Looking for more information

About how to look after the wildlife in your garden? Look no further than this link:  https://www.thehabitatgroup.uk/gardening-for-wildlife

Life on the Edge

 This morning Lynn, Fiona, Anj and I spent a couple of hours in the Chart Room café (it’s a hard life) discussing how we can all make the most of our Life on the Edge project. If you want a bit more information about the pollinators and plants they like, click on this link: https://www.southdevon-nl.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/LotE-Meet-the-species-optimised.pdf

Have you planted your pocket meadow yet? Preferably in a grass free area with fairly poor soil. You might be using some planters, tubs or a 1m square section of your garden. As long as it is in Brixham (& Churston, Jill H and Aldene!) as we need to make pathways for our invertebrates to follow inland. If you don’t yet have your seeds, we will be giving them out at our next Institute meeting on 16th April.

 A message to all members from the committee - please read to the end! 

We are aware that through the process of dealing with the waiting list and allocating spaces as they came up, there have been several times when women have come to Tina (or maybe their friends have) to say that they are sure they are on the waiting list, and when will they be called. We want to explain how the process Has been handled. Any woman who contacted Tina, or any member who gave me a name and email address, were noted in her book with the date of contact. As spaces arose, they were asked to join our Institute (in date order).
As time passed, the committee decided to close the waiting list and anyone after that was advised of this.
From time to time, Tina emailed the remaining ladies to ask if they were still interested. Those that did not reply were taken off the list.
From there we had a core of ladies, the earliest had come on the list in 2022, and these were invited to join for April 25 (and we had a bye-law to authorise this).
We took every application on the date of first contact, and so to hear there are women out there who think they are on the list is disturbing. So, to give everyone the chance to fill the few spaces we have, we have decided to do the following.
We will announce that applications are open on a certain date and time and the first ones to apply will get the place(s). We will publish this announcement after 16 April 2025 when everyone in our Institute has had the chance to rejoin. We will put it on the blog, and FaceBook (the old WI Members FB, which is open to all). People have to apply through our WI email, which will be published alongside. Calls to committee members or other routes will not be acceptable. This will disadvantage some, but we will accept emails from their friends who apply on their behalf.
This first come, first served approach is the fairest way we can think of, and the applications made by email will also be taken in time​//date order.

Cribbage on Wednesday 2nd April

 Cribbage tomorrow at Brixham Rugby club at 2.pm.

All welcome. Come and learn, or come and play.

I just discovered that the card turned over on the pack, is called the starter card. How many more points would you get if the starter card were a Jack?

Introducing….

 ….Wendy C’s, Fiona’s and

Loz’s bug house at home!

Recycling blister packs!

 It seems that both the Boots shop at Wren Retail park and the Superdrug in Torquay will recycle medicine & vitamin empty blister packs, free of charge.

There is a ‘but’! They won’t accept bulk recycling - see the photo above - so it is either not feasible for one or two of our members to collect and take all of our blister packs, as they would be pretty fed up of trying to post them all through a narrow slot!

So, we could pay for a bag from a specialist recycling company as indicated in the earlier post. (Not from WI funds, as I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t qualify under the WI and/or charity commission regulations) This would mean people to order the bag and bring it to a meeting then take it to a collection point.

Or, each of us remembers to take our own empty packs over to Superdrug in Torquay when we go there!

Here is the weekly calendar update…

 ……with advance notice of our next LotE meeting on 30th April, only 20 places available for Insect Surveying and Recording, meeting at Berry Head car park. There will be a sign up sheet at our next Institute meeting for this one.

In other news: all of the kind food donations you made at our March meeting were delivered to the Brixham Food Bank next to the Strand Bakery last week.