We moved to the beautiful silver band hall in January 2024.
March 2026
As always, March brings our Annual Meeting. We now have a committee of ten dedicated women and a membership of 95, making us the largest WI in Oxfordshire. Barbara Harker was elected President for a third term. Tracy Strain, Chair of OFWI, kindly acted as our teller. The meeting concluded with a very moving and emotional talk from Andrea Baganz-Pritchard.
February 2026
In February Jeff Evans took us on a nostalgic journey through the history of quiz shows, from the earliest days of broadcasting to modern television.
https://speakernet.co.uk/talk/3087/the-questionable-history-of-the-tv-quiz-show
January 2026
In January, Lucy Maynard from the Dogs Trust spoke to us about the charity’s work rescuing and rehoming dogs, and the support it offers to owners through schemes such as the Canine Care Card.
December 2025
Christmas Lunch
November 2025
Birthday party
Melanie King gave a fascinating talk on William Buchan’s domestic medicine. Published in 1769, this self help manual was written to help those unable to readily access or afford medical care. We learned about some weird and wonderful treatments.
https://melaniekingbooks.com/talks-and-lectures/
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fwp7hhg8/items?canvas=2
October 2025
Antony Wood told us all about the remarkable woman that was Gertrude Bell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell
September 2025
Gita Konshack introduced us to the fabulous charity Super Shoes.
https://www.supershoes.org.uk/
August 2025
Summer party
July 2025
Christine Green had us in stitches with her talk a life in stitches.
https://christinegreencrafts.co.uk
June 2025
Our June meeting saw Anne Pappenheim and her colleague talk to us about being a magistrate. It was most informative and a quiz was a great way to get information across.
May 2025
Fabulous meeting with author Colin Wade
April 2025
Interesting talk about living on a boat!
https://doingtheirbit.co.uk/talks-for-adults
March 2025
March as always is given over to our annual meeting.
We said goodbye to Sandra Mitchell who has been on the committee for 3 years as treasurer and Yvette Cecil who has been welfare officer for 6 years.
Jo Harvey gave a most interesting and relevant talk on sustainable Wantage. These volunteers are doing such amazing work. Why not go take a look.
https://sustainablewantage.org.uk/the-mix/
February 2025
January 2025
We saw the new year in with a really interesting talk given by Kamran Irani a blood biker with SERV Ox Bucks Berks N’hants Blood Bikes
We received a lovely email from Kamran Irani thanking us for our donations to blood bikers. Ladies generously put £133.10 in their collecting tin and the WI gave a donation of £75. Making a total of £208.10. This amount is enough to fuel one of the duty marked motorcycle approximately 20 times which will complete 67 call outs.
SERV Ox Bucks Berks North Hants’
December 2024
November 2024
A lovely birthday party
And a talk from Age Uk
October 2024
Jennifer Cowling gave an amusing talk on those extraordinary things we say.
September 2024
A helpful talk from Silver Tim’s legal
https://www.silvertimelegal.co.uk/
August 2024
Garden party had to be moved indoors!
July 2024
We were delighted to have Hayley from ‘The Forensic Experience’ as the speaker for our July meeting. She gave a fascinating insight into the world of crime scene investigation and what goes on behind the yellow tape. Her presentation was extremely interesting and held our members attention throughout, prompting many questions and much discussion regarding her work and background. She intrigued us with some of the methods used by CSI, demonstrated how finger marks are revealed, and made us laugh over some of the hilarious mistakes made by criminals.
May 2024
Historian Liz Woolley took us on a guided tour around old Oxford breweries. We had beer, Oxford sausages and of course marmalade.
https://oxfordandempire.web.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-liz-woolley
And not to mention the fruit and veg raffle.
April 2024
In April we had an interesting and quite emotional talk from Jane Burrell who talked to us about the War Graves Commission.
March 2024
As always March is giving over to our Annual Meeting.
We said goodbye to Dee Hurley who has been on the committee for 6 years and to Diane Monnery who has been president for 4 years.
The meeting was closed with a few tunes from Hendred Ukulele Group HUG
February 2024
We had a most interesting talk from the Thames Valley Air Ambulance.
January 2024
Very excited to be in a new venue. We stared the year with an emotional talk from John Caldecott . “Daisy’s Story ”.
Wantage WI 