About Us

Welcome to Polstead Women’s Institute

Polstead WI has been running since 1919. Two major incidents stopped us: the first was World War ll and the second was Covid. Like many small groups, we could not keep going as we were unable to meet. So we temporarily closed our doors for this brief period, as did many other groups county wide.

We opened our doors again in May 2023, welcomed some of our old members back and recruited some new. We currently have 16 members and we hope to encourage several more ladies to join us, as we establish ourselves again.

Polstead WI is not only about learning new skills or improving old ones, but about finding some you have never considered before. Above all, we consider it to be about making friends and supporting the wider community. Although we have only been together again for a short time, there is a real sense of joy and happiness when we have our members meeting, which is exactly as we want it to be

.

A little bit of our history

Polstead WI was formed in May 1919. By 1921, the membership was flourishing and held meetings in the Village school. Mr W M Cooke offered a gift of land for the WI Hall and a wooden hut was obtained. The opening ceremony was held in September 1923. It showed great initiative for a small rural village and we are proud that it has flourished ever since.

It was the ladies of Polstead WI who were among the main instigators of a Community Shop for the area. Several current WI members still form part of the large group of volunteers who help to run the project.

Why do we belong to the WI?

It offers opportunities for all women to enjoy friendship, to learn, to widen our horizons and, together as a group, to influence local, national and international affairs.

We are part of The Three Valleys Group, which includes Boxford, Bures, Elmsett and Aldham, Hadleigh, Leavenheath, Nayland and District and Polstead. We are one of the longest existing WIs in Suffolk. The Suffolk West Federation was founded in 1920 and could not be formed until they reached a total of 25 WI groups. This is governed by the Suffolk West Federation which, in turn, represents us nationally.

Just like a very long line of women before us, we consider it our honour to carry on making a difference.

What happens in our group?

We are so lucky to get some fabulous speakers who cover a wide variety of topics, such as a journalist, a walk in nature and an expert on how we manage illness through making good food choices. We have some very artistic members, so we do like to be creative, and have a few things planned for early next year.

We arrange frequent outings locally to places of interest, for meals, boat trips, to the coast and the theatre as well as craft and garden centres. The outings are well supported by members, friends and family. Whilst WI members have priority, if you are not a member, but would like to join us on one of our trips, please contact our secretary, Lorna Smith at lornasin@hotmail.com. Meetings and outings are advertised on village notice boards, as well as our local free paper LSPN. We also have our own members’ Facebook page and communicate via email and, of course, at our monthly meetings.

We would be pleased to welcome any new members to ensure that Polstead WI continues to flourish.