Coming up in April 2023 – update

Rebels, pencils, garden reporting, a gallery coffee and how to join us – coming up in April 2023

Monthly walk, Saturday 8th April, 11.00 – Meet at St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch, 119 Shoreditch High St, London E1 6JN

Natasha has been reading Rebel Footprints, a fascinating book by David Rosenberg about London's radical history, and that's been our starting point for our April walk. Read more in our April walk blogpost.

Monthly Meeting, Thursday 20th April, St. Margaret’s House, Old Ford Rd, E2 9PL 7.00pm for 7.30pm: 2B or not 2B – the secret life of pencils

Our Co-op speaker has had to cancel so stepping in will be our very own Lydia Thornley, with a talk first given at Nerd Nite London. Lydia likes pencils. People give her pencils. But she hardly ever draws with them. So she's packed her best pencil case and been off to find out more, via sheep, hot air balloons, string, artisan bread and pilots. Lydia will also update us on her project Dispatches from a Small World, reporting from her garden in sketches.

If the gate is locked when you arrive at St Margaret’s there will be a call bell on the right hand side at the back of the gate.

Monthly Coffee Meet-up, Friday 28th April – Join us between 10.30 & 11.00 Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, E1 7QX

Combine a coffee and chat with the chance to view the Gallery itself and maybe browse the bookshop with some of the profits going towards the Gallery's future exhibition and education programmes.

Join us!

Why not consider joining the WI if you don't already belong? April is an especially good month to join the WI

The WI is a unique organisation shaped by its members. In 1915, it set out to give women a voice and to be a force for good in the community.Today, it's the largest women’s organisation in the UK and we pride ourselves on being a trusted place for all women of all generations, to share experiences and learn from each other.

A WI membership offers the opportunity to meet, make friends and make a difference in our community.

Subscription this year is £46 for a whole year’s activities. We are able to offer a bursary to people in financial difficulty. For more information please email us at eastendwi@gmail.com.

Or come along to a few meetings, paying £5 each meeting, and see how you get along. The fee is reduced if you join later in the year.

Our March meeting

Art as a therapeutic force

Our member Sally Shanley has brought us, for our March talk, her hospital colleague Mr Steven Snooks: surgeon, barrister, minister, artist – and West Ham fan.

After decades as a surgeon, including 10 years as West Ham's surgeon. Steven is recently retired from the NHS and now from the private sector.

Cancer surgery is a difficult environment in which to communicate. There's an art to saying the right things, and to listening.

A lifelong, self-taught, painter, Steven asked himself how he might use visual art for wellbeing after surgery, both observing and taking part. 

He started a mindful art group in church – Steven is a lay minister. Then he began giving patients small paintings, for the feelgood factor and to help them visualise their treatment as a process.

One landscape represented the thicket of a diagnosis; another, a way out; a river, a journey; a beam of moonlight showing the way forward. One patient had two paintings, one representing a city in the midst of Covid, the other after vaccination, which helped her cope with the fear of moving forward. Another patient's painting gave her a mountain to climb. 

Some paintings are done in response to situations, others selected for patients. Some patients see in them what Steven does; others, something entirely different.

But they all helped the person come to terms with what was happening in a way that was supportive. And visualisation proved a powerful tool for 'survivorship', helping people move on after they have been discharged.

Our ever-lively Q&A discussed art in the pandemic, information overload, the newly-refurbished Turner galleries at Tate Britain and delved into Steven's polymath life.

In his 50s, just to stretch his brain, Steven did a law degree part time and was offered three places at Bar school... but he found legal practice hostile work against the relative kindness of his medical practice, to which he returned full-time.

So what of retirement? Well, Steven is now studying for a fine art degree and finding oil painting very different, and considerably messier, than watercolour and gouache.

And West Ham? His new grandchild has already been to a match...

A big thank-you to Steven for an interesting and insightful talk, to Natasha for standing in with WI news and notices (get well soon, Heather) and to Celya for the eagle-eyed purchase of our magnificently-sturdy new screen.

