Kenilworth Women’s Institute 1968
Formed at a meeting on 20th December 1967. At this time, the annual subscription rate was 5s and the rules said that the WI should have no less than 25 members unless approval was granted by the County Federation to have a smaller membership. The affiliation fee to the County Federation was 3s, 6d. per member of which 1s 6d per member went to the National Federation Rule VI on Officers and Committee members said the committee should be no more than nineteen members strong! Imagine how long a committee meeting would take with nineteen members…
Our first President was Mrs Jean Truesdale. The Secretary was Mrs Diane Horne, and the Treasurer was Mrs K Wiles. The Institute had a Handicraft Guild run by Mrs A Askew and Mrs A Dilworth. The year of meeting began in January 1968, and it was an inaugural year including a fashion show and two parties! Talks were held on the Combined Arts in the WI (Mrs Zonik), The WI Produce Market in Leamington Spa (Mrs Harvey Antrobus), Watkins Roses (Mr Watkins) and the Coventry Post Office (Mr R Tallis). These appear to be a range of talks to let the new WI know about what services were available to them in the WI and in the local area. No meetings were held in June or August and July witnessed the fashion show – sadly, no photos are available from that fashion show – if anyone does have any please can they let Kenilworth WI know! The AGM was held in October and then November brought the Institute’s first birthday party and December was the Christmas party. A lovely end to the first year – not one, but two parties.
The local paper published an article about the start of the WI in which it stressed ‘harrowing tales…of young housewives “isolated on housing estates, shut up all day with young children”’ suffering with what, according to the paper, psychologists called ‘Estate Malaise’. ‘Hats off’ declared the paper to the women who ‘had the gumption to help themselves.’ One thing the Institute organised was a babysitting club – for the membership of 5s a year 25 women signed up to be called upon at any time to help out…the more sittings you helped out with the more you were owed. The 5s shillings covered telephone call costs and the club held an annual dinner dance.
Newspaper clippings kept show that a report of the months meeting was sent to the Kenilworth Weekly News as publicity for the group. There was also a report on the National Federation’s Annual Meeting describing the Resolution in 1968 on the position of housewives who found themselves through disability or chronic illness unable to look after family and home without help. If the husband worked neither partner could receive an allowance under the Social Security Benefit Scheme and often families found themselves broken up with the children being placed into care. The resolution urged the Government to provide women who found themselves in such situations with sufficient funding to enable to them remain in her own home and keep the family unit together. Warwickshire County Federation in 1968 had 179 Institutes with a membership of 10,000.