Our fourth annual February Stepping Challenge raising funds for St. Mary’s Hospice.
Your challenge – aim to do 9,000 steps a day, every day in February. That’s 29 days this leap year. You can get outdoors and step, or dance around your kitchen. Climb mountains, run up and down stairs, walk round shopping centres, get on the treadmill- just try to do those steps!
Why 9,000 steps? The running costs for St Mary’s were £9,000 per day when we did our first challenge back in lockdown 2020.
The challenge is open to everyone, women, men , children, wherever you live. Please encourage friends and family to join in the challenge themselves, or make a donation in support of your efforts.
Here’s what you do.
First of all, go to our Just Giving Page set up for us by Jacky Godfrey. Make a donation ( gift aid if possible please- St Mary’s gets an extra 20% that way)
You can donate any amount that suits you.
Here’s the link (below) to our Just Giving page. Just click on it.
You can then share your trials, tribulations, photos, successes on our Facebook Group. Plus you’ll get loads of encouragement
We’ll add news and photos to this web page too for those of you not on Facebook.
Update ! Saturday 3 February. Our original ai, was to raise £1,000. As of today we’ve already raised £1,299 plus Gift Aid !!! We’ve upped out target to £2,000.
Keep Stepping and Keep Supporting. Thank you!
Thursday 1 February 2024.
Step through February with us. You’ll get fitter, have fun, and raise money for a wonderful charity. At the end it will be March! The daffodils will be out! The days will be lighter! We can do this!
St Mary’s Hospice Ulverston is a much loved, much needed local resource. Only a small porting of the money needed to run it comes from the NHS and government. The rest comes from donations and fundraising. Please help us to support St Mary’s. You can read more about St Mary’s Hospice Ulverston by clicking on this link.
Here are some photos from recent trips,events and meetings.
At the beginning of December we had a trip to the Country Living Christmas Fair in Harrogate. It was great fun.
Unfortunately, there was a very heavy snowfall between Kendal and Grasmere during the day, and for members a day away became a weekend away with blocked roads making an overnight stay in Kendal necessary!
We had a private visit to NT Townend
We were thrilled when member Ann Jackman organised a private visit to Townend at Troutbeck , followed by a fabulous lunch at Troutbeck Post Office.
We had a great time at our Christmas Party.
We had lovely food, great company, a monster raffle, music, entertainment and loads of fun at Tweedies for our 2023 Christmas party. Here are some of our photos.
Our January meeting
We learnt about different types of puzzles and tried to solve them 🤣 with limited success! Another fun GWI day.
A trip to Wensleydale Creamery
Our first trip of 2024. There was snow on the ground but all went smoothly on the journey to Hawes. Another excellent GWI on tour day.
We worked our socks off making items for the show, organising collections and delivery of entries, helping the Federation with clerking for the judges, and then collecting everything up after the show to bring entries back to Grasmere. Huge thanks to everyone involved!
How did we do? It was A_MAZ_ING darling as Craig would say (assuming you all watch Strictly)
Below is the message sent out by President Louise ………..
“Here’s a reminder of our tremendous results at the Show –
AWARD
POINTS
ACTUAL NUMBER OF AWARDS
Gold
19-20 points
41
Silver
17-18 points
37
Red
15-16 points
19
Blue
13-14 points
8
Green
11-12 points
5
TOTAL AWARDS
110
CUPS AWARDED
Kendal Romney Bowl
First place in Five Varieties of Yeast Cookery C5 Co-operative – Jenny Garside, Jane McGregor, Carol Nicholson
Galbraith Trophy
First place in Five Varieties of Sweet Biscuits C6 Co-operative – Mel Miles, Pam Moreland, Elaine Webster
Mrs Appleby Trophy
Best entry in Sweet Biscuits Category E4 – Jenny Garside
Clarke Trophy
First place in Cumbrian Flavours B4 Co-operative – Jane Caven, Carol Nicholson
Triers Trophy
Second highest average points score in the Craft Classes – GWI
Congratulations everyone !!!!
Here are some photos of of fabulous winning entries. So much talent in GWI !
We took part In the Traditional Grasmere Rushbearing
President Louise Sykes with the Rushmaidens, and above, l to r, Events Coordinator Myra McCraith, Past President Pat Taylor, Vice President Sue Dixon and President Louise Sykes with the WI Banner.
We decorated St Oswald’s Grasmere with flowers.
Many donated from our gardens. We do this every year at the end of August in memory of dearly loved members who are no longer with us. Thanks to Polly, Helen and all who worked so hard at this.
Here is the message President Louise sent out at the start of the latest challenge in April 2023.
Hi all
Thanks for all your enthusiasm with the GWI Lakes and Tarns Challenge and big thanks to Sam Dixon for the brilliant idea, we love a challenge at GWI!
We are off to a good start thanks to some early efforts from Dee, Ann F, Myra and one of our new members Jane Roberts, welcome Jane.
Here is the latest updated spreadsheet with the list of lakes and tarns. Thanks to Sam and David (our Official Adjudicator OA), who have built the spreadsheet and added gradings and grid references for each lake and tarn.
It is still a work in progress as we may add/ take some off the list (eg if we find some are inaccessible or dried up)but we wanted to get the list out to you all, so you can get planning your visits!
The spreadsheet has been updated with the early visits made.
