Welcome to our News page
Former NFWI Chair Lynne Stubbings – a Warwickshire resident!
Lynne Stubbings addresses members on the WI’s 105th birthday
and discusses the WI’s rich history over the past 105 years.
March Flowers! What a fabulous evening we had at our March meeting. Our very own Liz treated us to all things flower arranging and we all went home with a tulip hand tied arrangement. Thank you Warwickshire Federation for the bursary that allowed us to organise such a lovely evening. We also welcomed at least 7 visitors.
Snowdrops! The snowdrops, planted by Kenilworth WI to mark the millennium, have been a picture this year, spreading & spreading. If you haven’t seen them there is still time if you are quick. They are mostly on the right amongst the trees as you enter Kenilworth Castle car park.
Archives. Another page has been added to the archive with some information about Kenilworth WI back in 1986. Click here to view.
The Late Pat Joynes. In memory of Pat Joynes, a short video taken at the 50th birthday celebration party in 2017 is available in the archive section. Amongst others, Pat speaks of her time with the Kenilworth WI. Click here.
2024 Meeting Dates. A full list is now available on our ‘Programme’ page. Click here.
December 2023. Members enjoying the December craft evening held at the Virgins & Castle pub in High St, Kenilworth.
2023 Christmas Tree. This years Kenilworth WI entry in the Christmas Tree Festival on display in St Nicholas Church, High St, Kenilworth.
Remembrance Day 2023. Kenilworth WI at the 2023 Kenilworth Remembrance Day Ceremony.
Right – Fiona Riley & Bronwen Spraggett laying the wreath at Kenilworth War Memorial
Kenilworth WI 1985. Another find for the archives in the original script of a play put on by the members in 1985. Click here to visit the page and have a look!
Kenilworth Agricultural Show 3rd June 2023
Members of Kenilworth WI helping to serve a wonderful array of cakes and tea at the Warwickshire Federation WI marquee. The sun was out with wall to wall blue sky – a perfect day for an agricultural show!
The Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort
Saturday 6th May 2023
More for the Kenilworth WI Archive. Emma has added more information from Kenilworth WI in 1969-1970. Click here to visit the archive page.
Old Kenilworth WI Newsletters. A number of old newsletters have recently been discovered which were produced between June 1997 and October 2000. They provide a great insight into the activities of Kenilworth WI some 20 years ago. Click here to visit the archive page.
Kenilworth WI March Meeting. The brilliant Mark Francis, from TV’s “The Great British Sewing Bee”, a very popular speaker at our open March meeting.
Kenilworth WI January Meeting. What a fabulous start to the year…an introduction to Zumba to get us all moving. Nicola put us through our dance moves and a record breaking 8 visitors!
Kenilworth WI – Winners of The Lane Cup 2022.
Right – Emma receives the cup at the November meeting.
Next WI Meeting – November 16th 2022. Your committee is looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday when we will be reviewing our past year with a glass of prosecco (or non-alcoholic if preferred) in our Annual Meeting. A reminder if anyone wants to stand for committee then you would be more than welcome on board. In the normal meeting part of the evening there are quite a few notices about up-and-coming events so please bring your diaries – it may help! We also need 2 volunteers to do tea and coffee if anyone would like to shout up for this.
The plan for the evening is to hold the normal business part of our meeting, then the Annual Meeting, and then we are making little Christmas boxes out of paper – they are easy to make and will be used as a replacement for crackers at our Christmas party next month. It promises to be a busy night with lots of information as well as a bit of fun for everyone and we hope to see many of you there.
Emma and your committee.
Remembrance Day 2022. Kenilworth WI at the 2022 Kenilworth Remembrance Day Ceremony.
Right – Fiona Riley & President Emma Sharp laying the wreath at Kenilworth War Memorial which is 100 years old this year!
Kenilworth Lions Event. Fiona, Emma and Bron looking after the WI Stall at Kenilworth Lions event – September 2022.
A selection of goods for sale on the WI stand including various honey products, jams and jellies.
Change of Meeting Venue. A reminder that from the 21st September 2022, all meetings will be held at our new vanue; St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, 110 Warwick Road, Kenilworth, CV8 1HL. There is free parking available in the well lit car park outside the building. For directions follow this link.