March coffee morning

Our March coffee morning is a week later than usual, on Friday 31st. Venue: The Nunnery Café, 181 Bow Road, opposite Bow Church. Meeting times flexible: join us at 10.30 if you're an early bird or 11.00ish if you prefer

We make a return trip to an old favourite, The Nunnery Café , Bow Road, part of Bow Arts. There's an exhibition to view and why not browse the shop, featuring a hand-picked selection of beautiful prints, pottery, clothing, books and other unique products made by Bow Arts artists.

Buses: 8,25,276, 488,205,108, 425, D8

Bow Church DLR, Bow Road, District Line

Our March 2023 walk

Walking the landmarks of the Great Fire of London

In sharp, early Spring sunshine that showed the City at its best, we walked the route of the City of London's Great Fire of London trail. 

Under the Millennium Bridge at low tide and along the Thames, where traders with combustible goods had, in panic, thrown them into the river to save them from the flames, we spotted mudlarks out searching the beach for finds. 

By way of some architecture-spotting, a turn-off past St Magnus the Martyr, rebuilt by Wren after the fire, to the Monument, then to Leadenhall Market (a special mention here for a small cake shop with an enormous chandelier), spotting commemorative plaques along the way. 

Onward, past a handsome statue of Reuter, the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England, we happened on the Goldsmiths' Company's garden before pausing at the Guildhall.

We love that everyone brings local knowledge to our walks and that led us to our coffee stop, at the café in the crypt of St Paul's (thank you, Natasha – none of the rest of us knew it was there!).

Fancy joining us on one of our interesting, chatty walks? Look out for our coming up posts and our members' newsletter. 

Coming up in March 2023

A walk through history and art as a therapeutic force – coming up in March

Walk – The Great Fire of London

Saturday 11th March 11.00

Meet at The City Information Centre, St Paul’s Churchyard EC4M 8BX

Walk some of the fascinating history of the Great Fire of London. You'll see the area where the fire started – now commemorated by a plaque, follow the route that people will have taken trying to escape the fire, including London Bridge, which at that time was the only bridge across the River Thames. Other sites you'll see include the Royal Exchange, Guildhall, Leadenhall Street and St Paul's Cathedral. The Monument was built to commemorate the Great Fire of London.

Monthly Meeting – Art as a therapeutic force

Thursday 16th March 7 for 7.30pm, St. Margaret’s House, Old Ford Rd, E2 9PL 

We welcome Mr Steven Snooks: Surgeon, Barrister, Minister, Artist – 

and West Ham fan!

Steven’s talk will feature a number of his paintings that he has shared with patients over the years. We're sure he will tell us more about his fascinating, multi-faceted life and career.

If the gate is locked when you arrive at St Margaret’s there will be a call bell on the right hand side at the back of the gate.

Coffee morning – Friday 31st March

The Nunnery Café, 181 Bow Road, opposite Bow Church

Meeting times flexible: join us at 10.30 if you're an early bird or 11.00ish if you prefer

We make a return trip to an old favourite, The Nunnery Café , Bow Road, part of Bow Arts. There's usually an exhibition to view and why not browse the shop, featuring a hand-picked selection of beautiful prints, pottery, clothing, books and other unique products made by Bow Arts artists.

Buses: 8,25,276, 488,205,108, 425, D8

Bow Church DLR, Bow Road, District Line

Our February meeting

A mountainous meeting – our February talk by members of The Pinnacle Club

Ann and Milena from The Pinnacle Club, the UK's only national rock-climbing club for women, took us on an inspiring journey through its 100-year history. Today, the Club has 188 members.

One of the Club's purposes was, and is, to create a community. The Club has regular climbing meets of 10-20 people and two maintenance meets a year. It has organised international meets and has a list of firsts, including the first British woman mountain guide, and the first climb led by a woman.

Its hut in Wales has been transformed into a cottage with communal living area, drying room, dormitory, shower and outside, space for campers.

In the early days, skirts were worn as long as was practical. There was a report of people walking backwards in astonishment at the sight of a woman in breeches. Few had their own transport and there was little in the way of safety equipment.

Ann and Milena took us through the cleverly-engineered hooks that climbers carry today to anchor into various sizes of crack in the rock. Some sites with rock types that damage easily limit the number of times climbers can fix into the rock.

