We held our 2019 AGM on 11th April, the meeting was well attended. Below is a brief summary of the meeting (the full report can be found on our Facebook page).
After a break in 2017 the group was relaunched in January 2018 and has quickly grown in numbers from 4 to around 20 members.
During the last year we have spent a lot of time focusing on mental health and how we can better support local women. Some of our members have completed a mental health first aid course and we have had held several workshops including an assertiveness and confidence session, a session run by a CBT therapist on anxiety and a mediation and wellbeing workshop.
The environment is an important issue for the group. We have had sessions on cloth nappies and reusable products and held regular litter picks in New Mills. We held a session making seed bombs to grow flowers for pollinators. These were given out in local businesses. We also held a stuff swap to save waste by reusing clothes and household items. We plan to continue with regular litter picks and also fund raise for the local litter pick group.
As a group we regularly raise money for charities and community groups. Last year we held a Macmillan coffee morning raising £151.73 and a bake sale in aid of Red Nose Day which raised £122.50. We helped organise New Mills Under the Hammer, a local auction of promises which raised over £3000, funds were split between New Mills Women’s Group, Chernobyl Children’s Project and One World Festival. We also donated food and toiletries to the fire fighters at the Saddleworth Moor blaze.
To raise funds for our group we ran various stalls at local events including One World festival, New Mills Christmas lights Switch On and Action for Africa Christmas Craft Fair. We ran a pop up cafe at an antiques fair and held a Christmas Wreath making workshop with the public. Our Ladies Pamper Night was very successful, we raised over £500 with local stalls, a bar and pamper sessions.
We hold regular craft sessions run by group members or local tutors. Last year we did rock painting for HP Rocks, hair braiding, crochet, fused glass, papercraft and felt Christmas decorations. We sold some of our makes at various stalls throughout the year. We also did a car maintenance session with a local garage and visited a care home at Christmas with our children. It’s important to us to fund a child free social occasion for members each year, last year we went to the POP INN for afternoon tea.
We planned a number of things for next year including a refresher session on crochet and for car maintenance. We plan to make termly visits to local care homes and run regular litter picks. We have also planned a forest school trip with our children, a mindful whittling session, a gardening workshop and more craft sessions.
Overall we have had a very successful year and have grown dramatically in numbers. We have several talented members who use their abilities to help the group learn new skills. We are happy with our current venue but have discussed the possibility of moving to a larger venue if our numbers continue to grow as we are limited by the venue size. We look forward to the exciting sessions and events we have planned for next year.
