denise demonstrated a 3-day basic one person food bag – which contains breakfast cereal, coffee / tea, snacks, UHT milk, bread, eggs, rice and pasta and tins of both meat, vegetables and puddings ( usually rice pudding ). She admitted there is little choice but then, the clientele has nothing and are usually grateful for their bags.

She explained the need for the charity how over the 12 years she has worked there the clientele change a little, from single parents, "children" coming out of care at 18, sufferers of domestic violence, asylum seekers and refugees and, more recently, pensioners and people with pets who may be able to afford to look after themselves but not their beloved pet as well – so the stock of pet food is increasing with assistance from the RSPCA.

There are collection points in local Co-ops, Sainsbury's as well as traders who drop by with end of the day goods – fruit and vegetables, sandwiches, cakes, etc. – but they cannot pass on out-of-date foodstuffs.

The charity assesses the clients at the Centre and works with other agencies ( Citizen's Advice Bureau, Reed Partnership, as well as Social Services, the Police, NHS, GPs and Housing Associations ) to try to help people in need to give control to their lives, to create a little calm in their chaos and to look to their future through work, etc.

Due to the diversity of the clientele, the charity not only gives out food, but toiletries, clothes, bedding, kitchen equipment, glassware, pictures and books all of which can be second-hand but toys must be new.

It is hoped that in the future our members may be able to visit the Hope centre. It certainly gives its clientele "Hope".

One of the highlights of the Church Wilne calendar is the trek across the county to eat lots of good food in great company. The hosts for the main course were Ann Austin, Ann Gregory, Jane Groves, Margaret Key and Stephanie Cook.

After the main course it was off to President Margaret's home for puddings. Made by Anna, Cheryl, Diane F, Ann G, Jane G, Margaet L , Jan and Rosemary they all look very tempting. A lovely evening of fellowship and fun raised an impressive £350 for the President's charity account.

To quote President Margaret it was "a wonderful evening, with lots of laughter, great conversation, and sharing time with good friends."

Every year we have a joint meeting with our friends from the Inner wheel Club of Long Eaton. This year it was our turn to be the hosts. 14 ladies from Long Eaton including their President Claudia Jeffrey joined us at The Royal Oak. Claudia lit the Candle of Friendship and President Margaret inducted our new member Chris Talbot.

After a hearty meal and the briefest of business meeting possible the fun began. Pauline and Freda demonstrated the craft activity showing us beautifully decorated Easter Eggs. With intense concentration we set about perfecting our own which were all added to the Easter Egg tree. Some found their own unusual places to show their eggs!

We also marked the forthcoming anniversaries of two members: Jan and her husband David are celebrating their 40th Anniversary and Shirley and her husband John their 50th Anniversary. Congratulations to both couples.

Every year District 22 holds a quiz which is organised by the District Chairman and her Club. This inner Wheel year it was arranged by District Chair Mary and the Ravenshead Club. All was set for this to be at St Peter's Ravenshead when disaster struck. The hall had been double booked and DC Mary had the short straw of finding an alternative. Much effort was made but there were none to be had until the Methodist Church at Whittington Moor near Chesterfield moved two pre booked events to other parts of the church so that the District Event could take place.

Our intrepid quizzers Jane Markwell, Ann Gregory, Margaret Key and Jan Stopher Clark duly made their way on this February evening, taking a feast with them to see them through. Whilst they didn't win they did really well against tough competition achieving 69 points with the winning team managed 75, finishing with the third highest score.

As District Editor, I attended the quiz to act as a scorer. Even with the answers I often could not work out what the question would be!!

Meanwhile back at The Royal Oak the monthly meeting also involved a quiz. After Stephanie Cook lit the candle of friendship and business was quickly finished, those at the meeting had a fiendishly difficult quiz set by Ann Austin. The worthy winners were Susan Stalker, Pauline Sheehy-Smith and Anna Corner who were presented with a pot of miniature daffodils each. A lovely evening of fun and friendship.

Judie Anderson opened the meeting by lighting the Candle of Friendship. President Margaret was delighted to welcome Shirley Walker to be a new member of the Club. She also presented Margaret Key with an Orchid to celebrate Margaret and Michael's Golden Wedding Anniversary coming up in February.

After quickly completing the business, Margaret introduced District Chair Mary Hind.
Mary spoke to us about her personal life – her training as a teacher and then changing to HR in a very male environment in the police force and the challenges that gave. She concluded with a quotation from Dame Judi Dench which she feels applies to Clubs and members. "Prioritise the uniqueness that makes you, you and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit. These are the things which will only get better."
She was presented with a cheque for her charities - Derby Women's Centre and Nottingham Women's Centre.