We heard about climbing walls used for training and the difference in the more gymnastic climbing emerging as an Olympic sport. There's been a university meet to encourage more young women climbers to join the Club.

As the Club enters its second century, there's a lot more tech. Its centenary meet was online and it won funding to make a short film telling its story through oral histories. 

As ever at East End WI, there were good questions:

What about insurance? There is specialist insurance, we were told, including mountain rescue and repatriation.

What kind of boots are worn? The light, tight-fitting shoes enable feet to feel as they climb – grippy on rock but slippy on grass, so climbers sometimes carry shoes for the return.

Do climbers need to be very fit and strong? It depends on the climb – the more vertical, the more strength and power you need. But Ann and Milena also told us about the difference in women's technique, using the legs as much as possible.

What are the best things about an all-women climbing group? When women are climbing with men, men take the lead; women climbing together can take either end and they're equal partners, women are supportive and everyone is there to enjoy the day.

Do you take beginners? The Pinnacle Club is for experienced climbers but local clubs and climbing walls are good places to look; and there was a festival of climbing in 2016 with a lot for beginners.

What about fear of heights? Well, climbers aren't unafraid of heights, it turns out – they learn to manage fear and understand rational versus irrational fears.

A massive thank you to Ann and Milena for a fascinating talk. Find out more about The Pinnacle Club here and watch the centenary film here.

Pictured in the bottom two photos: Milena and Gwen, The Pinnacle Club's youngest and oldest members at the opening of its Langdale Exhibition in June 2021, and club activity in its centenary year. Pictures by kind permission of The Pinnacle Club.

Friday 24th February – coffee morning from 10.30am for the early birds or join us later at 11-ish

Copper St Café, E20, adjacent to the Copper Box. Buses: 388 stops close by; the 276 stops near Hackney bridge, where there is a lift, or there is a free shuttle bus from Stratford Westfield bus station.

2nd March – Stone Rangers WI quiz evening in aid of Solace, at the Heathcote & Star 

It costs just £5 per person to get in. Teams can be up to six people or individuals are welcome to join teams with fewer than six members. Please contact Stone Rangers in advance: stonerangerswi@gmail.com

Our February walk

A journey to Lewisham for the Migration Museum – our February walk

You don't often find us South of the river...

But for our February walk – well, amble – we ventured to Lewisham to have a look at the Migration Museum.

Tucked away in temporary space in Lewisham's shopping centre, it was full of cleverly-designed and fascinatingly-told stories of the roots of some of our best-known businesses. 

We swapped our own stories and memories as we wandered, explored the excellent shop with its products from local makers, chatted with staff and headed off to a refreshment stop at a Turkish café nearby.

Fancy joining us on a walk? Look our for our next monthly What's On blogpost.

Coming up in February 2023

Climbs, journeys and catch-ups – Coming up in February

Saturday 11th February – monthly walk

Meet at 11.00am – at Lewisham DLR Station

For a change, we'll be crossing the river, to visit the Migration Museum in Lewisham – so not so much a walk but a stroll around this fascinating glimpse into UK culture. The Migration Museum explores how the movement of people to and from Britain across the ages has made us who we are – as individuals and as a nation.

Thursday 16th February – monthly meeting

A talk by members of The Pinnacle Club

St Margaret’s House, Old Ford Road, E2 9PL, 7 for 7.30pm 

We will be joined by members of the Pinnacle Club to tell us about their fascinating 100-year history. The Pinnacle Club is a UK-based club of women climbers who are united by a shared enthusiasm for climbing.

New Security Arrangements at St Margaret’s: If the inner gate is locked when you arrive for our meeting at St Margaret’s, on the right hand side of the gate, behind the railing, will be the doorbell shown above, rather elegantly modelled by Heather! It will alert us in the hall that you are there and someone will come round and let you in.

Friday 24th February – coffee morning

from 10.30am for the early birds or join us later at 11-ish

Copper St Café, E20, adjacent to the Copper Box. Buses: 388 stops close by; the 276 stops near Hackney bridge, where there is a lift, or free shuttle bus from Stratford Westfield bus station.

Climbing photo by kind permission of our speakers from The Pinnacle Club