Friends want to bring WI to their generation

A TRIO of young women are keen to set up a new era of the Women's Institute at a Georgeham pub.

Work friends Azey Siddiqui, Marie Fraser and Rebecca Worth, who all work at North Devon Hospice, wanted to set up a social group for young professional women in North Devon.

The girls said they wanted to create a group where young women could network and try new things together, in a fun, social environment.

Azey from Braunton said "We often get together for lunch and chat 19 to the dozen about everything and anything. One day we were saying how many things we'd love to try out but haven't got round to it yet. Then it moved on to how it would be great to get everyone together more often."

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It was then the idea of setting up a new-wave WI came up, and the girls want as many like-minded females as possible to come along and help form the group.

The new WI will essentially be a monthly social, a place for young women to meet up, meet new people and put their hands to new things.

The first meeting will be on October 15 at the Kings Arms in Georgeham.

During this first informal get together, the trio are keen to hear about what other women are interested in doing, if there's any activities they could look to organise or host.

It's also an opportunity to see if people are indeed interested in making it a bit more formal, and setting up as a new-era WI.

Azey tells us "Arts and crafts are synonymous with the WI and we hope to keep the tradition going in some respect, but we're also keen to welcome other aspects too, that are more representative of what the type of people we are and what we're interested in." Marie said "We're really lucky to have the Kings as our meeting spot; it's an ideal location and the atmosphere is amazing. So far, we're been letting people know about it all through word of mouth and the response has been really positive.

"There's such a mix of women who are keen to come along and they have such a mix of interests too, anything from Latino dancing to knitting, to cycling and botany, and likewise, they're all from really different professions too. It all bodes well for a really interesting get together."

If you're interesting in going along, you can meet the girls and others at the Kings Arms in Georgeham on Monday October 15 from 7pm.

For more information, see their facebook page The Kings WI or send them an email kingswi@ymail.com.