87th NFWI Wales Conference

20th April Llanelli

The day was bright & sunny and we arrived to the babbling noise of possibly 800 to 1,000 WI members. Suddenly there was an attentive silence as the meeting began & we were invited to sing Jerusalem. (very stirring) After an official welcome from the Mayor of Llanelli, most of the morning involved addresses by various WI officers, all delivered with great interest & humour.

A talk was given by Janice Langley from West Sussex Federation in which she told us of her experiences as a WI member since she joined in 1970. It was her personal view of things past & present  
giving an insight into how things have evolved over the years.

The next speaker was Mr Edmund Bailey from the NFU & he spoke of his life on the farm he had moved to with his family as a child. It is still the family farm now. He also spoke of the coming difficulties the Country will experience in providing enough food to sustain everybody.

These speeches were followed by presentations of awards, before breaking for lunch.

The afternoon started with a charming talk by Mr Graham Rankin, who was offered the challenge of restoring Aberglasney Gardens in the nineties. He explained that the gardens, which were in total ruin, are considered to be over 400 years old, & when an American, Frank Abbot, heard about it on TV in 1994, he became a great benefactor & has provided much of the finance.  He showed us ’before & after’ slides of different parts of the gardens & he was quite impressed with all our ’oohs’ & ’wows’. He was involved in the project for 12 years before accepting a new challenge in Surry. Aberglasney is a beautiful & fantastic place; one that soothes the soul.

The next speaker had to step in at the last moment a Civil Engineer, who spoke about the construction of Ffos Las Racecourse just outside Carmarthen. The area was an old Open Pit & work began clearing the site in 2003. However it took 3yrs to get Planning Permission & it finally opened on June 18th 2009.   
£3,000,000 was spent just on the ground works & getting the services put in, but he proudly told us that now there are 2 lakes which collect water from all over the site, which is then pumped to water the course. (Very good planning) As well as the race track itself, Ffos Las has excellent stables with a top class veterinary area, a hotel & 2 paddocks. It also has a Nature Reserve area & there are plans to have Solar Panels on site in the future. We have been promised a guided tour when we visit later in the year.

Our last speaker was headed ’Against the Odds’ in the Agenda, & how apt that was! It was given by Non Evans the sportswoman, born & trained in the Llanelli area. She explained that she first entered the sport of acrobatics as a young girl, then took up judo, eventually attaining a black belt. She also took up rugby &  got her 1st cap for Wales in 1997. This was a very important year because as well as teaching, she became a sports presenter for S4C, took up yet another challenge of power lifting & also got chosen out of 20,000 applicants, to appear on the TV programme Gladiators.(phew!)
  In 2002 Non represented Wales at the Commonwealth Games in both judo & weightlifting. During all this time she had continued to play rugby & received her 50th cap in 2003 also playing for the World Team in New Zealand. Sadly she broke her leg badly & was out of sport for a year, with doubts of a full recovery. However, with her determination, this amazing young lady recovered well enough to continue playing rugby & she took part in the team which beat England for the 1st time ever. Wales 16 England 15. Non retired from rugby after reaching a record 64th try.
  But she didn’t stop there & took up wrestling! She spoke of the difficulty in keeping her core strength for the weightlifting while at the same time needing to remain within her required weight for wrestling. In 2010 she took part in the Commonwealth Games in India & in order to be within the rules for her wrestling, she explained the incredible way she managed to reach her weight on the very day of her competition.
Such strength of character & determination. Yet, for all her dedication she had the compassion to realise that the poor people of India would have benefited so much with the money that was spent on the Games. Non hoped that she would be able to represent Wales in the 2012 Olympics in London, but she broke a hamstring & is unable to compete.
  However, she hopes to be doing some commentating & would like very much to be able to promote sport for women in any way she can. We wished this inspiring young lady all the very best for the future.

Rousing renditions of the National Anthems ended a great day.