Cornwall County WI Topics - October 2008

Written by Shelia Goldsworthy

A new era is now starting in the life of Cornwall Federation of WI's with the announcement of the new County Chairman for 2008/9 at the Annual Meeting held in Truro last week.

Yvonne Toms is a well known figure in the County, and will be a very popular choice in this strategic post. In her capacity as a WI Adviser she has visited most WIs and is familiar as a demonstrator and craft expert, and an Advisor on the Exhibitions Sub-committee.

But many know her as the Secretary of Stithians Show, so we have at the helm a very talented and capable Cornish lady born in Stithians of  good WI stock! Her Mum was a WI member so Yvonne has a background of unsurpassed WI knowledge and experience

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The meeting also applauded the out going Chairman Nan Collier, who also had a Cornish WI background with a Mum in the WI. Nan has worked for the Federation loyally in the past three years and over come many difficulties to serve the members so well, with dignity and fortitude.

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Our ears have been assailed in the last couple of weeks with blanket coverage of doom and gloom and monetary problems, all of which has been entirely out of our hands, but as usual the WI can be instrumental in saving money, in Cornwall at least. Members realise that much of our council tax is spent on managing the county's waste each year. The cost of collection and disposal of rubbish annually in Cornwall is now over £50 million and like everything else, is on the rise. This is all public money, funds that could be spent on schools, fire services and local facilities etc.

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WI Members have attended day schools, meetings, seminas, etc run by the CFWI and PA sub committee, in conjunction with their advisor Esther O'Beragh, the CCC Waste Projects and Awareness Officer, and have been only too keen to exploit the mantra of "Reduce Reuse, and Recycle". They also enthusiastically promote the Booklet "Reducing Waste in Cornwall". So thrifty souls as we are we abhor the thought of throwing away money, spending it on rubbish. Cornwall recycled 100,000 tonnes of rubbish which is over one third of all waste produced but means that two thirds is still being land filled, so taking reduction one step further, "Zero Waste Week Challenge", which is 20th.-26th October is  arranged to see how little can be thrown away, by making extra efforts to put into practice the three "Rs".

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In other parts of the country, where Zero Waste Week has been applied people have thrown away a quarter of what they would normally have done. Ideally Zero Waste means that nothing gets thrown away in the dustbin. As well as trying to cut down what we use, it means that we only use things that we can reuse, recycle or compost, and to make us really consider buying goods with none or less packaging, for instance buying  fresh bread instead of in a plastic wrapper , buying drinks in a recyclable cans.

There are 12 re-cycling centres in Cornwall. There is a free phone 0800 6120 456 for further information. Cornish WI members have always liked a challenge especially when it can make a difference to their pocket and will doubtless come up with multiple ideas to make this "Zero Waste Week a success. Circumstances are different for everyone and even if we don't quite manage to achieve "zero waste", we can try and emulate Item 1 on the WI Green Charter.

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One long-gone famous Prime Minister spoke endlessly about the pound in your pocket, as WI members we may not be able to do anything about wobbly Icelandic banks but we can all help reduce waste in Cornwall, and therefore reduce the cost involved, saving the pound in our pocket.

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