Overcame one of the biggest fears in my life last night and stood up in front of about 65 people and talked for 1/2 hour essentially about the year (2012) I stuck to wartime rationing and lost 80lbs.
Marple WI were just lovely and very kind and despite the fact that I couldn’t feel my legs, sweated buckets and kept having to rush to the toilet to pee, I bloody did it!!! Joss was lovely and helpful and everyone very encouraging. Marple WI rock!!! Oh and they made loads of wartime recipes- had a huge slab of delish raisin cake!
It was the first time I had ever been to a WI meeting in my life and let me tell you it was WONDERFUL! A cross section of ages, happy, welcoming and inspiring ladies! Richard was so impressed he said why on earth wasn’t there a WI equivalent for men and that men could learn a thing or two from these women!
He was right…
I’d strongly recommend that women sign up to their local Women’s 
Institute IMMEDIATELY!
Thank you Marple WI for a lovely evening and thank you Mr Tiddles for being with me there all the way and helping me face my fears…
C xxxxxxx
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Oh well done you!…see we told you you could do it….and arnt you a lucky girl to have the lovely Mr Tiddles there to support you…..he sounds like a total treasure! xx
Well done! You have so much of interest to say that I hope it’s not the last time that you stand up and speak. 🙂
Go you! (I wish I could have been there to hear you and meet you!)
You did it!!!! And the next time will be easier, and you must make sure there is a next time…..you have so much that is worthwhile to say and that people are interested in hearing. Big congratulatory hug coming your way!
Well done Carolyn, so chuffed for you. X
I am so happy for you! You are a really awesome lady:)
Well done!!! That goes for Mr. Tiddles too!!!
Congrats! Hopefully you will speak more now. You have a wonderful story to tell and you will find that your audience WANTS you to succeed and are thinking good thoughts from their chairs. It took me a while to overcome the fear of speaking, but after a while it becomes second nature.
Hurrah! I’m so glad you had a nice time in the end, even if it was a bit nerve wracking at the start 🙂 Will you be doing more talks?
Well done, you should feel very proud of yourself.
I wish my WI was closer – I would love to hear you speak Well done you xx
Carolyn, you were brilliant, and Marple WI loved you! Some WIs get all their speakers from an agency, but we prefer to ask real people, who we know already. So sometimes the speakers aren’t used to standing up and talking to large numbers. It just makes their talks matter more though. We appreciated that you were putting yourself out a lot to come and speak to us, and I hope we showed it. I really think the members were inspired to try what you’ve done; every single handout was taken home, which is unusual because normally I have a sheaf of papers to collect afterwards. I’ll let you know of any weight loss stories I hear of.
I really hope you get out there and visit some more WIs. There are lots of younger new groups starting these days and I’m sure they’d be just as interested in your story as we were. Thanks for putting the link to the WI website. It’s a thriving organisation at the moment.
It was lovely to finally meet you and Mr Tiddles in the flesh. You looked fantastic, by the way, but I never got round to saying so on the night. I hope that “We’ll meet again”!
We knew that you could do it! Congratulations for overcoming a fear and proving to yourself that you’re much stronger than you thought. Give ’em hell, Carolyn!
Hi Carolyn, just wanted to say what a fabulous job you did at our WI meeting last week – I loved it, you didn’t come across as nervous at all, you were interesting, passionate and lovely. I am so glad that you enjoyed the raisin cake, I will be posting the recipe and tute in my next blog post. My daughters and I did the wartime ration diet many years ago when I was home schooling them, luckily we had lots of home-grown veggies to eat – it was the only one egg a week that I failed at 🙁 Keep up the good work. Lorna