Guild Insider

Chasetown Guild

Our Guild has been going for 40 years, to mark this special celebration every member was given a beautiful scarf with the ‘tree of life’ design and a commemorative tag. We have a craft group making wonderful items to raise money for our yearly chosen charity, charities have included the air ambulance, cystic fibrosis, MS therapy centre, live at home scheme, blood bikes, and many more. A luncheon club where we can meet up and enjoy local food. We hold regular vinted sales where members can bring good quality clothes they no longer need, which are purchased by other members, with a small donation going to the guild. Every month we have a raffle with amazing prizes and a sales table. We have a good variety of speakers through out the year with the exception of our harvest lunch in September and our Christmas lunch in December.

The Chasetown Townswomens Guild are members of the South Staffordshire Federation, we attend afternoon tea in December and quiz nights and shows organised by the federation committee.

We have a couple of trips each year, this year we went to the British Ironworks followed by Shrewsbury town centre and Percy Throwers Garden Centre, forthcoming trips include Llandudno and Thursford.

Chasetown Townswomens Guild meet every 4th Wednesday in the month apart from December. We meet at the WI Hall, Hammerwich 2.30 – 4. We have a full guild of 80 members at the moment but visitors are always welcome.

Chasetown is a village in the town of Burntwood in Staffordshire, it is spit between the civil parishes of Burntwood and Hammerwich and was developed in the mid 19th century as a Mining village.

We have recently changed our guild meeting times from the evening to an afternoon where we have seen a rise in new members, and have been awarded a certificate in honor of this achievement.

Mountsorrel Guild

Hello everyone from rural Leicestershire on the edge of Charnwood Forest. Whilst many guilds around us have folded over the years, we continue to be a lively and thriving group. Although we are quite a small Guild, having 26 members, we have grown steadily since COVID and changing to afternoon meetings in 2022. We are very proud of our age – we started in 1945 and in 2020 we would have celebrated our 75 th Anniversary but COVID got in the way! We did celebrate in September 2021 when Connie Nunn visited us and planted a lovely tree in our local park followed, of course, with cake and prosecco!

We have a varied programme of events and although we meet monthly in the Parish Rooms in Mountsorrel on the first Friday afternoon of each month, we slot in a number of outside visits and evening events. We have enjoyed listening to speakers on Clarice Cliffe, Lady Jane Grey’s House (on Bradgate Park near us) and the work of a Prison Chaplin as well as social afternoons when we all talked about childhood holiday memories (this caused much laughter, particularly about knitted swimsuits!). We recently hired a long boat and “cruised” the Union Canal near us going through a lock on the way. A meeting chatting and laughing about old kitchen gadgets we had bought and never used was a huge success.

Our Facebook page at Mountsorrel Townswomen’s Guild has proved an excellent way to promote our Guild and encourage new members. We do, however, have a hidden weapon – our Honorary Member, Pat. Pat is the husband of one of our long standing members and does so much for our Guild and always puts notices up around the village to promote a speaker meeting. Pat is always there to host a quiz or play Santa Clause! Our monthly Newsletter which started in Lockdown keeps everyone in touch and highlights what’s going on both about our members and future meetings. We all find fund raising hard these days both to support local charities and boost our own funds. We have a 100 Club which is like an in-house lottery and a monthly draw gives the winner a £10 note! We get involved in various village events where a tombola stall will always raise funds for charity, promote our Guild and have fun in the process.

We always welcome new members and friends to our group so if you’re local, please get in touch via our Facebook page.