From Joan Steel
Margaret made the announcements this month and introduced Valerie Statterfield, our speaker who gave a very interesting talk entitled “Being a Headmistres – a way of life”. Valerie’s lifetime career in teaching started in 1966 and ended six years ago. After thirty years of teaching in a wide selection of schools in Britain and the USA while her own children were little, then eventually became Headmistress of Pipers Corner School. Valerie found this very fulfilling, as well as challenging and complex. A head has to be authoritative, democratic, supportive, have a good leadership style, and able to create a positive, all round learning environment where academic achievement is paramount but there must be development of the whole character. Every child is gifted and talented so schools must be inclusive, everyone should feel valued as individuals, and be given high expectations. A school should not be complacent Valerie found that being head if a boarding community as well as living in a bungalow on the premises, was very strenuous as she was never off duty. She was always responsible even for nursing, and had to have legal medicine training. Dealing with many childrens issues, was like having a large family! Administrative issues and paper work could be all consuming eg Governors meetings, parents associations, staff appointments (Valerie outlined the atributes that she looked for in a good teacher), child protection issues that needed agency co-operation, meetings with architects ,dealing with government and political intrusion etc. However Valerie always kept “grounded” by doing some teaching and getting to know the girls and for them to know her. She paid tribute to her outstanding staff. School assemblies were thought provoking and strengthened the co-operative life of the school promoting the enduring power of love. Valerie was warmly thanked for her very interesting and informative talk.

Our next meeting is on April 5th when Mary Gamester’s fabrics talk is on “How India Has Influenced my Work”. The interesting objects competition is for something beginning with the letter R.

From Joan Steel

Jill welcomed us to the meeting then read some amusing quotes about children. After making the announcements Jill introduced Krissie Streatfield.a member of the Wycombe Beekeepers Association who’s slide talk was entitled “Buzz about Bees”. Krissie has kept bees for six years and at the moment has thirty-two hives, some locally in the Cryers Hill area and a small number at Waddesden Manor. The exact location of the hives is kept secret because the bees are very valuable. In a brief history of bees we learned that they are known to have been around for at least twenty thousand years. Egyptians used honey to embalm their dead. In Medieval times they discovered that the wax made good candles and in the First World War honey was used for healing wounds because it has antibacterial properties. Examples of different types of hives were shown to us and different types of actual dead bees. Krissie explained how the bees live and how the honey is harvested. About twenty thousand bees live in each hive, there is only one queen bee who is the mother of all the bees. She has a long body and after mating with the fluffy looking drones, who then die, she lays two thousand eggs every day. The worker bees feed her on royal jelly, which is a protein from the head of the worker bees the only bee to be fed on it, and she lives for about five years. Worker bees are the smallest, they feed the drones, of which there are about two hundred and fifty per hive, their only function is to mate with the queen. The workers, nearly two thousand, clean the hive, throw out the dead bees, do the foraging in an area of about one and a half mile radius, care for the brood, and decide when to make new bees. Krissie explained how and why bees swarm, and some of the diseases and pests that effect bees. They live an incredibly fascinating and organised existence,a nd although extensively studied they still have some behaviours that are a mystery. The speaker was warmly thanked for her most interesting and infomative talk. Honey from Krissie’s bees is on sale at Hughenden Village shop.

Please feel free to join us for our next meeting at 8pm in Hughenden Village Hall on March 1st when Valerie Statersfield is speaking to us on”Being a Head Teacher–a way of life”. The interesting object competition is for something beginning with the letter G.

From Joan Steel

Jenny Rayment, “The Calico Queen”, named her talk on patchwork and quilting as All Tucked Up and Twiddled”. Jenny travelled throughout America and round the world doing lectures on fabrics, judging quilting shows and taking teachers workshops. We were shown the wonderful collection of quilts that Jenny had made using every quilting and patchwork techniques with amazing skill. She had so many good and original ideas that she wrote a book entitled “Tucks Textures and Pleats”. Jenny used calico to start with, because it is relatively inexpensive and plain fabric with tucks and pleats show off the texture well. Panels of pleats folded in different ways were very effective. Dozens of other fabrics in colours and black and white used in different ways eg sculptured spheres, hexagons, circles, flowers, fans and some showing the art of sewing on three layers of fabric to give a very textured effect were all included in Jenny’s quilt collection. In her workshops Jenny shows nine different designs and also does creative crafts making toys felt hats bags etc.

Amazingly, this talk was the most entertaining and humorous we have ever had at Valley Wives because during showing us examples of her wonderful skills and techniques in quilting, Jenny told us many hilarious accounts of her life experiences and tales of very amusing situations she encountered on her travels. The talk ended with everyone overcome with laughter when after a story about a Royal waitresses, Jenny “morphed” into a Bunny Girl waitress (complete with her outfit including tray crockery etc all skilfully made of fabric). Susan gave the vote of thanks for a most entertaining, humorous and interesting talk.

Our January meeting was a most enjoyable games evening arranged by Jill and Doreen, ending with refreshments and a chance to chat and exchange news of Christmas and New Year festivities.