So Women’s Institute is changing and not in a good way . It’s becoming more dictatorial, with decision making, more and more being centralised at National Headquarters . Major policy changes, making it nothing like the great institution, it used to be , only a few years ago .
We have already had their well publicised version of what a woman is in an updated policy ( wear a skirt for the day and you’ll past muster whatever sex you might be ) but I did think ( in my naivety ) that some aspects of core WI traditions were still sacrosanct .
The WI isn’t just known for their community involvement , they are also known for their campaigns for social justice and over the years have been at the forefront of difficult issues often changing women’s lives for good .
Were you aware that Keep Britain Tidy was a campaign in the early 50s and the WI were the ones who campaigned for universal contraceptives being available to all many moons ago ?
And the resolutions have all traditionally come from a democratic process . Any member could propose a resolution, which were whittled down to a smaller number by volunteer members to be voted on in a democratic manner by the whole of the WI (several hundred thousand members ) before being officially adopted . And with such a large membership you could expect a certain number of specialists in their own fields to be well equipped and knowledgable in their field to produce pretty good comprehensive proposals.
NOT ANY MORE !
The resolution process has already kicked off this year but it has since come to light that this isn’t now the democratic process it professes to be .
Instead a small few, employed people in the National HQ ( no more than 3?) who have no particular qualification to do so , rewrite submissions to the point of GERRYMANDERING and being completely unrecognisable; the hard work and research by the members is jettisoned turning them into new , bland resolutions, littered with errors and out of date information .
And this is done without referring back to the authors ( who may well be experts ) And it is these resolutions, that are offered to the members to vote on .
And it would seem that National HQ hoped nobody would notice, hiding behind NDA for comfort .
So many WI members have complained in recent years about the blandness in what has been produced - now we know why !!!