Authors, poets and campaigners support National Libraries Day open letter

To celebrate National Libraries Day the NFWI has published an open letter by prominent authors, organisations and campaigners.

WI members across England and Wales are celebrating National Libraries Day as part of the WI's Love Your Libraries campaign. 

Read the letter

Make your voice heard for libraries!

 Following huge support for the libraries resolution at the AGM, the NFWI has launched the Love Your Libraries campaign.

The NFWI has launched a petition calling on the Government to honour its commitment to champion the library service. We are hoping to gain 100,000 signatures and trigger a debate in Parliament on the issue.

You can sign the petition online via the Government's e-petition site here.

Do remember to encourage others to sign too!

For more information on the campaign, or for downloadable petition forms, please visit the Love Your Libraries campaign pages here.

The winner of a national challenge to capture on camera how dairy cows contribute to the British landscape has been announced.

The WI joined forces with the NFU to ask what can be done to safeguard the future of the British dairy industry and highlight some of the challenges facing dairy farmers.

Our competition set out to capture how dairy farmers contribute to the unique look of the British countryside and highlight why cattle grazing in fields is a vital part of our farming systems.  Devon WI member, Doreen Rew's image shows Holstein Fresian cows grazing in quintessentially lush British parkland in Devon's Culm Valley.

Photo: Holstein Fresian cows grazing in lush British parkland in the Culm Valley by Doreen Rews, Devon WI

NFWI Public Affairs Chair Marylyn Haines-Evans described the image as: "a beautiful and natural shot which really showcases the best of British countryside and dairy cattle grazing."

NFU campaigns and events officer Jon Chinery said: “Grazing livestock are hugely important to the ecology and environment of the hills, uplands and other grassland areas.We are delighted that this competition encouraged so many people to capture the role of dairy cows in this process on camera.

“Joining forces with the the WI for Mission Milk was an excellent opportunity to highlight some of the issues facing dairy farmers and work with a powerful national voice to call on consumers to actively look for British dairy products.”

Mrs Rew wins £250 of Farm Stay UK vouchers which can be spent in one of more than 1000 farms providing bed and breakfast and self-catering accommodation throughout the UK.

For more information visit www.thewi.org.uk/missionmilk or http://www.whyfarmingmatters.co.uk/latest-news/

On 21st May WI members and friends got together in London to talk fast fashion and swish clothes, accessories and shoes.

The event launched the 2011 Fast Fashion campaign, which calls on WI members to raise awareness of the environmental and social impact of clothing.

Swishers brought along up to five items of clothing, shoes and accessories to swap, and were issued with tokens to be exchanged for new items from the swish.

There was plenty of tea and cake on hand to keep swishers fuelled as they rifled the rails.

TRAID sewing experts were on hand to help swishers adapt their new finds - maxi dresses were turned into skirts and cardis into shrugs and the sewing machines were kept very busy. War on Want were also in attendance, collecting signatures for their Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops campaign.

All in all, a successful afternoon of swishing!

To organise your own swish event, download the Fast Fashion action pack for top tips.

Find out how to take action on the Fast Fashion campaign.

Photo: Claudia Gannon

Back in February we asked WI members to lobby the Government to accept this independent advice, and NFWI Chair Ruth Bond co-signed a letter to the Prime Minister, along with many other members of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition.

This announcement is a real success for our climate change campaigning, achieved thanks to the WI members and supporters of many other organisations that called on the Government to take action.

The UK is now the first nation in the world to set legally binding carbon reduction commitments past 2020. The budget will deliver cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of around 50 per cent by 2025 based in 1990 levels.

Thank you to all the WI members who took the time to send a message to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, or who lobbied their own MP on the issue.

In the UK, concern about the environmental impact of water extraction from rivers, as well as climate change, are leading to calls for us to rethink the way we value this precious resource.

The first stage of the campaign is a survey to find out members’ views on a whole range of water issues.

The results of the survey will help us feed into the Government’s work on the future of water charging and particularly the new mechanisms proposed to help those who find paying their water bills difficult.

The survey can be downloaded from the green box on the right.Please complete and return the survey to Water Survey, 104 New Kings Road, London, SW6 4LY by 1st June 2011. Survey responses will be kept completely anonymous.

The NFWI has been campaigning in conjunction with the Prison Reform Trust to end the inappropriate imprisonment of people with mental health problems since 2008; and yesterday’s event highlighted the success of the Care Not Custody campaign, as Ministers used this opportunity to affirm plans for reform by announcing a £5m scheme to divert mentally ill offenders from prison. Ken Clark acknowledged in his speech; “the WI has attracted all party support for care not custody, as well as the attention of successive governments."

The announcement, which strengthens the proposals laid out in the Breaking the Cycle green paper, commits the government to funding 100 diversion sites across the country in a bid to establish a national liaison and diversion service for mentally ill offenders by 2014.