Golden Triangle Girls is youngest Norfolk WI branch

By Zoe Applegate
BBC Norfolk

Laura Wigby (left) and Jess Light have set up their own WI branch

Two colleagues have become the youngest people to set up a branch of the Women's Institute (WI) in Norfolk.

Jess Light, 30, and Laura Wigby, 28, will hold the first official meeting of Norwich's Golden Triangle Girls on Thursday, 20 January 2011.

The pair, who work at the city's BBC office, wanted to create a group to help women learn home-making skills, make friends and boost their prospects.

"It's nice to start a WI for our own age range," said Jess.

"We might have some skills that we can give to older members and they can give us skills back."

Despite the appeal of the WI spreading to young women with the set-up of branches like London's Shoreditch Sisters and the Colchester WIGs, Jess and Laura have still been surprised by the demand in Norwich.

At their first informal get-together in November, 22 women turned out to sign up and a further 10 added their name to the waiting list.

"It set the tone for what we want to be about - we met in a bar and we got everyone to do a craft activity," said Jess, who is BBC Children in Need's eastern regional officer.

Campaigns

The Women's Institute was once steeped in a reputation of jam-making and singing Jerusalem, but its staid image started to slip when its members famously slow handclapped the former Prime Minister Tony Blair at their conference in 2000.

With 205,000 members across the UK, it's a significant force in campaigning on issues such as mental health care reform for those in custody and clearer food labelling.

Its verve as the country's largest voluntary organisation for women appealed to Laura, who is a community outreach manager for Community Service Volunteers based at the BBC.

"Last year at work I was thinking about doing something around International Women's Day and then it turned out that the Norfolk Federation of the WI was doing something here, so I went along to that and it was really fantastic," said Laura.

"It was really powerful to see a lot of the campaigning work that the WI does that a lot of people don't see or think of," she added.

Craftwork

The new co-founders of the Golden Triangle Girls are also keen to embrace the trend of making and baking, made popular by TV programmes such as Kirstie Allsop's Homemade Home and Nigella Lawson's cookery shows.

"I don't think we've got those skills that maybe our grandparents' generation had," said Jess.

"I was saying that I'd quite like to learn dress-making, but I don't really want to commit to six weeks and find out it's not for me.

"Something great about the WI is that you try something different every month and if then everybody likes it we can set up a sub-group."

While traditional skills are on the list of things to do, suggestions made by the group also include burlesque dancing, palmistry, photography and support with job interviews.

Jess and Laura, who both live in Norwich's Golden Triangle, also want their branch to have a nurturing nest philosophy.

"Stripping it down to its basics it's about women coming together, supporting each other and spending time together and taking care of other women who live locally to you, and that's what we want to do with our group," said Laura.

"It's about making new friends - it's not just about people who know each other. We really want it to be an opportunity for women to come across other women who they might not come across in their jobs," she added.

The first meeting takes place on Thursday, 20 January 2011, at The Garden House, Pembroke Road, Norwich, before moving to the York Tavern. Ladies who wish to attend can e-mail Golden Triangle Girls .