Newsletter No 1

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NEWSLETTER

Hello Ladies
It was good to see so many of you at our Salsa evening this week. I hope you all had fun. It was a lively evening and for those of you that didn’t manage to join us this month, we missed you. 
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During the Salsa evening,WI
membership
cards were
laminated, by
those of you
who had them. Thank you Carol for organising that.
New members can bring their membership cards to the next meeting where we will be happy to laminate them for you. This will make them more robust!
Keep your membership cards in your purses, ladies, as some places offer discounts to WI members. We would like to investigate negotiating discounts for WI members with more local Uckfield businesses. If any of you have contacts with the local business community and would be willing to take this further on our behalf, please contact Davina at uckfield.divas@gmail.com 

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Our guest speaker this month was Mark Jenner from ‘Learn to Salsa Kent’ who gave us a little history of Salsa and then attempted to teach us. Judging by all the laughing going on and the smiles on faces it looked like everyone had a good time. This was reflected in the photos on both Facebook and Uckfield FM site. 
For those of you who enjoyed the introduction to Salsa and would like to learn more moves, please contact
mark@learntosalsakent.co.uk 

The Bank Account is now open.
We received notification on Wednesday of our sort code and account number.
As soon as the treasurer can she will be banking all payments made
to us. ​

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Raffle.
Thank you to
everyone who
donated a
raffle prize
this month
and to
everyone who bought a raffle ticket. We raised £88 which will be donated to The Mental
Health Foundation, as the week of the Salsa night was Mental Health Awareness Week. The theme this year is relationships, and as this also means friendships, seemed fitting as our first charity fundraiser.
Don’t forget, if it is your birthday in June, you are invited to bring a wrapped gift for our raffle draw (suggested value of £5.00). Raffle tickets will be on sale for £1.00 each. 

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JULY EVENT- AbFab Night @The Picture House
Watch out Uckfield!! On the 4th of July, 75 Divas and guests will be off to see the new AB Fab Movie. Themed dress up is optional, and a press photographer will be there to take a few pictures. Please let us know on the night if you do not want to be in any photographs.
We had an amazing response to this, and the event sold out in a matter of days. We are sorry if you didn’t get tickets this time, but hope to arrange a similar event at
some point in the future. 
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Sub groups and Sign-up Sheets:
Plenty of you signed up at the Salsa night for the first lot of groups. We do need coordinators for some of them and will be contacting members separately with all the information you need. Please do let us know if you would like to be involved in setting up these groups as they won’t be able to run without coordinators! Don’t worry if your interest group is not in this first wave of sign-up sheets, please contact Davina for help to get started.
Remember, this is your WI, so we need you to suggest, participate and lead these groups. Here are some pointers to get you going -
pick a start date
pick a time, am or pm
a location to meet
be open minded and willing to try something different pass on your own skills and knowledge
start today!! 

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STOP PRESS!!: Uckfield Divas Web site – Will be launched very soon. More on this on our Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram, and there will be a run through of the site at the June meeting. 

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June 15th meeting:
Our first Charity speaker: Uckfield Food Bank & PRELOVED CLOTHES SALE
Did you know 24% of people in Uckfield live below the poverty line? It’s a worrying figure in 2016, so to show our support, we would like to donate 

to the Uckfield bank. If you would like to, you can help by bringing one or more of the following items to our June meeting, which we will then take to the food bank:
Tinned fruit
Tea bags
Instant coffee
UHT milk
Sugar (500g)
Biscuits or snack bars Tinned vegetables Sponge pudding
Tinned rice pudding/custard Tinned meat/fish
We will organise delivery of the items to the local food bank the next day 

Pre loved clothes sale:
An opportunity to sell up to 5 items of clean clothing including pairs of shoes, as well as buy from other members! These can be men’s, women’s or children’s clothing. Please bring items on hangers, we will have rails and tags for sellers (see illustration right) Please mark your clothes as shown
All unsold items can be donated to the British Heart Foundation shop in Uckfield if you would rather not take them back home. All money goes to the seller of the items.
Carol will run this event and will co-ordinate with you separately once your clothes have been sold. This is a trial event, and if successful we may do it again. 

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Future Meeting Dates
June 15th
September 21st
October 19th
November 16th
December 14th
​January 18th

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We need your help inviting speakers along !
Any suggestions or offers for speakers? Preferably with their contact details so we can arrange for them to come and talk to us.

HELP NEEDED 
Perennial Gardeners Royal Benevolent Society Need Volunteers for the 
Flower Crèche at RHS Hampton Court Flower Show.
on any day 5th -10th July am or pm If you can and would like to help 
please contact Chris Crooker: ccrooker@perennial.org.ukwww.perennial.org.uk