Please do read the guidelines at the top of the spreadsheet. For ease of reference, the guidelines are copied out below too.
I have also attached the great presentation Sam gave at the last GWI meeting for those that missed it (Powerpoint and PDF versions).
All tarns and lakes can be repeated and all visits / dips will be recorded – we are not going to reserve specific tarns or lakes, except for occasional special group events. Please remember stronger walkers are asked to leave the less challenging tarns for others to tick off.
Also, don’t forget that we are saving Grasmere for the Grand Finale, date tbc.
Photos should be sent with the date of the visit / dip, to the GWI WhatsApp group so the OA can add them to the spreadsheet. If you are not on Whats App, please send your photos and information to Sam and myself.
As usual with our challenges, you are encouraged to wear your GWI T-shirt These can be ordered through me, cost £12 each. Please let me know if you want one.
Please stay safe and have fun with this exciting new challenge.
Any queries (or difficulties opening or understanding the spreadsheet), please do get in touch!
Good luck everyone, let’s get out there and tick off those lakes and tarns
Best wishes
Louise
We’re now well on with the challenge.
Below is the wonderful spreadsheet complied by Sam Dixon with help from the Official Adjudicator David Johnson (Louise’s husband) . It’s a snapshot of the situation on 5 June 2023.
(note from Sue D, website author- this is the best way I could manage to get the spreadsheet onto the website. I know it’s not 100% clear, and if anyone has helpful suggestions as to how to do this better please let me know !)
Here are some photos from our May meeting, where our speaker was Vicky Robinson OBE, who talked to us about her role in founding the wonderful Theatre by the Lake, Keswick. It was a very informative and enjoyable talk.
Here’s a copy of Louise’s message to members about the new GWI Book Group 2023.
*****There has been a change in the original schedule – August and October we’re swapped so coming up in October it’s Maggie O’Farrell****
Hi all
The GWI book group got off to a great start on 17 January. Allan Bank is such a fabulous venue We had and and some had and we had a really good bookish chat about books we would like to read this year. Big thanks to Ann Jackman for suggesting this group and sorting the venue, such a brilliant idea
The book list for this year with meeting dates is listed below.
All the meetings are on a Tuesday evening at Allan Bank at 6pm and there will be some interactive trips out too. On Thursday 20 April we are going to see the National Theatre production of Good with David Tennant at Fellinis and have dinner there too and that play will be our book for our March meeting. The production starts at 7pm and our dinner booking will be at about 5pm. Please let me know if you would like a ticket, I’ll be booking them in the next few days.
This month’s book is The Man Who Forgot his Wife by John O’Farrell which we’ll be discussing at our next meeting on Tuesday 21 February.
Please come and join in this group, it’s great fun and in the true WI spirit, we are learning lots of new things!
Happy reading
The List
Tuesday 17 January – Book chat
Tuesday 21 February
The Man Who Forgot his Wife, John O’Farrell
Tuesday 21 March
Good, CP Taylor
[Thursday 20 April – NT Good @ Fellinis ]
Tuesday 25 April
The Raven’s Nest, Sarah Thomas
The view from Allan Bank during April’s book group reading Raven’s Nest. We’re so fortunate to have our meetings in Wordsworth’s former home
Tuesday 23 May
My Sister, the Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Tuesday 27 June
The Jigsaw Maker, Adrienne Dines
(GWI 13 July speaker)
Tuesday 25 July
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, DH Lawrence
Tuesday 22 August
The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrrell
Tuesday 26 September
This Much is True, Miriam Margolyes
Tuesday 24 October
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
Tuesday 28 November
Confessions of a Forty – Something F##k up, Alexandra Potter
Our speaker was Eileen Jones, sharing her passion for Parkrun. Eileen’s second book an A to Z of Parkruns called “P is for Parkrun”has just been published.
Here’s Eileen, her books, and GWI President Louise and Committee member Jacky.
Sue Dixon and Jill Morrison organised a plant and preserves swap and sale. We all went home with new plants, and we raised over £200 for St Mary’s Hospice.
Jane Caven launched us into preparations for entering the CWFWI competitions in the County Show. Jane is on the right, standing next to Marina Lord, with Jennifer Hardisty on the left. We’re GOING BIG AGAIN at the Westmorland Show 2023! 🎪
Sam Dixon did a presentation of our new challenge. We’re going to visit all 16 Lakes and 100 Tarns, photograph ourselves and keep a record. The challenge runs until the September Equinox. More details to follow ………Here’s Sam with Eileen.
Congratulations to Diane Adams (below right) on her first meeting as Secretary, and to Louise Sykes on her first meeting as President. They make a great team 👍
Grasmere WI at the Westmorland Show September 2022
We’ve not entered the WI Competitions at the County Show for many years. In 2022 we decided to change all that. If you’re on Facebook you can see all the news and photos from the County Show here
Between us we got lots of Gold, Silver and Red awards. We had great fun. It was a great team effort. We’ll be going again in 2023!
Here are some of our Gold Winning Entries from the Westmorland Show .
all
These can be ordered through me, cost £12 each. Please let me know if you want one.
group got off to a great start on 17 January. Allan Bank is such a fabulous venue
and
and some had
and we had a really good bookish chat about books we would like to read this year. Big thanks to Ann Jackman for suggesting this group and sorting the venue, such a brilliant idea
Maker, Adrienne Dines
Grasmere W.I. 