Sturminster Marshall Evening WI was started up in 2014. There was already a daytime WI in Sturminster Marshall, and it was their President Barbara Beaves who first suggested we might form an evening group. An invitation was sent out through the Bridge Magazine for anyone interested to attend a meeting in the Memorial Hall. About 16 ladies turned up to this first meeting and it was felt that there was sufficient interest to start thinking about forming an evening group.
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Heather Bartlett and Jan Watson, two of the DFWI advisors, came to our meeting and suggested we had another more formal meeting to see if it was going to be viable. This took the form of a cheese and wine evening and it was very obvious that there was definitely sufficient interest to form a group, as we went from 16 ladies to 22. SMEWI was born!
The first official meeting of the Sturminster Marshall Evening WI took place in January 2014 in the Memorial Hall. We had a very varied programme in that first year, ranging from Nicola Whitmarsh doing a talk on looking good and feeling fab and a talk from a chef on a cruise liner to crafts, cake making demonstration, Call My Bluff and on to Christmas party time. Heather Trenchard was elected the first President and the group continued to go from strength to strength. We carried on in the Memorial Hall until the summer of 2016 when it was decided that we would move to the Old School as we could have the hall to ourselves.