Stick to your knitting, they say.
Do what you know best.
Make your work your passion.
Women’s Institute members around the country are taking these mottos to heart and – for once – are having a project to raise awareness for themselves.
Fresh off the success of hosting the Women’s Institute national indoor bowling challenge this month, Gisborne and Wairoa women’s institutes are bringing out the big guns ... their crockery.
They are hosting high tea at Holy Trinity Hall in Derby Street, Gisborne, from 2pm this Saturday.
“It’s a sit-down-and-be-waited-on tea,” said Alison Crawford, president of the Poverty Bay-Wairoa Federation of Women’s Institutes.
“All the china cabinets have been emptied out, all the bone china teacups and three-tiered plates have been pulled out and put together.
“Everything will be home-made. They’ll be served little savouries, mini quiches, Government House coronation chicken sandwiches, cream cheese and ginger rolls, scones with jam and cream, meringues, lamingtons, jelly slice .... all the goodies you have at a flash party.”
Liquid refreshment will be tea, coffee or cold water with slices of lemon.
Entertainment will be provided by Savvy, an a cappella choir led by Toni Griffin.
Savvy will perform from 2.15pm and food and drinks will be served about 2.30pm. It is expected the event will be over by 4pm.
The cost is $20 a head and, while people can pay as they enter, organisers would like to know in advance who’s coming.
“We are limited to 100 people,” Crawford said.
People can contact her at alisoncrawfordis@outlook.com or Jean Mills at 867 4514.
Once there, they can also buy tickets in a raffle.
Women’s Institutes – known for about 30 years as Country Women’s Institutes – have a reputation for helping those in need with food, knitting, sewing and the like.
“This is the first time we are doing something for ourselves,” Crawford said.
Money raised would go to the Women’s Institute head office, she said.
“They don’t have the chance to raise money. This is all about supporting our national body.”
The high tea was the best-supported idea for a nationwide project to come out of last year’s annual conference of the New Zealand Federation of Women’s Institutes.
Local Women’s Institute members are experienced caterers. They provided high tea for 80 people at the 40th anniversary of the Gisborne Sunshine Service and the 15th anniversary of the Tairāwhiti Positive Ageing Trust. It was a joint celebration held in the Rose Room, Marina Park, last November.
This month they organised and catered the national Women’s Institutes indoor bowls tournament at the Waerenga-a-Hika Hall.
The Dalefield Women’s Institute, from Wairarapa, won the Challenge Trophy but the local heroes included three men – Dean Davies, who helped with the Waerenga-a-Hika Hall arrangements, and Evan Parkin and Graham Hurne, who drove the van and then became kitchen hands, cutting the pumpkin and doing the dishes.
Help will be coming from outside Gisborne this weekend, but from within the Women’s Institute regional “family”.
Eight women are coming from the Frasertown Women’s Institute in the Wairoa District to do their bit alongside the local Tūranganui and Puha WI members.
