Celebrating Isle of Ely Women
Celebrating Isle of Ely Women
A Heritage Lottery Project
Gallery of photos
By the time you read this report I hope that many of you willhave seen our travelling exhibition celebrating the lives of women in the Isleof Ely over the past one hundred years. Those of you who took part in this unique project will have had theopportunity to attend the launch by Dame Stella Rimington in PrickwillowVillage Hall on April 16th.
Our Project has been extremely successful in raisingawareness of the women who have gone before us and involving the women of todayin celebrating those women. This projectis a first for WIs nationally. The Isleof Ely Federation is the only federation to have been awarded a grant of nearlyfifty thousand pounds to carry out a heritage project.
During the past year members of the WI and the localcommunity have taken part in workshops to improve their photography skills andto produce PowerPoint presentations, they have visited Ely and ChatterisMuseums, visited the Norfolk Records Office and discovered some of the historyof Little Downham whilst enjoying a walk around the village. Members have also continued to collect oralhistories. It is planned to upload some of our research onto the Federationwebsite.
The Steering Committee is delighted that all the active WIsin the Isle of Ely that have archives have made the decision to store them inthe specially bought boxes at Wisbech Museum. This important step means that precious documents will no longer besusceptible to being lost or destroyed by accident. It is now very important that every time arecord or minute book is filled that it is deposited at the Museum. Our Federation Archivist will be able to dothis for WIs if they forward documents to the Office. Photographs and scrap books may also bestored.
During the year a film of a Pageant performed by the Isle ofEly members and members of the local community was transferred to disc. A special type of disc is stored in thearchives but a copy of the disc is held in the WI Office and may be borrowed onrequest.
The three years of the project have been busy but extremelyrewarding – members taking part have enjoyed learning new skills, meeting newpeople and most of all discovering the past which has so much influence on thepresent and the future.
The success of this project would not have been possiblewithout you, the members, who have volunteered your time and dug deep intoarchives for information and photographs so thank you to you all. Thanks toAnne Mason our Project Manager who has led many of our workshops and ensuredthat we have fulfilled the requirements of our grant and to Hilary Brown ourFinance Manager who has kept us to our budget. Both Anne and Hilary have been responsible for regularly reporting backto HLF. The Steering Committee has metregularly every three months and my thanks to Sue Dossiter our Secretary andthe other Committee Members for their support.
Rosemary GreenChairman, Steering Committee