Introduce yourself
My name is Claire Salisbury, 34 and I am a member of Market Harborough WI, this is my second year and I am on the committee.
I work for company that sells pharmacy robotics in the UK and worldwide and I get to travel a lot and I also set up as a wedding planner for Lefkada, Greece three years ago which I do in my spare time!
Why did you become a member of the WI?
My mum joined first to meet new people as she worked from home. She told me about the meetings and undertook to build their website. I was giving lots of promotional ideas and finally she said, why don't you come and join us! I had a lovely email from the first president and founder Hazel Stacey and I went along to see what it was all about.
I had tried a couple of other WIs previously. The first was a nice evening but everyone was at least twice my age or older and exactly what my perception of the WI had been. Having read articles of young, modern WIs in London I was disappointed. The second group was more modern and average younger but there was a long waiting list so I forgot about it completely until about 18 months later when I was persuaded to try MHWI.
How would you sum up your WI?
Our phrase is old and new and I think we encompass that perfectly. We try to keep the ethos of the WI and the focus is on the local area and promoting women but with a modern, forward thinking outlook. We have members from ages 20s to 70s which is really great. We featured in an article about the new WI in The Sun newspaper Dec 2013
Why would you encourage other women to get involved in the WI?
Meet new people, try new things you might never have considered before. As well as the meetings you can also access the monthly social events which are only open to members. The meeting attendance is not compulsory so you can get as much out of the membership as suits your lifestyle or availability!
What are you most looking forward to as part of the WI centenary in 2015?
We are trying to do a number of events and theme things at our meetings all with a '100 theme' where ever we can.