The Hot Wheels Clue #1

Description

Media Type

Image

Item Type

Photographs

Description

The Hot Wheels are from the Women Inspiring Women Branch of the WI in Brant County. We are young – celebrating our 7th anniversary in 2022. The members of our WISH team are WI members Jennifer Budd, Susan Stulen and Marilyn Sewell. Our guest non-WI member is Tannis Hamill. While none of us are natives of Brant County, we all live in Paris Ontario. Our Branch is one of three remaining branches in Brant County. The other two are St. George and Cathcart. Women Inspiring Women WI is a relatively new yet thriving presence in our community. Our Branch typically has 40 members per year, and we have maintained a strong presence during the Covid 19 pandemic using zoom for our meetings and gathering safely when we can. Our members range in age from 18 to 81 and are in all ages and stages of life.
For this entry we stayed local to Paris. The interesting place that highlights WI is a park bench in Lion’s Park in downtown Paris facing the Nith River. Paris is where the Nith River and the Grand River meet.
The story of this bench is interesting and heartwarming. It is important to know that our branch does things a little differently. We are keen to attract women of all ages to our meetings and events and we decided early on in our history that we would offer a bar service at our meetings. The Paris Agricultural Society arranges for the bartending and a wonderful mother/son duo David and Carol were assigned for us. Just by being in the same room – they hear what is going on in our group.
Early in 2018 our branch was talking about a community enhancement project. Dave is a hobbyist wood worker, and he crafted a beautiful park bench and gifted it to the branch. Our WI collaborated with the County of Brant to have the bench installed in Lions Park, overlooking the Nith River towards the town of Paris. We were so pleased and thankful that he would do this out of the goodness of his heart.
The sign reads “Women Inspiring Women Women’s Institute invites you to take a moment to rest and enjoy the view. Bench made by David Tisdale 2018”. This bench not only is a welcome and comfortable addition to a much-loved park, but it also lets the community know that there is an active branch of WI in the community.
Annually David also donates a tractor and trailer for our entry into the Paris Santa Claus Parade.
It was an adventure to get this picture! As our team was late in entering the WISH project, we had limited time to arrange to meet. It was a very icy and chilly day. We very carefully got ourselves to the area and took a variety of pictures hoping to get the right shot. Afterwards we enjoyed reconnecting over coffee at a local coffee shop which is owned and operated by a family in the area with strong ties to WI as well. We hope this will be the first of many fun adventures for this project.

Notes

submission part of WISH Challenge for WI's 125th Anniversary

Date of Publication

Feb 2022

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