Haddenham Women's Institute Woodturning Demonstration, Talk & Have a Go Session - March 2026

siloutaggart
5 days ago
2 min read

Talk, Woodturning Demonstration & "Have A Go" Session

Simon and I enjoyed meeting the ladies at the Haddenham WI last night and we received a very warm welcome. I grew up in Haddenham, and it was a little odd returning to the Arkenstall Centre for Simon to give a woodturning demonstration in the room where I used to attend ballet classes as a child! But it was lovely to meet some familiar faces from all those years ago.

Simon gave a brief talk about what we do, including promoting our Artisan Fayres (our charity fundraiser for Norfolk & Waveney Mind), our creative therapy work, our 1-2-1 and pairs workshops & all our lovely guest tutor small-group experiences, where we invite guest tutors here to our Blended Monkey Studios in Upwell to come and teach their craft.

Simon then demonstrated turning a honey dibber from a piece of oak. He explained all the different gouges and tools he was using, and presented the completed dibber to the group so they could use it as a raffle prize.

After the demo, we invited members of the group to come up and have a go at woodturning themselves - and well done to the ladies who indeed rose to the challenge and had a "turn"!

I was then given the task of judging the competition which this week had a wooden theme. The ladies brought in wooden items to be ranked in 1st, 2nd and 3rd places - rather fitting for the woodturning evening.

After a quick cup of tea and a rather lovely flapjack, we packed up the van and headed back to the Blended Monkey Studios.

Simon and I would like to thank the Haddenham WI group for their warm welcome.

If you live in the Haddenham area and would like to join this friendly group, they meet on the first Tuesday of every month in the Arkenstall Centre at 7.00 pm. You can contact Shirley Billing on shirleybilling@talktalk.net for further details.