Our Christmas Meeting

EEWI December Meeting - Fruit, Music and Festive Fun Tuesday 15th December 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Meet in the hall at St Margaret;s House, 21 Old Ford Road. Go through the black metal gates to the left of the Gallery Cafe and follow the path round to the hall on the right. Free for members and £4 for visitors. We will be doing the following...

Making pomanders - deliciously scented oranges, - what could be more Christmassy?
Carving fruit - Carve beautiful flowers and birds from everyday fruits and vegetables. ,
Singing - don't worry you don't have to if you don't want to but we are going to have a good old Christmas sing song.
Choosing the WORST Christmas decoration - so please do bring along your worst Christmas dec and this time there will be a proper prize.
We also invite you to bring your Christmas crafts or bakes to sell if you would like - a chance for us all to make some last minute (or if like me you haven't actually started yet) Christmas presents.

MOST importantly, as many of you will be aware every Christmas we ask that when you are thinking about your Christmas shopping you purchase an extra present suitable for a woman for the service used at U-Turn Women's Centre, a charity we have been involved with since we began 8 years ago that supports women who work in and are trying to exit work in prostitution. You can buy pretty much anything but please avoid alcohol and there's no need to worry if you are on a budget - these women have very little and it is more about us saying to them that we are thinking of them and support them. I cannot express the difference this small gesture from us makes. If you are able to buy a little gift bring it along wrapped up and we will stick it under a tree of some sort and representatives from U-turn will be at the meeting to pick them up.

December Coffee Morning - Friday18th December 10.30am. Creatures of habit we are going back to the Geffrye Museum for I think the 7th time. A wonderful museum looking at interior design across the centuries where at Christmas they decorate each room as it would have been decorated at the time from 1600s onwards. 

Our November Meeting

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 17th November when Michael Smythe will join us to talk about Phytology a project which brings artists and botanists together to explore the medicinal properties of plants that are common to derelict urban environments.  It’s a public art project and urban medicinal garden planted within the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.  Generally regarded as common indigenous weeds, each plant has been selected for its on-going use in phytotherapy  - the study of the use of extracts of natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agent and traditional medicine. Visitors to the garden are invited to explore the Bethnal Green site, harvest and use the plants for medicinal and nutritional purposes. Phytology aims to challenge ideas of use, value, resilience and the function of wildness within our urban ecosystem.

Michael will discuss the process of establishing the Phytology project (locating the site, establishing the meadow, engagement & art program).
www.phytology.org.uk

As usual we will be meeting in the hall at the back of St Margaret's House on Old Ford Road at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Free for members and £4 for non-members. Refreshments provided and possible even some baking. We appreciate a little donation in the tin if you have a glass of wine of course! We are also inviting people to bring their home made gifts and crafts so don't forget to bring some cash just in case something tickles your fancy.

EXCITING COMPETITION! - This month we will be kicking off our new monthly competition section like that of the Felbridge Women's Instiute of the Surrey Federation's 1976 programme and for starters we are inviting you to bring along your Best and Worst Holiday Souvenirs. Could be from this year, could be from another time gone by it's up to you and there will be a prize of some sort. Everyone welcome to take part (even committee members!)

Look forward to seeing you then

October Meetings and All about Boobs

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and this is obviously something that is close to all of our hearts. We have two organisations coming to speak to us and are very excited about both of them.

Our October meeting is on Tuesday 20th October at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. As ever we meet at St Margaret's House on Old Ford Road. Our meeting takes place in the hall at the back of St Margarets which you can access by going through the black gates on Old Ford Road to the left of the gallery Cafe then you follow the path round the garden to the right and you will see the hall. Our meetings are free to members and £4 for visitors. We provide tea, coffee, herbal teas and wine as well as some nibbles and we do welcome donations of the edible or monetary kind.

For details of our other activities this month, check the sidebar, or read the full newsletter here.

September Meetings and 100 years of the WI

At our 15th September meeting we're going to be celebrating 100 years of the Women's Institute.   We would like you to think about the WI past present and future and what it means to you. So please bring along something that represents that - something baked, knitted, embroidered, a poem, something from a book, a photo, an anecdote, a cocktail ANYTHING.  There will be prizes and lots of other celebratory things too.

If you know anyone who might like to join us please bring them, all visitors will be welcomed free for this meeting - as usual, donations are invited for drinks and food etc. As usual we meet at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road, E2 9PL.

Coffee Morning - This month's coffee morning will be on 18th September, 10.30 start, venue to be confirmed. (Check the sidebar).
 
