Much was made at Wiltshire Federation's Annual Meeting (AM) of how Salisbury Plain provides a mental barrier to many travelling through the county. Well, 5 members of Pewsham Belles travelled across the Plain without difficulty yesterday and enjoyed plenty of Autumn sunshine and colour as a result. It was rather nippy though!
Once again, we made our mark on the meeting in Salisbury. Fiona had an early slot to recite the amusing 'year in a poem' she shared at our AM earlier this year and deservedly won the loudest applause and laugh of the morning. Sally had background role, ensuring that the AV system worked, and it was great to see she managed to pop in an extra slide for Fiona's talk so there was no chance anyone could miss where she was from. Sally also managed to pop out from behind the curtains at the end to give everyone a wave. The rest of us could just sit back and enjoy the day. As you can see, one of the delights of car sharing with someone who needs to get to City Hall ultra early is you can find a cafe nearby and indulge in a 'second breakfast', just like Bilbo Baggins! If you venture across the Plain at some point, we can heartily recommend Culture Coffee's welcome and fare. If most of the morning was a little on the dry side, it was well compensated by the conversations over lunch with like minded members from other WIs such as Box and Seend.
Then everyone was blown away by Sally Becker's inspirational story, a truly extraordinary woman, who managed to rescue injured women and children in Bosnia and Kosovo (and more recently in Iraq) where the UN had failed to do so. Not bad for someone who was turned down by every aid agency she applied to, and decided to go to Bosnia anyway! Hers was a truly humbling tale and there was hardly a dry eye in the house by the time she finished. She received a standing ovation and then something truly magical happened: a woman from Bosnia who'd lived through the tough times Sally described gave her an emotional and personal thank you. Donation buckets were hastily gathered to support Sally's Road to Peace charity and on the way home we discussed a future Pewsham Belles trip to see the film being made about her, and also suggest her book for Book Club.