The Brentwood Belles WI

17/06/2026

Tonight's meeting is going to be 'chocca' block full of deliciousness, as we'll be joined by Temprd Chocolate for a talk on the history of how they got into chocolate making, and, luckily for us, chocolate samples! 😋

We can't wait to get stuck in, and as always tonight promises to be both busy and fun. Here's your meeting checklist for tonight:

🍫 Your chocolate bar wrapper design, should you wish to enter our Challenge Cup.
💰 Your purse, should you wish to purchase any chocolate after the meeting.
☕ A mug for tea break.
📚 Any books for the Belles' Library.
🥫 Any donations for the Food Bank.
🎄 Any Christmas cards for recycling
💊 Any empty medication blister packs for our new recycling collection - can be taken to Boots.
🖊 Any dead pens for our new recycling collection.

We look forward to seeing you tonight! 👋

15/06/2026

Our Brunching Belles returned to what is a relatively new venue in Brentwood this weekend: Leila Brentwood. 😋

We are always impressed by the variety on the menu and the portion sizes! 🥞

Thank you so much to Leila’s for having us; we’re sure we’ll be back soon!

13/06/2026

Looking for something creative to do this weekend? Then look no further than our Challenge Cup!

We’re asking you to design a chocolate bar wrapper this month, as we’ll be joined by Temprd Chocolate as our speaker this month.

Of course, this Challenge must also come with lots of chocolate bar research 😉 Enjoy!!

10/06/2026

Tiny terrariums! That was your challenge for last month's Challenge Cup, and it was wonderful to see so many entries, each with their own look or theme to them. 🫙

Of course, this went hand in hand with our speaker, Anne Luder, who spoke to us about gardening for wildlife, and our Annual Plant Sale, and it was lovely to see our Belles' green fingers! 🌱

Thank you to all of the members that took part; here are the May meeting winners:

🥇 1st place: Julia J.
🥈 2nd place: Helen B.
🥉 Joint 3rd place: Kirsty and Maggie.

07/06/2026

A huge thank you to Barbara, Annette, Marion and Carol for running our Annual Plant Swap for us at the May meeting. 🌱

This is a brilliant initiative of Marion’s which has gone from strength to strength over the years, and has become a firm favourite at our May meeting.

What’s more, we raised £74.37 for Hopefield Animal Sanctuary & Visitor Centre with your donations! Thank you ladies, and happy gardening! 🪴

05/06/2026

And the second resolution from yesterday’s Annual Meeting of The WI (National Federation of Women's Institutes): Women’s Homelessness.

Also PASSED and will now become one of our campaigns for the year.

If anyone has any thoughts on how we can support this campaign, feel free to get in touch with the committee. We note that there were also some ideas popping up in the Unofficial Women's Institute - UWI group yesterday and we will look into these.

Resolution 2: Women’s Homelessness PASSED by WI members with a 92% majority.

05/06/2026

An update on this year’s Resolutions, after they were debated at yesterday’s virtual Annual Meeting of The WI (National Federation of Women's Institutes).

Firstly, resolution 1: Accessible Toilets, which caused a lot of discussion at our May meeting, and gained a lot of support from our membership.

This has been PASSED and now will become one of our campaigns for the year.

The TBBWI Committee will take guidance on our next steps and will let the membership know what we can do to support this campaign further.

Resolution 1: Accessible Toilets PASSED by WI members with a 95% majority.

30/05/2026

This year’s Brentwood Art Trail starts today, and we’re very pleased to have two Belles exhibiting again this year! 🎨

Jane has a beautiful equine piece on display at the Brentwood Art Trail Pop-Up Gallery at The Baytree Shopping Centre. 🐎

Becky has a selection of her papercraft art - a Whomping Willow collage, a bouquet of paper flowers and paper roses in a vase - on display at Abigail's Lifestyle in Ingatestone. 💐

Becky is also hosting the guided tour of the artworks in Ingatestone at 10am on Saturday 20th June; visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/brentwood-art-trail-33626242465 to book a space.

And finally, one of our new members, Sue, has her piece on display at Schmidt Kitchens. Many of you will know Sue as she was our face painter at our sparkly Christmas party last year, and so it’ll come as no surprise how beautiful her creations are!

We are so proud of all three Belles and we can’t wait to see their artwork! Do go and check out their artwork if you can; the Art Trail runs until Sunday 28th June across Brentwood, She field and Ingatestone - pick up an official brochure from the Pop-Up Gallery or visit the website for further details!

🔗 www.brentwoodarttrail.co.uk

29/05/2026

Throwing it back to last week’s WI Essex County Annual Meeting… 🤝 When we found out that this year’s CAM was going to be on our home turf at The Brentwood Centre, we had to have the Belles represented 🙌

And when we found out that the lovely Patrick Grant of The Great British Sewing Bee was going to be speaking, we couldn’t not go. 😉

A great day with our fellow WI sisters…thank you to FEWI for bringing this year’s meeting so close to home for us!

21/05/2026

A bloomin' marvellous May meeting last night, as we were joined by Anne Luder who talked us through gardening for wildlife and how to include native plants in our outdoor spaces. 🌱

We definitely learnt a lot last night, and came away with plenty of ideas for our gardens! We've included some of Anne's slides within this post if you want to swipe for ideas of what to plant in order to attract wildlife 👉

Of course, we also had our wonderful Annual Plant Swap and our Tiny Terrarium Challenge Cup - more details on both of these points to follow at a later date!