Associated Country Women of the World

The WI has a long standing affiliation with the Associated Country Women of the World organisation [ https://acww.org.uk/ ]. It was formed in 1929 and has members, particularly in rural communities, in 82 countries.

It funds and promotes projects across a wide range of issues, from providing seeds and training for women to grow sustainable crops, to improved health and education.

For many decades each WI has run a simple, fun fundraiser, in which members submit competition entries and everyone ‘votes’ for their favourite by placing coins next to it. The ‘winner’ is the person with the most money. It used to be called ‘pennies for friendship’, but as pennies no longer buy very much, we now use silver coins!

Noone actually wins anything, other than the kudos of being considered best. All the money collected accumulates into regular donations.

In Arnside we set a theme for the competition each month, related to our speaker’s topic. In the example below we had a talk on a safari in Malawi, which drew out a wide range of items from beautiful sculptures to cuddly toys and a Lego tiger.