Next WI Walk. 13th July 2022, an evening walk.
Please let us know if you are coming on the walk.
Wednesday 15th June 2022 – 7.30pm WI Meeting. ‘History Walk around Kenilworth.’ (Comfortable Shoes Please!).
16th March WI Meeting. At our meeting in March we will be collecting for Ukrainian refugees. Please see the list to the right for goods needed. We will arrange for the goods to be taken to a drop off for a Ukrainian organisation based in Coventry . Many thanks ladies.
February 2022 Kenilworth Castle. The snowdrops that Kenilworth WI planted for the millennium are just starting to come through now. They are mostly on the right of the drive leading to the car park.
2022. Details of: New Committee Members, Evening Meetings, Book Club, Craft Club, & WI Walks, now available here on the website.
15th December WI Meeting. Regrettably, with the latest spread of Covid-19, the December Christmas party on the 15th has been cancelled. The committee will be delivering the fish & chip supper direct to members home addresses on the evening instead.
2021 Christmas Tree. After taking part in Kenilworth Christmas Tree Festival, the Kenilworth WI tree is now on display in Kenilworth town centre, just near the clock tower.
Remembrance Day 2021. Kenilworth WI at the 2021 Kenilworth Remembrance Day Ceremony.
Right – President Fiona Riley & Emma Sharp laying the wreath at Kenilworth War Memorial which will be 100 years old next year!
Kenilworth WI Oak Whip. Planted back in 2019, the Oak Whip has grown considerably despite attempts by the surrounding brambles to strangle it!
Right – Kenilworth WI President Fiona Riley with the oak in October 2021
Willow Weaving. Kenilworth WI members enjoying their Willow Weaving workshop recently, making Willow Plant Supports. The Workshop was organised by Warwickshire Federation and proved very popular with members. October 2021.
Right – Members enjoying the class
September 2021. Happy 106th Birthday to the WI and celebrating our return to Face to Face meetings with a glass of Prosecco at the Kenilworth Centre on the 15th September.
Right – Members enjoy the first ‘face to face’ meeting in September 2021
September 2021. Kenilworth WI stall at The Lions ‘Support the Charities Day‘ on Saturday 11th September 2021 in Talisman Square, Kenilworth. The photo, right, shows the stall at the start of the day, a lovely opportunity to meet so many people. Home made goods by WI members included, beeswax candles, crafts, cakes, and of course jams!
Right – Emma, Fiona and Bronwen manning the stall
September 2021. The current regulations mean that WI meetings can resume ‘In Person’ so we plan to hold the September meeting at The Kenilworth Centre, Abbey End. Keep an eye on the web site just incase the situation changes between now and September!
21st July 2021 Meeting – Outside again. The July meeting, ‘Memories of Kenilworth WI’, will again be held in the garden of the Queen & Castle Pub, (opposite Kenilworth Castle). The meting will start at 7.30pm and tables have been booked in advance. We look forward to fine weather and seeing as many people as possible. (Don’t forget to register your car inside at the bar to park for free).
16th June 2021 Meeting – Exciting News! Under current legislation up to 30 people can now meet outside. As it is so long since we have all seen each other, this will be a social meeting at the Queen & Castle Pub, (opposite Kenilworth Castle), in the garden and it will be a two-part meeting.
For those who want to, we will meet at 7.15pm in the Queen & Castle car park, (don’t forget to register your car inside at the bar to park for free), and we will walk round the Millenium Walk from Purlieu Lane back to the Queen & Castle. Then at around 8.15pm we will sit in the pub garden and catch up; you will will be able to order any drinks directly from them, (sorry we won’t be able to fund this bit for you!).
You can join us for both parts of the evening or just meet up at the pub garden for the second part, its up to you. For anyone that doesn’t know it, the Milleneium Walk takes about 40 – 45 minutes and although not completely level, it is not a difficult walk. For those joining us at the pub there will be three tables outside reserved for Kenilworth W.I. from 8pm. We will need to book numbers for this so please let us know if you will attending by SUNDAY 13th JUNE. Please email Emma on jonsandemmah@yahoo.com or call 07725 252201.
Book Club. Thursday 27th May 2021, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’, by Delia Owens. This will be a Zoom event.