Our Afternoon Teas happen on the first Monday of the month and are at 3.30pm. Like our coffee mornings they are a chance to chat and explore new venues. The upcoming afternoon teas are as follows;
Monday 7 Sept Museum of London Docklands 
Monday 5 Oct The Coffee Room, Mile End

Hope to see you soon.

Welcome to the EEWI August Newsletter

So much to tell you 

As ever the summer weather is sending us on a merry dance from chilly to humid and back again and, as ever, things are busy at EEWI HQ. Well there isn't an actual HQ (I wish there was!) but we are busy all the same. We had a 'great day' at Victoria Park's Great Day Out and made just under £200 selling cakes at what was a really fun event. A big big thank you to all of our bakers and helpers who are always amazing.

EEWI Bursary
We asked you all to have a think about what courses you would like to do and apply for one of the two EEWI £100 bursaries and we pulled two names out of the hat at our July meeting - well we asked our Thames 21 Speaker to pick the names out anyway. Embarrassingly my name was one of them along with Karen Defoe. Each of us have made a commitment to either give a talk at a meeting or write something for the newsletter and website. More on what we are both going to do soon. And please don't worry if you had a course you wanted to do though as there will be at least two bursaries next year too.

EEWI Cook Book
We are still welcoming recipes for our cook book so if you would like to take part please submit your stories, bakes, pots, pies and whatever to this website right here. More info about the book will be coming soon.

Love the Lea event 23rd August 11 til 7
On that note, and following on from our July meeting where Thames21 came to talk to us about the river and how we can help to preserve it, we need bakers and helpers again for our next event which is Love the Lea on Sunday 23rd August on Walthamstow Marshes, behind the ice skating rink on Lea Bridge Road. This is the same site as Countryside Live and is reasonably easy to get to on public transport. More info here. There is also a car park if you prefer to drive and we ask that if you do drive you consider giving someone else on the helper's list a lift. If you are able to help or bake then it would be great if you contact Clare Barnet, one of the EEWI committee, who will be leading on this event. Clare's contact is clare.barnett1511@gmail.com. As usual we welcome all baking and always need more and if you can help even for an hour that would be amazing. It actually looks like it is going to be a really good day, including live music and lots of river themed activities. A good day but a long day so the more helpers we have the better in order to ensure everyone gets breaks etc. If you can help please drop Clare a line.

August Meeting Tuesday 18th August 7pm for a 7.30pm start
This month we will be welcoming Caroline from Growing Concerns to our meeting to talk about gardening - not just in gardens, but on balconies, allotments and window ledges and learning about the independent garden centre's history. It's an oasis of planting on the canal at the north eastern edge of Victoria Park and a garden centre that is rooted (do you see what I did there) in the community having been involved in lots of projects over the years to improve and enhance Tower Hamlets. We are really excited about this one.
As usual we will be meeting in the hall at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road E2 9PL. Members are free and visitors are £4. You are welcome to come and see what we are all about. There will, as always, be refreshments and nibbles and our donations tin is always on the table for contributions towards the next lot! We look forward to seeing you there.

August Coffee Morning Friday 21st August 10.30am 
This month we are going to go to Chesterfield, a new cafe at the junction of Roman Road and Grove Road next to St Barnabas Church. They say, 'Speciality coffee shop now open. Loose leaf tea, award winning hot chocolate. Cakes, beigels and ciabattas. Dairy and gluten free products. Service with a smile.' So let's go and find out!

Shoreditch Sisters Summer Meeting Tuesday 25th August 7pm 
We are sooo excited as Shoreditch Sisters have invited us and a number of other local WI groups to their August meeting to celebrate the summer. And how are they going to celebrate the summer? By learning how to Charleston! We, EEWI, have been trying to get together with Shoreditch Sisters for a long time to do something together and so if you are free you should definitely come along. They meet at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club on Pollard Row which is really easy to get to on the bus or tube. I will be there and I hope you will come along too.And the best thing of all is that if you are a member of EEWI it is free entry!! How great is that? All non-members can attend for £5.

Afternoon Teas
Our Afternoon teas happen on the first Monday of the month and are at 3.30pm. Like our coffee mornings they are a chance to chat and explore new venues. The upcoming afternoon teas are as follows;
Monday 7th September Museum of London Docklands
Monday 5th October The Coffee Room, Mile End
Monday 2nd November Marks and Spencer's Cafe Westfield, Stratford (not the one on the bridge!)

AND THERE'S MORE....

