Arlingham WI

Our President Chrissie opened the meeting with information on forthcoming events.

These included a walk at Chadworth, the Tim Poole Cup Competition, a walking holiday in Powys, GFWI Holiday to Austria, the Autumn County meeting and a taster day.

Our speaker was John Flynn from The Woodland Trust.

Founded in 1972, the Trust’s aim is to preserve our native trees.

With more than 300 employees today, they take care of over 22,000 hectares of woodland.

Believing that trees are the lungs and soul of the country, they would like to see everyone living within walking distance of a wood.

Unfortunately at the moment only seven per cent of the UK is covered in trees so there is much work still to be done.

Most importantly there is only about two per cent of native woodland left.

When native flora and fauna grow up together they develop immunity to certain diseases.

However, by introducing new trees to the landscape, new diseases are also introduced threatening the habitat of butterflies, mammals, flowers and fungi.

Over 200 endangered species such as the dormouse live in trees.

The Trust wants to make sure there is no further loss of ancient woods and have planted over 31 million trees to date.

Carol gave the vote of thanks after such a passionate talk as we enjoyed a lovely spread.

The competition for ‘an item beginning with the letter V’ was won by Sue with a spray of veronica.

Second place went to Beryl with a velociraptor and third to Val with a velvet scarf.

The flowers were given to Chris Gardner.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, October 13 and the completion will be ‘something beginning with the letter W.’ New members and visitors are always welcome.

We meet on the second Thursday of the month at 7.30pm in the village hall.