Date/Time: / 14 October 2014 / 20:00
Notes: / Kim Hayman
Committee Present:
WI Guests: / Debbie Baxter President
Sonia Harris Treasurer
Kim Hayman Secretary
Rachel Addy Vice President
Jennie Deller Social Secretary/Vice President
Gemma Dunleavy Assistant Treasurer
Lesley Earl WI Advisor
Chris Butterfield WI Advisor
Sue Sargent Trainee WI Advisor
October 2014 – Official Launch Night and Signing of the Constitution
Our official launch night was held on 14 October 2014 at the Old Coulsdon centre for the Retired. We had a fantastic crowd of 79 ladies and of those, 57 have signed up for membership of the WI. There were 25 new ladies who came to see what we are all about, this far exceeded our expectations and is a fantastic start to our new group.
Our president, Debbie Baxter said a few words welcoming everyone and explained what we had planned for the evening. She introduced Lesley Earl, our WI Advisor who oversaw both Debbie and Kim Hayman sign the WI constitution. We also had two other WI visitors, Sue Sargent and Chris Butterfield.
Kim Hayman gave out questionnaires to establish what the new members would like from the group. Sonia Harris and Gemma Dunleavy collected completed membership forms and cheques and sold raffle tickets, Rachel Addy, manned a table with forms asking for volunteers and Jennie Deller, ran the Halloween Cupcake table.
We held a raffle which made £72 for the group and a fun quiz, with pictures of the committee members and five facts about each of them for people to guess who was who. The cupcake table was great fun and we had intended to run a competition for the best cupcake however not many survived and were quickly eaten!
Dawn Biggs started our first sub group. The book club seems to a popular idea and the first group will meet on Tuesday 21 October at 7.30pm in the Tudor Rose.
It was a very enjoyable and busy evening with some of our first volunteers serving glasses of celebratory "bubbles", which seemed to go down very well!
It was a very successful evening and to capture this historic event Becky Newton took some photographs for the group scrapbook.
Next meeting: Tuesday 11 November.