Nottingham City WI: Doing It For The Bees

Not the bee garden...
 

The words Women’s and Institute conjures up images of cardigan-clad old ladies in quaint chocolate box villages, baking Victoria sponges and singing God Save the Queen. For most WIs, it might be said that this is a fair interpretation.

But Nottingham City’s own WI sticks out from your standard Women’s Institute; made up of younger women, City WI holds a host of activities that extend far beyond baking and sewing. Their current mission: to rejuvenate the Barker Gate Rest Garden, creating a new pocket park for the city and, in doing so, taking a step towards another initiative – saving Britain’s bees.

What’s all this about Barker Gate Rest Garden then?
One of the aims of the Women’s Institute is to improve the bee population in cities. There doesn’t tend to be that many parks in city areas, and bees struggle to survive if they can't feed. We asked the Parks and Recreation forum whether there was anywhere we could help create a green space, and we were directed towards the Barker Gate Rest Garden. It used to be an overflow cemetery for St Mary’s Church down the road, but in 1881 they (we hope!) removed all the bones, and it became a fairly enclosed space that could be populated; there’s loads of trees but no flowers. In early December we applied for funding available for Pocket Parks project, and we received £12,000.

Blimey!
Yeah, but we are expected to report back our progress to the council – they didn’t just give us a lump sum for us to do whatever we liked with.

So what are you doing with your tidy sum?
Planting loads and loads of flowers to attract bees. Bees like bright colours so there’s going to be lots of yellow flowers, but we also want purple, green and white flowers to represent the colours of the WI. One of our members had the idea of having ‘WI’ spelt out in flowers, which we quite liked. We’re also in talks with local female artists to design some metalwork for the garden; speakers are going to come in and talk with our members at the next meeting to flesh out some thoughts we’re having. And we've spoken to local company Urban Worm to have a worm wheelie bin.

The flyest WI...

Worm Wheelie Bin?
It’s exactly as it sounds. They put worms in wheelie bins to eat food waste, and the worm’s, shall we say, waste juices, are pumped out, creating a natural fertiliser which is essential for healthy plant growth without having harmful chemicals in it.

Lovely.
It’s grim but it works. We want the Rest Garden to encourage as much nature as possible.

And how will all this help Nottingham’s bees?
It’s part of a nationwide Bee Action Plan. Emily Aron, who is ‘Queen Bee’ of Nottingham’s plan, has said that in order for us to help the bees, we have to join up opportunities for bees to feed and pollinate. We can do this by creating ‘green corridors’ for the bees – safe spaces to help them stop and refuel. We’re working with Broadway cinema, who are making their own attempts to pollinate the bees. Our local beekeeper, Paul Crabtree, suggested a beehive between Broadway and the Rest Garden to help them refuel.

And if we don’t try and save the bees?
It’ll be the end of all humanity.

Really?
Potentially. When bees pollinate plants, they help grow the fruit and veg grow; if we don’t have bees do this, then all of our plants will have to be genetically modified instead, which is a shame, really.

Tell me a bit more about City WI. You’re a bit different to other WI’s…
We were set up in 2009 by a group of twenty-somethings, but we’re now a friendly mixed bunch of people. We do a mix of traditional WI activities like baking and crafts, but we also have newer activities for some of our younger members, such as self-defence classes and the like. It’s just a place where women of all ages can come and meet new people, and have some fun.

Once you’re done saving the bees, what’s next for you?
We’re hoping that the garden will be ready for our summer fete in June, but the Women’s Institution has always been politically motivated. We’ve campaigned against the tampon tax, which has finally started to be scrapped by government, but there’s still a lot to be done. A key issue we’re campaigning for is getting sanitary products to homeless women – that time of the month is something we don’t think about, but it’s hell for those who don’t have access to essential products. We’ve received a lot of support from local charities and foodbanks; every month we usually have a collection for the Trussell Trust for food, but now the need for sanitary products is improving, so we have more members donating toiletries as well.

City WI website