North-east SWI groups kick-off their 2023 meetings
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Local Scottish Women's Institutes (SWI) groups have held their first meetings of the year.
The Glass SWI held their meeting on Thursday January 12.
The group, which have begun to meet during the daytime in the winter months, joined together at the Glass Hall in the afternoon to listen to a new speaker, before holding tea and competitions.
Miranda Montgomery said: "For our first meeting of the year we had a very interesting and eloquent speaker, Sarah Kendrick, who told us about her life as a specialist nurse working with people with in a little known disease called Batten Disease, a disabling illness that can affect children.
"Fortunately a rare illness what began as rather a heart-breaking picture ended happily with more recent hopeful developments for giving those affected some quality of life."
The talk was followed by a fine tea given by members Lilian Cameron and Frances Harrold, and then the business.
Christine Locke won one of the groups competitions and received a Scottish-themed piece of China-ware and shortbread was won by Marion Duff.
The Glass SWI will hold their next meeting in the Glass Hall at 2.00pm on Thursday February 2.
Their next speaker Eddie Enslie will be speaking about Life from South Africa to Dufftown.
Rhynie SWI also held their first meeting of the year, with the ladies enjoying a finger buffet hosted by the Rural Committee.
The group played games and then their competitions were judged.
The winners of the Pretty Finger Ring were - 1 Jenette Newcombe; 2 Evelyn Bain and 3 Irene Walker and the shortbread fingers winners were - 1 Jenette Newcombe; 2 Margaret Reid and 3 Diane Muiry.
Group member Kate Hunter then proposed the vote of thanks.
At King Edward, Linda Thom welcomed 21 members and guests to the meeting on the 18th.
The minutes of the December were read and approved.
She then dealt with some of the business before introducing us to our speaker for the evening, Klaus Neilson and
Andrea who firstly gave an outline as to how he came to his career in fruit, vegetable and ice carvings.
With his slide show, he told how he was involved in this on cruise liners including the Queen Mary 2nd.
He then demonstrated how to make a flower from a carrot and gave each of us one to try.
The slide show included ice sculptures of a castle and Nessie which were amazing.
It was a really interesting talk and he had brought along some of his carvings including a floral arrangements, all made with fruit and vegetables.
This was followed by the usual tasty refreshments provided by the hostesses, Linda Preston and Eva Collins with
contributions from Linda Thom and the raffle was drawn.
The Competition winners were as follows -
Flower of the Month - 1 Linda Thom and 2 Dianne Smith.
Carved Fruit or Vegetable - 1 Dianne Smith; 2 May Wilson and 3 Linda Thom.
Pretty Bell - 1 Eva Collins; 2 Linda Thom and 3 Jennifer MacKay.
The vote of thanks was given by Mary Farquhar, to Klaus for his talk, to the hostesses and to Linda for her usual organising skill.
The next meeting will be the Scots’Night on Friday, February 17.
At the meeting in Fyvie, president Carole Eddie welcomed members to the first meeting of the year.
Business was discussed,then Carole introduced Jackie Hepburn from Turriff who gave members an interesting talk on Turriff and District Pipe Band on this their Centenary Year.
Jackie was then asked to judge the monthly competitions with the results as follows:
Two shortbread fingers -1 Isobel Watt; 2 Jan Nicol and 3 Elizabeth Riach.
Tartan Item - 1 Carole Eddie; 2 Jan Nicol and 3 Linda Charles.
Gents Buttonhole - 1 Jan Nicol; 2 Linda Charles and 3 Jennifer Leys.
B C Ferguson competition (sewn purse:)Jan Nicol.
A welcome of tea was provided by Avril Watt and hostesses, before Linda Charles proposed the votes of thanks.
