About Broad Town Women's Institute

The Broad Town WI are a friendly group of women. We meet in the village hall on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, apart from December when we meet on the 2nd Wednesday. We start with our speaker so please arrive promptly at 7.30pm for a talk or activity which may be educational, inspiring, amusing and energetic.  After the talk we have time for socialising and refreshments.  This is followed by a short business meeting.  We also arrange visits to gardens, pubs, local attractions, and go on summer walks.  With a membership of 27 and growing we are keen to welcome new members. We have had a stall at the Broad Town summer Big Gig for the past few years supplying the festival goers with hot drinks and delicious homemade cakes.

We are affiliated to the Wiltshire federation of WI which in turn is part of the national WI allowing us to make a difference to campaigns such as reducing supermarket packaging, influencing the price of milk at the farm gate and accurate labeling food with the country of origin.  Current campaigns are helping to alleviate loneliness, improving hospital arrangements for carers of people with dementia, helping to reduce plastic waste and trying to end food poverty. 
 
There is also a dedicated college of further education; Denman college in Oxfordshire, offering the widest range of courses allowing WI members to learn new skills or further existing ones.
 
If you would like to meet some new friends in the village, have an opportunity to learn something new and maybe influence a national campaign why not come along one evening soon?  Visitors are always welcome and you can try us out without any obligation.
Broad Town Women's Institute - Events and Plans
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Our talk this month was entitled ‘Love food, hate waste’. Emma Croft, who is the Waste Minimiser Officer for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, told us about her job encouraging people to waste less, recycle more and mend things rather than just sending them to landfill. The council spends £4.5 million on landfill tax each year.

 

We were shocked to find how much food is wasted on a single day, mainly vegetables, fruit, bread and dairy products. For instance more than 5.3 million potatoes are thrown away each day and 4.1 million apples also end up in the bin along with 1.4 million sausages. Half of what is thrown away could have been consumed.

 

Part of Emma’s job is to help people plan for the week so that they don’t buy too much, portion control, how to store food to prolong it’s shelf life, as well as suggestions of how to use up excess food to prevent it being wasted. There are lots of tips on the ‘Love food, hate waste’ website.

 

She also showed us the latest food waste digesters, which are supplied, from the council, at a 78% reduction and which can deal with all types of food waste including cooked food, meat and bones etc without attracting vermin, preventing it going to landfill sites where it produces methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas.

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