Our July meeting was our last at Chetham's School of Music so was the end of an era! We've been busy sorting out plans for our move to The Federation in September so keep your eyes on our social media to find out all the details.
The theme for the July meeting was Body Kindness: we had a talk from Exactly Ourselves, a multimedia project by Elsie Swannick and Abigail Evans from Manchester that describes itself as an 'ode to bodies' and focuses on love and insecurities we have about our own bodies. They explained the background to the project, which involved a photography exhibition outside Manchester Art School, and we heard from two of their models about why they wanted to be part of it.
We also watched a video specially made for us by PERKY, an organisation from London who discuss womanhood, the body & sexuality amongst learning-disabled women. This was a valuable opportunity to reflect on the experiences of those who we often ignore or marginalise, and they shared their knowledge with honesty and humour.
Finally we had a discussion about any resources we use ourselves that help support body kindness (e.g. books, podcasts etc) so we will be sharing a list of these once we've collated everyone's answers. We also asked members to think about how we can increase diversity and inclusiveness in our WI. Please get in touch if you have any feedback or comments for us on this topic.
One important point to celebrate as part of our move is that our new venue is fully accessible (wheelchair accessible/hearing loop), something that was unfortunately not possible in Chets. We're really looking forward to the move so hope you'll come visit us in our new home!