September Meeting - Celebrating the Centenary Tuesday 15th September
We just wanted to let you know that at our September meeting we will be celebrating 100 years of the WI. The actual centenary is just one day later. We thought we might ask you to thing about the WI past present and future and bring along something that represents that - something baked, something knitted, embroidered, a poem, something from a book, a photo, an anecdote, a cocktail ANYTHING. There will be prizes and lost of other celebratory things but we wanted to give you all time to have a think about it.

Countryside Live Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September
Don't forget this is our last tea and cake stall of the year and we need LOADS of cakes! More details here.

Target Ovarian Cancer Walk October 17th 
This is the national ovarian cancer charity working to save lives and help women diagnosed with ovarian cancer live their lives to the full. They are holding a fundraising walk and run at Queen Elizabeth Park in October and EEWI are considering entering a team. Entry is £10 per person and they ask that we each raise £100 sponsorship by walking or running 5K or 10K and we don't all have to do the same thing. Also men are welcome to join the team and there is no minimum age limit so everyone can join in! If you are interested in taking part there will be another email about it early in September.

Jack the Ripper Museum
Some of you may already be aware of the kerfuffle around a museum that was supposed to open in Cable Street. I attended the first of a number of protests outside the Jack the Ripper Museum last week - not on behalf of EEWI - and was shocked to learn that the person responsible for the museum told Tower Hamlets Council when seeking permission to change the premises from residential to commercial use that he intended to open, 'the only dedicated resource in the east end to women's history.' And when the scaffold came down last week or the week before it was a Jack the Ripper museum. There is not enough time to go through it all here but there is plenty of information on the internet. I would like to suggest that EEWI gets behind the campaign to boycott this museum but not before we have discussed it and had a chance to debate it. So if you are interested have a look at the articles online and we will discuss this briefly at the next meeting.

Celia Hammond Needs Our Help
The Celia Hammond Animal Trust is currently inundated with cats and kittens seeking homes. They are currently very short of cat/kitten food and toys. Any creative people among you - you can make some catnip mice out of old fabrichttp://www.thepracticalherbalist.com/crafts-for-kids/how-to-sew-a-catnip-mouse/ or you can knit them yourself and perhaps send them to the charity?
For food donations there is a Amazon wishlist
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/2N6NW621HXPZ9/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go_o

Thanks for reading this far - apologies for any typos and omissions and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Niki
President of EEWI
on behalf of the committee.

July Meeting: Looking at our local Waterways

For our 21st July meeting we are very lucky to be joined by Thames 21 who are one of the UK's leading waterway charities who work with communities across Greater London to improve rivers, canals, lakes and ponds for people and wildlife. Vicki Paternoster will be coming along to talk about the Love the Lea campaign which has been set up to fix the broken urban water cycle in North and East London  and make the River Lea and its tributaries healthy. Vicki will be talking about the work that the campaign is doing and what we can do at home to make out rivers better places for people and wildlife to enjoy. We will also possibly be drawing the two bursary winners.

As usual we are meeting at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL. Go through the gates to the left of the Gallery Café on Old Ford Road, follow the path round the garden to the right where you will find us in the hall. 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

This event is free for members and £4 for visitors. You are welcome to come along as a visitor and if you like us you can then join but do come along and enjoy this fantastic evening with us.

July Coffee Morning - Friday 24th July at 10.30am 
Will be at The Corner of the Road Cafe at 253 Bethnal Green Road where we will be able to sample real Portuguese custard tarts. This cafe is full of little surprises. One thing I like bout them is that they encourage those coming in for a take away coffee to bring their own mugs to save on all the hideous paper cup waste - something that we can sympathise with with our tea stalls.
For more info about the cafe click here.

Our coffee mornings are always the Friday after our monthly meeting and we hope to see you at this one or the next.

June Meeting with Afroretro

A bird that is not in flight roosts!

We are so very excited to welcome back Afroretro who have sent this to us to outline what they plan to do on the night.

Mono Print Your Life with AFRORETRO School of Uganglish

African Fabrics and textiles tell more than a story of just nights out and sashaying down the high street. These fabrics are full of messages of politics, aspiration, history and culture. We want you to bring YOUR politics, aspirations, history and culture and create your very own textile print.

What you will achieve;
You'll be guided through designing your fabric
Learn how to mono-print
Find out more about Uganglish
Print your story on fabric and paper so you can take home wonderful prints for your own personal gallery

What you will need to bring;
We will provide everything you will need but for a challenge and the sheer fun of it why not bring an old t-shirt to print your design on. 

