Sunday, January 27, 2008

The WI

Attila the Mom left me a comment

"I've got a silly question.

Hubby and I watched the show "Crisis at the Castle" on PBS last week about an elderly couple struggling to hold on to an old---I don't know what you'd call it---historical mansion (?) they bought in the early 60's.

The wife made a weird museum of sorts out of things she'd collected over the years and did tours.

Apparently most of her custom came from "W.I." ladies.

What the heck is that? LOL"

So what are W.I Ladies?

Well WI stands for the Women's Institue.

According to the WI
The Women’s Institute was formed in 1915 with two clear aims: to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Since then our aims have broadened and we are now the largest women’s organisation in the UK. We celebrated our 90th anniversary in 2005 and currently have 211,000 members in 6,800 WIs.


The WI has a reputation for Cake Baking and being VERY traditional etc but to be fair these days it campaigns on the Environment, Farming, excess packaging etc.

A few years ago one WI group got together to raise money by doing a "nude" calendar. Given the women were of a certain age the photos had strategically placed items. There was a film made about it called Calendar Girls.

2 comments:

Attila the Mom said...

Thanks so much---I get it now! And I loved that movie!

oldcrow61 said...

I heard about these women doing the calendar before the movie came out. I thought it was a wonderful gutsy thing to do. Enjoyed the movie as well.

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