These included taking names for the bowling day, deciding to do a big raffle each month until August and sorting out members night for August.

They planned a visit to an ice cream-making farm together and a chance to see a well dressing.

Members will have cake and wine in September to celebrate Cheshire's 85th and the national WI movement's 90th birthdays.

Heather was thanked for arranging the trip to see Sleeping Beauty on Ice, which members thought was superb.

John Lindley, Cheshire's Poet Laureate for 2004 was introduced. This was a first for members' as they had not met a bona fide Poet Laureate before.

He had to produce five poems during 2004 as part of his Laureateship.

They were very varied, some quite pacey, with lovely ones about his grandfather mending clocks and his grandmother making him cinder tea.

He spends a lot of time doing workshops at schools, drop-in centres and for other groups.

One of his poems was entitled Six Months and a Day which celebrated a schools project which began with a climb to the top of Shining Tor, the highest point in Cheshire and led the pupils to a quest to see and record what has gone on around them, and what is still going on.

The project ended with a day at Tatton Park.

The resolutions meeting will be held on May 9, followed by Tania's Card Craft.

MIDDLEWICH & DISTRICT WI