Easter Bags. Easter bags distributed to all Kenilworth WI members this week – we hope everyone liked them!
Programme Change – May Meeting. May is of course our resolution meeting, however this year we will now also have a speaker, Justine Thornton from Justicia Health is going to talk on Aromatherapy, Reflexology and Massage with some useful techniques for us to use at home.
January 2021 Meeting. We held our first meeting of 2021 on Wednesday 20th January, by Zoom and also had our first external speaker, Jennifer Rigby. We had an attendance of just under half of the Kenilworth members. Jennifer’s topic was ‘Shakespeare and Me’ an anecdotal talk, which was absolutely fascinating. She took us through her school experiences of Shakespeare, very similar to my own and sadly not at all encouraging or interesting. Then through to university and her different roles which all sounded fascinating, although milking a cow in full Tudor costume may not be an experience to put on your bucket list!
Jennifer also gave us short excerpts from various plays and the whole evening was an absolute delight and thoroughly enjoyed by the members.
Zoom meetings are now planned until at least April, when hopefully the Covid-19 situation will be clearer, for details of our programme please visit our Programme page.
2020 Christmas Tree Festival. Kenilworth Christmas Tree Festival is normally held in St Nicholas Church in Abbey Fields, during the same weekend that the lights are switched on in the High Street. It is very well supported by many organisations and schools in Kenilworth with, of course Kenilworth WI taking part each year.
Like many other events, with the Covid-19 pandemic, things were slightly different this year! As restrictions changed for Warwickshire, including the second lock down, the dates had to be moved and also the format. This year the trees were displayed in shop windows and other areas around the town and a Christmas Tree Festival guide to each location was produced.
Kenilworth WI tree was decorated with items made by members, we had no theme or specific materials, any medium was fine this year, just made by our members in lockdown!
I have to say I think it looked super in the window of Helen’s Wool and Cotton Crafts, just opposite Waitrose. The new format has proved very popular and families have been walking around to each one, safely of course in the open air.
The trees are on display until after Christmas this year.
Kenilworth WI Annual Meeting – Hybrid. In 2020, like everyone else, Kenilworth WI thought we would be having our annual meeting as usual for us, in November. Who knew back in March that things would change so drastically for us all and like everything else this year, things seemed to change from week to week, including the correct way to hold a WI annual meeting during a pandemic.
Even though our September meeting had to be cancelled, just as we had worked our risk assessment and extra precautions required too!! We thought we might be ok by November, but this was not to be. We then planned for a Zoom annual meeting with all the reports and accounts being sent to every member in advance of the meeting date.
Then the guidance changed again and Zoom annual meetings were no longer allowed, luckily for Kenilworth WI, we do have two members in the same household, our youngest member Lizzie and her mum, aka our treasurer Emma so we were all set. Every member with an email address was sent an invitation to the meeting and we had a 42 % turnout (or in) for the meeting, this included our three new members who have joined us during this very odd year which was brilliant. As we all know Zoom isn’t for everyone but it is the only way we can meet at the moment.
Our lovely WI advisor Yvette Hunt also joined us and kept us on the straight and narrow re committee, adopting reports and voting requirements.
Fortunately, all but one of the committee was able to stay on for the next year, which made the business part of the evening a lot easier, although we couldn’t persuade any of our other members to stand for committee, early warning, we will be asking again next year ladies!!
Following the conclusion of the business part of the evening Emma, gave us a super talk on her trip to Everest Base Camp, which she undertook as part of a group, to raise funds for the Mary Ann Evans Hospice in Nuneaton. It was truly fascinating and the scenery is stunning, although the Base Camp looked nothing like I expected.
Although different to the normal annual meeting, for example this year any prosecco had to be your own, it was so nice to see at least some of our members and we now plan to hold our Christmas meeting via Zoom too.
Fiona Riley
President (again) Kenilworth WI
December WI Meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 16th December 2020 at 7.30pm. With the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions this will be a ‘Zoom’ meeting. (Instructions on how to join a Zoom meeting are available at this link).
2020 Christmas Tree Festival. As the Christmas Tree Festival cannot take place in the parish church this year the trees are in various locations around the town. The WI tree can be seen at Helen’s Wool & Cotton Crafts, Warwick House, Station Road, Kenilworth, CV8 1JF.