NFWI Annual Meeting and Companies Act Meeting- June 4 2025

The Companies’ Act Meeting was to present, debate, and vote on the proposed new Constitutions for NFWI, Incorporated Federations, Non-Incorporated Federations and WIs.

The final drafts had been sent to WIs in March 2025. These were all passed by the voting Delegates.

The main changes to Federations are the minimum and maximum number of Trustees required/permitted: the minimum has been reduced from 8 to 6, and the maximum from 12 to 10. There may also be up to 15, if co-opted/ex-officio trustees are included. Counting from the date of acceptance of the new Constitutions, trustees may serve a maximum of three, three-year periods, then must take a break for at least three years before becoming a trustee again. There is no provision for the nine-year period to be extended.

For individual WIs, this nine-year rule does not apply: in fact, there is no official limit, unless a WI has created a byelaw to agree a limit for themselves.

Dual members will be known as Multi-members, and may now hold any position and vote in any of the WIs of which they are a member, but they may only be a delegate at the National Annual Meeting for their primary WI.

No changes have been made to the rules pertaining to suspending WIs: their funds will continue to be held by their Federation for 3 years pending re-opening. It has now been clarified that it is illegal for any WI to spend funds on its members, unless this is completely in-line with the charitable objects of the WI.

The Annual Meeting began with Chair, Jeryl Stone’s address: she said that she understood many member’s disappointment with the decision to hold two Zoom meetings to every in-person event, but pointed out that this represented a saving of £65,000 per year: it also makes the meeting accessible to members who had been unable to attend in-person meetings. The WI is still the largest women’s voluntary organisation in the UK, and 22,000 new members have joined in the last year. The new lottery has been successful, with over £100,000 raised across NFWI, Federations and WIs. All training and handbooks have been recently simplified wherever possible. Looking ahead: in September, following consultations, the new Strategy document will be published. The WI must continue to provide good value to its current members whilst remaining financially stable for future members. She touched on the controversy surrounding membership criteria for transgender women, but emphasised that currently nothing has changed, as the legal department is working on the issue. Her speech ended “The WI must adapt to survive and thrive”.

Hilary Haworth, the Hon. Treasurer pointed out that the complete accounts are available on the Charity Commission website and on the WI website: a summary had also been sent to Federations in May 2025. NFWI are working on reducing costs and raising funds. Future plans include the eventual sale of NFWI HQ when the property market in London is favourable, probably within five years. The allocation of funds to WIs from the membership fees will be reviewed in the near future. She highlighted the success of ensuring that Lloyds Bank treat all WI accounts as charity accounts, thereby saving banking fees. She is retiring from the NFWI Board of Trustees, and thanked everyone for their support.

The two guest speakers were Emma Bridgewater, the pottery designer and Angel Strawbridge, of “Escape to the Chateau” fame. Emma had pre-recorded an interview with Melissa Green, which is available to watch in full in MyWI. She talked about her career and her belief in ethical manufacture and employment of as many women as possible. She was then live in the “studio” for a Q&A session. She has collaborated with the WI on the design and production of a WI mug. She expressed an interest in joining her local (Bethnall Green) WI.

Angel Strawbridge spoke to the meeting from her home in France: she has had an interesting career: first as a qualified Accountant, then turning her flat into “Angel-A” vintage shop which ran for 10 years. She then started the “Vintage Patisserie” which was very hard work, but fun: she ended up employing twenty women. In 2009 she was accepted on “Dragon’s Den”: although she didn’t actually take up their financial backing as she preferred to remain independent. From this, she was contacted by an agent who offered to represent her: she was introduced to Dick Strawbridge, and the rest is history, as they say! “Escape to the Chateau” lasted 10 years and ended 5 years ago, however, there is a Christmas special planned.

The proposed Resolution “Bystanders can be Lifesavers”, was accepted with a 97.7% majority. The WI member, Hilary Askew, who had originally put it forward spoke very eloquently in its favour, as did the representative from the British Heart Foundation. She told us about the app called “RevivR”: WI members are urged to take the training on this app and then to ask 6 friends to learn CPR. The meeting was also told that Public-Access Defibrillators are simple to use, but it is important that they are checked regularly for battery life and possible damage.

Chrissie Booth (NFWI Trustee) had been asked to give a counter-argument, but of course this was not easy. Her points were, that money and effort might be better spent improving heart health in the general population and perhaps improving ambulance response times.

In Jeryl Stone’s closing address, she named the NFWI Trustees for 2025-26: she will remain as Chair. She thanked everyone for attending, and for all the hard work making this a successful meeting.

The next Annual meeting will be, via Zoom on Thursday, June 4th 2026.