If you didn't attend the last event they did for us you really missed a great evening so do not miss this one.

We will also be opening the evening with a short talk by Lizzi Hollis from Independent Age who will be sharing with us what they do, For more info click here.

As usual we are meeting at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL. Go through the gates to the left of the Gallery Café on Old Ford Road, follow the path round the garden to the right where you will find us in the hall. 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

This event is free for members and £4 for visitors. You are welcome to come along as a visitor and if you like us you can then join but do come along and enjoy this fantastic evening with us.

June Coffee Morning
After a wonderful spread at our AGM we will be visiting the E5 Bakehouse for our coffee morning this month. Friday 19th June 10.30am, come and joins us for a coffee and perhaps a pastry. To get there they say;

located in a spruced up railway arch by London Fields in Hackney.  If travelling by public transport the closest station is London Fields (above our heads) and Hackney Central is a 5 minute walk.  Buses from Bethnal Green run regularly along Mare Street and you should disembark at the Well street stop.  There are plenty of bike locks outside as well.

E5 Bakehouse,
Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace,
London E8 3PH

We hope to see you there

It's our AGM!

EEWI AGM - Tuesday 19th May 7pm for a 7.30pm start
This May is our 8th birthday as well as our 8th AGM. To celebrate 8 years of EEWI we have invited the geniuses at E5 Bakehouse to bring a selection of their baked goods for us to try - there will be breads, savouries, cakes and other nibbles along with some extra drinks and maybe even some bubbles!!
The official side to the evening include - the voting in of the president and officers of the committee and the voting on this year's campaign - 'Failing to care - Assessment of Need in Long Term Care.' We will also be presenting our financial and members report as well as having a quick look back at the last twelve months.
To keep our non-official side of the meeting on theme we have invited the Roman Road Food Assembly to come and talk to us about their current project.
This meeting unlike our other monthly meetings is for members only and we urge everyone who has already joined to come along and also those of you who are thinking of joining. As a reminder membership from this point for 2015 is £27.
As usual we are meeting at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL. Go through the gates to the left of the Gallery Café on Old Ford Road, follow the path round the garden to the right where you will find us in the hall. 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Hope to see you then!

An update from the EEWI Newsletter

A big thank you to Virginia Hawke who ran our March meeting, the fruits of which are contained in the montage above. Info about Virginia's art classes are below. We were also very happy to welcome the Up For School project, details of which can be found here.

April Meeting
Bangladesh - Stories of Two Teachers
Tuesday 21st April 7pm 
We are very lucky to be able to welcome Tracy and Sinead Miller to our April meeting. Tracy and Sinead are mother and daughter who both teach at primary schools in Tower Hamlets. Last summer they travelled to Bangladesh together to teach at a Bangladeshi school and we have invited them to come and talk about their experiences.

We are also hoping to be joined by some members of the team from York Hall who are going to let us know about their women only health and fitness programme.

As usual we will be at our very own home of St Margaret's House on Old Ford Road. When looking at the Gallery Cafe on Old Ford Road, go through the gates on the left hand side and follow the garden path round to the right where you will see the hall. Free for members and £4 for visitors. Refreshments will be provided but contributions of the consumable as well as spendable type always very much welcomed.

April Coffee Morning
Kahaila Cafe
Friday 24th April 10.30pm
We will be visiting another cafe along Brick Lane. Kahaila is a community cafe and any profits it makes go to good causes, so we thought we would like to support it. It is at 135 Brick Lane close to Bacon St and we hope to see you there, have a natter and try out their wares.

march meeting: celebrating women even more!

Cornelia Parker's sculpture of mother of two Georgina Baker

We are continuing our celebration of International Women's Day at our evening meeting on 17th March 2015, 7pm for 7.30pm start. We are very pleased to invite Virginia Hawke along to run an art session around inspirational women. What you need to do is bring a photo or photos of your inspirational woman and Virginia will help us to create a piece of art to celebrate them. It could be someone from your own life, a famous or historical person - anyone that has made an impact on you. The session is aimed at all artistic abilities so if you think you have none, please don't worry as it is amazing what you can create with a bit of help and advice. It's probably a good idea to wear clothes that you don't mind getting specks of paint or glue on just to be on the safe side.

We're also selling off some of our excess stash of fabrics. Plus we'll be chossing - from a "hat" which of our members will be offered a place at the WI Centenary Celebration Garden Party in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. 

