By March 2020 coronavirus was acknowledged in the UK as the COVID-19 pandemic and we were unable to hold future meetings for members in our usual meeting place, Andover Road Village Hall. The advice from HCFWI was that all future meetings should be suspended based on the health and wellbeing of our members and bearing in mind the Government restrictions.
Measures were introduced which restricted all but essential workers to remain in their homes, all those who could, would work from home and contact with others was only permitted in an outside space where up to six people could meet but social distancing (two metres apart) would be observed.
Arrangements were put in hand to hold monthly committee meetings by Zoom and the idea of a monthly newsletter for members was introduced. The newsletter would include competitions, quizzes and WI news. This would be circulated by email or a paper copy would be delivered to any member not on email. Committee members were asked to keep in touch regularly with members of Oakley & Deane WI on their contact list and to remind them that Oakley Support Network had been set up to help anyone in the village.
National and Federation events were cancelled and Denman College cancelled all on-site courses. For the foreseeable future the monthly editions of Hampshire WI News would only be available online at MyWI website..
During the easing of restrictions in June members were able to meet up in the garden of the local public house, The Fox. About 20 members attended and it was also an opportunity to say farewell to our member, Mary New, who was moving to Devon.
A regular Saturday Book Swap was set up in the President’s front garden with donations going to ACWW. This proved extremely popular with donations coming from villagers of books, jigsaw puzzles and CDs. In August this became the cake stall for the Oakley Village Show.
By September the decision had been taken by NFWI that Denman College would close and the staff were made redundant. The decision about the future sale of the estate rests with the NFWI Board of Trustees.
In September all members received a bag containing tea, coffee, biscuits and a note book and pen, together with a competition for the best decorated bag. All competition entries were photographed and appeared in the October newsletter and members were requested to vote for their favourite.The winner of this competition was Joan Fitchett.
December saw our first Zoom meeting for members with the speaker, Peta Allingham, enthralling us with her adventures in her Quirky Car and a Christmas bag was delivered to every member with best wishes for a happier New Year and the hope that we could all meet up again soon.
Shirley G