This month our speaker was from the Dorset & Wiltshire Children’s Hospices.
The Hospice at Devizes is dedicated to children with life-limiting conditions. It provides free specialist care for around 100 children who sadly are unlikely to live into young adulthood. They give support to families to help them cope with the demands of 24hr care. They help families in their own homes as well as care in the beautiful Julia’s Hospice which is equipped with sensory and music rooms.
Sadly with no government funding, they need to fund it themselves. With help from celebrities, they raised money to buy and equip the hospice in Devizes, with ongoing fund raising and donations helping to keep this hospice open. We are privileged to be invited to visit the hospice in September.
Other activities this month have included our flower arranging afternoon at the Reading Rooms with plenty of chat, tea and cake. We also visited Mavern House for a craft afternoon with the residents.
Earlier in the month we went to visit the garden at Duck Pond Barn, Church Lane, Wingfield. The garden was beautiful, and the planting was extensive. We were shown round and heard how the garden has grown. There were formal beds, fruit bushes, orchard and vegetable gardens plus a wonderful greenhouse. After a walk through the woods, we sat by the Duck Pond and had tea and delicious homemade cakes.
In 2009 WI members expressed their concerns about bee decline in the UK and passed the ‘SOS for Honeybees’ resolution, calling for more research on this topic, Since then, members have been campaigning for more support for our precious pollinators and also planting bee-friendly plants in their communities.
Excitingly, in April due to increasing evidence of the harm the world’s most widely used insecticides (known as neonicotinoids) cause to pollinators such as bees, the EU – with the support of the UK government – passed a ban on the outdoor use of these harmful chemicals, For more on the SOS Honeybees ongoing campaign visit – thewi.org.uk/campaigns.
We have no meeting in August, so our next meeting is 10th September.
Jacqueline Giddings
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