I’ve now been involved with Buns & Roses for nearly 6 years, on the committee since 2012 and president since 2013 and the time has just flown! My first meeting was back in Mojos and I learnt the skill of horror make up from Gloria’s sister – the results were terrifying! I’ve made some wonderful friends and learned some amazing skills like how to make a fascinator, how to melt chocolate with the greatest ease (tip being a hairdryer!) and tried on diamond rings worth over £30,000. I’m sad to be stepping down as president, but with a very healthy 46 paid members and a great committee and new president I look forward to seeing how Buns & Roses evolves sitting at meetings as a member and being able to craft a chat!
What has always been important for me as a member and what drew me to the group was how friendly and welcoming we are. For those of you who don’t know the story, founder members Georgiana and Zoe went to a craft group and were made to feel so unwelcome to the point that the other members left without even saying goodbye to them! They decided that it could be done better! All our founder members were most concerned with ensuring that Buns & Roses WI was a welcoming and friendly group and this has continued to be the theme for us throughout the last 7 years and is certainly one of the things that I'm most passionate about.
So
let's have a quick look back over the last year...As always we’ve strived to listen to members and arrange a number of varied meetings including make up workshops, fascinator making, yarn craft, lots of general meetings because we all know you wanted to chat! We heard from extremely inspiring speakers including Adam from The Real Junk Food Project and had a very over subscribed Gin Tasting Meeting! We love the fact that our members and visitors are from a mix of people from different ages and backgrounds and we are working hard as a committee to ensure that we meet the needs of as many of our members as possible.
Siobhan Maguire-Broad continued to look after Book Club until her University studies took over and very handily recruited Siobhan Ashburn to take over and both Siobhan’s have ensured that it is a fun, relaxed and cake filled environment to discuss a wide range of novels and regularly has up to 10 keen readers or cake consumers debating the merits of the plotlines, movie adaptations or book covers.
We've continued to have a presence within the media with Buns & Roses being featured in Grazia in the last few weeks as well as a couple of slots on BBC Radio Leeds – including back in October when I went head to head against the ex-editor of Loaded to explain why the WI is a necessary female safe space.
We've got exciting things to look forward to in 2016 including Beer Tasting, learning to play the Ukulele, mental health as well as more general meetings to allow members to socialise and get to know each other as well as our trip to Formby and Southport on the 30th April and so thank you to all the committee for helping to make it happen and to all our members for making it possible and if anyone would like to be more involved or has any further suggestions for forthcoming events and meetings, please get in touch.