We rounded off the evening with two very lively games of Bingo with Diane Fleming acting as the caller. The first game was won by Jenny and the second by Kathleen.

With flooding in several areas including Risley and Elvaston for many of us the trip to The Malt at Aston-on-Trent was quite a trial but the tasty food, good company and presents from Santa made the effort worthwhile.

Church Wine members, and guests were treated to an afternoon with Linda Smith. Linda is a regional flower demonstrator who showed us how she creates some of her fabulous designs. This year Linda's theme was 'The Sounds of Christmas'.

Linda used easy to obtain flowers and foliage with a few unusual finds mixed in. 4 designs were created on stage; The crackle of a log fire, Church Bells, The Salvation Army, and Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Bright orange roses and big chrysanthemums represented the flames of the crackling log fire, with eucadendron for the embers.

Big white star chrysanthemums showed off the boldness of church bells, with sea holly shining like the colour of the bell.

The beautiful big white anthurium flowers represented the angel wings with feathery white lisianthus for 'Hark the Herald angels sing'.

Further designs previously made using supermarket bunches and garden foliage showed how simple and cost effective it can be to create your own design at home. These designs represented the sounds around the Christmas Tree, reminding us Christmas isn't about colour, it's about technicolour.

All of the displays were raffled off at the end, the raffle and the sale of the tickets raised a wonderful £598 for President Margaret's chosen charity; The Derbyshire Carers Association.

A big THANK YOU LINDA

Christine Hewitt lit the candle of friendship to welcome us to the meeting.

Business was quickly out of the way. We then celebrated with Stephanie Cook her imminent birthday with a "0" and her good fortune continued when she won the raffle. Something of a dubious pleasure as she will need to remember to bring the prize for the January draw!

This is traditionally the start of Christmas for us with a craft evening. Today was no exception as we listened to some beautiful harmonies and were invited to join in, honing our vocal cords ready for the festive season. We were entertained by Draycott Sounds, a local choir that sings in four-part harmony.

What a feast we had starting with God rest ye Merry Gentlemen. Followed by:
•         Away in a Manger/Cradle Song (blended together)
•         Unchained Melody with fantastic harmonies
•         Once in Royal David City
•         Good King Wenceslas look'd out - in the style of the Beatles
•         The very moving "You are the reason"
•         Carol of the Bells from "Home Alone"
•         In my Life – a Beatles song with a very different arrangement
•         A poem written and performed by Alan Baseley – "Grandads"
•         O Little Town of Bethlehem
•         Sound of Silence by Paul Simon
•         O Come all ye faithful
•         Silent Night Holy Night – based on a poem written in 1843 and put to music in 1847
•         From Sweet Charity – the Rhythm of Life. A great foot tapper
•         A Christmas medley and then the grand finale -
•         Hark the Herald Angels Sing
 
They really did sing like angels but I have to admit that my absolute favourite was the arrangement of Paul Simon's Sound of Silence.
 
Thank you Draycott Sounds, Musical Director Christine Hunt and pianist Kathryn Brown.

Risley Village Hall time travelled back to the 1970's when 51 people arrived to rock the night away to the sound of Bob Allen with his singing and disco music. The social team had been very busy making sure that the hall looked the part and so did the attendees with many in fancy dress.

The "singalong" quickly became a dance and singalong with President Margaret, Jane and Anna showing us their "tiger feet" before being joined by all the members for a "locomotion conga" around the hall, looking for the way to "Amarillo", and finishing off in "New York, New York!".

There was a prize for the best fancy dress. In tribute to the era the winner's prize was a bottle of Mateus Rose and he was selected from a group of ten by the audience being a "Clapometer". The 70's theme also applied to the meal although in a box not a basket – Scampi and chips followed by Arctic Roll with retro sweets available on the tables.
 
Everyone had a whale of a time and President Margaret raised £298 for her chosen charities.

Jane Groves lit the candle of friendship to welcome us to the meeting.

For a number of years Church Wilne ladies have been supporting the Salvation Army Christmas appeal buying presents that were suitable for children ranging from age 0 – 16 years. Majors Elaine and Mark Holder from Derby-Central, came to speak to us about the campaign for this coming Christmas.
 
Their talk started with last year, when Derby Central Salvation Army provided over 800 Christmas parcels for children who may not otherwise have received a gift on Christmas Day. Not just one gift but a gift bag containing a few parcels to unwrap, some stocking fillers and a Christmas selection box. They are expecting to be asked to provide a similar or greater number of gift parcels this coming Christmas. Families are referred to them often by social services. The information they receive is limited to the child's initials, age and gender.
 
