maytime: a bit of life, craft and cake

Hope you all had a lovely Easter and are ready for our next adventure.  This month the multi-talented artist Kate Hardy will be joining us on 17th May to lead another of her brilliant life drawing classes.  Kate has visited us a couple of times before and we normally find that we have a full house, so do try to come along early.  We will also be mandating our delegate - this year someone from N1 WI - to put forward our votes on motions to the NFWI AGM.  We'll be at the usual place, usual time - 7.30 for 8pm start at St Margaret's House, Old Ford Road, E2.  All materials will be supplied.  Free for members, suggested donation of £3 for non-members.  We'll also be raising money for Cake Break for MS, so if you are a baker, novice or otherwise, do please bring along some home-made cakes for us to sell, and some spare change to but something!

We hope to raise more for the charity at our coffee morning at 10.30am on 20th May.  This time we'll be visiting the wonderful Create Place (just a few doors down from St Margaret's House) where we'll be able to buy tea and coffee, look at the merchandise and see what they goes on in this craft-y venture.  So more cakes for sale would be welcome there too!

Just to get your appetite whetted, here's a wee sample here of what our faithful bakers made when they generously turned up to support the Mile End Cemetery event last Sunday.  Well done all, especially Clare who co-ordinated our team - and, according to my John, made the very best fruit cake.

And if you didn't make it to our last meeting, just a little taster of what you missed...

Our thanks go to Theresa from Kitchen Buddy for demonstrating how to make delicious raw food salads and for sharing her healthy chocolate - and to Veronika for setting up the event and being such a diligent sous chef.  Look out Masterchef...

conquered

This is how Richard Reynolds, Guerrilla Gardener, summarised our meeting last night: Friendly diverse conversation with East End WI: breast painting, marathon pelvic floor exercises, Burmese refugee mushroom houses and walnut cake.

I'm not sure tthat here is much more to add. Other than Morsbags. Lots more stunning Morsbags.

I am a completely conquered by Guerilla Gardening and loving the scent of from my South London grown and made Lavender bag. Also contemplating the dance project - still time to sign up if you email us. And giving some thought to the mushroom houses at Hsa Thoo Lei Learning Centre in Thailand. If you missed the talk, here is some more info on the Centre:

Hsa Thoo Lei Learning Centre provides a free education for 700 children, and is home to about 200: these are children whose parents are dead or who are still inside Burma. Whether the children live in Hsa Thoo Lei or with family or friends outside, they are all in desperate poverty. The school tries to provide two free lunches a week when funds permit (not at all this calendar year) because for some children that is the only proper meal they ever eat. The children learn all the usual subjects but additionally learn languages - Burmese and Karen, the tongues of their homeland, Thai which is the language of their country of residence, and English, which many hope will one day be a passport to a better life elsewhere.

The Burmese migrant children in these schools are vulnerable to malnutrition, especially since the schools’ income is very much below levels required to fund regular school lunches. The Thai children’s Trust with help from partner organisations aims to ameliorate this situation by promoting the introduction of mushroom houses.

A mushroom house grows mushrooms in pre-prepared spore bags, placed on racks in a hot and humid hut. Regularly tended, the spore bags will produce mushrooms over a 3 month cycle. For most of the cycle there will be mushrooms available to supplement the diet of the children in the school. At the peak of the cycle there will be mushrooms for the school to sell.

Many thanks to all our speakers for such stimulating and thought provoking talks.

Comments welcome!