As usual we will be at  St Margaret's House on Old Ford Road. When looking at the Gallery Cafe on Old Ford Road, go through the gates on the left hand side and follow the garden path round to the right where you will see the hall. Free for members and £4 for visitors. Refreshments will be provided but contributions of the consumable as well as spendable type always very much welcomed.

You'll find details of our 20th March Coffee Morning and Afternoon Teas in the side bar on the right.

Looking forward to seeing you at one of our events very soon!

celebrate international women's day with us!

Come and join us for an evening of live music with Alice Barlow, Katherine Abbot and Priscilla Andershohn in a great venue... and it's free! At the Gallery Cafe from 7.30pm on 8th March.

EEWI are really pleased to be able to work with the Gallery Cafe to celebrate 2015's International Women's Day. Each year on March the 8th around the world people celebrate the achievements of women and shout out about the inequalities and injustices still taking place at home and abroad. We wanted to do something celebratory and, as this year's theme is 'Make it Happen', we thought we would put on an event for our members as well as the wider community and have invited three fantastic young women singer songwriters to perform for us;

Alice Barlow, Katherine Abbott, Priscilla Andersohn

As well as music, the Gallery Café serves wonderful food and has a range of beers, wines, coffees and teas. For more info about the café click here.

We really hope you can join us for an evening of celebration. Everyone is welcome (even men) so please spread the word. If you would like to know more about International Women's Day please click here.

Hope to see you there.

What's on in February

Yes! it's February already. This month we are all about keeping warm, safe and, erm, pancakes.

February Meeting Tuesday 17th 7pm for a 7.30pm start How to eco-refurbish your home along with how to fireproof your home. It's all about the home this month with two fabulous speakers with tips and advice to keep you safe and warm without breaking the bank or wrecking the environment.
As usual we will be at our very own home of St Margaret's House on Old Ford Road. When looking at the Gallery Cafe on Old Ford Road, go through the gates on the left hand side and follow the garden path round to the right where you will see the hall. Free for members and £4 for visitors. Refreshments will be provided but contributions of the consumable as well as spendable type always very much welcomed.

February afternoon tea Monday 2nd March 3.30pm Marks and Spencer's cafe in Westfield Stratford East. For  more info click here.

February coffee morning Friday 20th 10.30am venue TBC
March afternoon tea  Monday 2nd March 3.30pm venue TBC

Our coffee mornings and afternoon teas are a chance to have a cuppa or a coffee in a relaxed setting and have a chat - not necessarily about EEWI but then why would you want to talk about anything else?

Do you have a cafe or coffee shop you would love to try out? Please do let us know as we are always after new venues.

Pancakes!
Finally we thought we would let you know about an exciting pancake challenge taking place on, funnily enough, pancake day Tuesday 17th February - the same day as our meeting. The Great Spitalfields Pancake Race teams of four race up and down Dray Walk tossing pancakes and it's all in the name of charity. If you are interested please contact Alternative Arts by clicking here. And if you would like to co-ordinate an EEWI team please contact niki.stevens@btinternet.com as we definitely have some flippers if not a flipper in chief.

What's on in January!

Firstly a Happy New Year to everyone, the start of a year of lots of exciting things we hope. A new year often means learning new things so at our January Meeting we will be learning self defence. This is something we have wanted to do for a very long time and in the wondrous way that things happen at EEWI after an age of trying to find someone we realised a fantastic teacher was staring us right in the face. George Dobson is a local tutor who teaches self defence at St Paul's Cathedral School and has a wealth of experience teaching martial arts and boxing. George is working on a programme of self defence specifically for women but for our evening he as has asked that we let him know what sort of situation we are worried about so he can tailor the session a little bit to our needs . So if there was something you wanted to learn or a situation you were particularly nervous about, drop me a line at niki.stevens@btinternet.com. George will also be going through basic self defence techniques.

Tuesday 20th January 7pm for a 7.30pm start at St Margaret's House, Old Ford Road, E2 9PL. For those of you that haven't been there before we meet in the hall at the back of the building which you access by going through the black gates to the left of the Gallery Cafe and then follow the path round the garden to the right where you should see the hall.  At our self defence session not everyone needs to get involved and George is used to working with all ages but if you feel like you would like to try out some of the techniques please wear comfortable clothing. As ever there will be refreshments available and donations of any kind -  cash or consumables - are always very welcome.

Our coffee morning is at 10.30 onwards on Friday 23rd January 2015 We're finalising the arrangements, so do check the sidebar for details of location. at The Larder in Globe Road, opposite Prick your Finger yarnshop.