“The founder members all met up as new mums at a mother and baby group in early 2007. We really looked forward to our one afternoon a week together and started to meet occasionally in the evening. Towards the summer of that year, a lot of us started to go back to work and we were concerned that we may lose touch if we didn’t make the effort to meet up. Suzanne, our vice president, wondered whether there was a WI in the area as generations of her family had been involved in the WI in the past. It seemed like a good idea as it would bring us together with other women in the area so that we could socialise and learn more about ourselves and new skills.”

“I made inquiries through the website to see where our local WI was and I discovered that there had historically been a thriving Saddleworth WI, but it had disbanded through lack of new recruitment. Our founder members agreed that we would try and re-start the Saddleworth WI from scratch. The advantage of this was that we had a blank canvas and we could steer the group in a way that we had imagined – more modern, progressive and open to all. We wanted to challenge people’s perceptions of the WI and break the mould, while retaining the core values of the WI.”

“Most of the ladies who are part of the group either have children or pressurised jobs or both and it is a great way of spending some ‘down time’. For others, it is a great way of meeting people, particularly if they are new to the area or have difficulties meeting people in their day to day lives. We realised that while Saddleworth had a number of successful voluntary groups, it was lacking something for women of all ages who could go out, meet new people, have fun and learn new skills. Our members enjoy hearing from our speakers but they equally enjoy the social time after the speaker where they can relax, interact with each other and see what is happening with the sub groups.”

“To date, a lot of our meetings have been devoted to getting started. However, our December 2008 meeting was particularly memorable. We had ‘booked’ our singing group to lead our Christmas songs and carols. However, it was a particularly snowy evening and the singing group couldn’t make it. That left the committee at the front of the room with 60 odd women waiting for a sing-song! After a good supply of mulled wine, we decided to free-style the evening and lead the carols. The ‘row-by-row’ rendition of ‘the 12 days of Christmas’ was an excellent bonding exercise and the talking point for the next month.”

“In the future we hope that we can continue to provide the service that we have promised to our ladies and retain our membership numbers in 2010 – we are looking forward to an exciting year ahead with activities including: a demonstration of holistic therapies, belly dancing, a talk on the importance of Fair Trade, and Christmas cake decorating.”