A suggested list of gifts is set out below or go to their web page for links to their Amazon wish list and Just Giving donations page where you can also include gift aid if appropriate.
 
If you want to donate a gift bring it to the November meeting. Pauline Sheehy-Smith will be taking donated gifts to the two Majors.
 
For more information and to see how to give go to www.salvationarmy.org.uk/derby-central

Donna Barnes lit the candle of friendship to welcome us to the meeting.

President Margaret then presented an orchid to Susan Vassey to mark her upcoming special birthday.

Jo Askew from Derbyshire Carers Association was our speaker. Jo described carers as the second NHS. They are largely unseen and care for people in their own home. DCA offer services to young carers from age 5 – 18 through a dedicated young carers' service and also to adult carers. Supporting the physical and mental health needs of the carer to enable them to continue caring.
 
They can offer advice and help to engage in the community. Provide support groups and work with volunteers. They can create a plan for "you", the carer to access different services and make connections for themselves.

Listening to Jo's presentation it is clear how important this is to the individuals and what valuable work they undertake. A worthwhile organisation for us to support this Inner Wheel year.

The gathering of both Inner Wheel and Rotary in a garden at the start of the new IW and Rotary year is something of a tradition. Gary and Margaret Abbott's garden was looking lovely. The gazebos were up, the tables and chairs set out.
 
Margaret and Nigel (Roberts), Church Wilne Rotary Club President, looking resplendent in their chains of office. Despite the gathering clouds the members begin to arrive, the tables are set up and the "fizz" begins to flow. With plentiful food and lots of chatter a good time was had by all. The rain in the main held off!

The highlight of the summer period was the visit to Bromley House Library. Built in 1752 originally owned by George Smith, a draper who became linked to banking in Nottingham but who's fortunes changed under his son's ownership when the property fell into disrepair. It became the Nottingham Subscription Library in 1816 and has remained that ever since. Now a collection of over 60,000 "objects" which include books dating back to 1821. Still operating as a private lending library behind an unassuming façade on Angel Row, well worth a visit. Surprise awaits at the top of the building where there is an unassuming wardrobe but what lies behind it. Visit to find out. The spiral staircase also has a tempting banister but the ladies of Church Wilne managed to resist – just!
 
The visit lasted for two hours and was followed by a delicious meal at Bistro Pierre.

Rosemary Watson lit the candle of friendship to welcome us to the meeting.

It is aways a pleasure to introduce new members to the club and Margaret's first duty at her first full meeting as our President was to induct Judie Anderson and Christine Hewitt. Margaret reminded us all of our three aims and objectives.
        To promote true friendship
        To encourage the ideals of personal service
        To foster international understanding.

To mark the amazing landmark for Rosemary and Ken Watson of their 65^th Wedding Anniversary, President Margaret gave Rosemary a beautiful orchid and Rosemary gave us some delicious shortbread. Further celebrations marked Susan Stalker having a birthday ending with a "0".

Joyce being back with us was presented with the Josie Graham trophy by Immediate Past President Jane Page.

We were then entertained by member Kathleen Wain who treated us to the "Ferrero Roche chocolates", but not the gin 😊. She gave us an insight into her career that took her to London and then around the world, moving every three years to another assignment. Meeting her husband and bringing up their daughter. She has now settled in Derbyshire but is she getting itchy feet again! We all sincerely hope not.

Freda lit the candle of friendship to welcome everyone to the June Meeting.

The June meeting is in two parts, the general business and the Annual General Meeting. It is a time for the President to reflect on her year and for Jane it has certainly been very busy. It was also the time to announce the winner of the Josie Graham award. Josie was a founder member of the club and President in its inaugural year. Roger her husband asked that Josie could be remembered in years to come by the presentation of a trophy in Josie's name to a member who rises to a challenge that is to be set at the beginning of each new inner wheel year by the President. This year being the first the challenge was set for a photograph depicting spring. Out of many entries the winner selected by Roger was Joyce Stokes photograph of shrubs in her garden. .

With the business done it was time for Jane to pass the chain of office over to Margaret Abbott our 37th President.

Margaret's first acts as President were to thank Jane and to mark Pauline and Derek Sheehy-Smith's forthcoming Ruby Wedding Anniversary. She then introduced herself to the Club by giving a brief overview of her life and her plans for her year as our President. Her chosen charity is Derbyshire Carers Association Click Here to go to their Homepage