The Methodist Church in Bognor Regis, where we hold our monthly meetings, are celebrating their 90^th birthday this year. As part of their celebrations they are holding a Flower Festival in the church over the May Bank Holiday weekend. Bognor Regis WI were invited, along with local community groups, other users of the hall, and local Churches to contribute an arrangement. We were, of course, delighted to accept their invitation, especially when we learned the theme of the festival – Anniversaries; with the WI celebrating their own special birthday this year it seemed the perfect opportunity to honour this as well.

However, we don’t have any experienced flower arrangers in our midst!
Thankfully the organisers were more than happy with our proposal to hand-craft the flowers instead. So we decided upon a design that reflects both the Centenary of the WI and ourselves: the colour scheme of pearl, green and purple was an obvious choice as they are the Centenary colours as chosen by NFWI (National Federation of Women’s Institute); and there would be 70 individual flowers – one for every member of our WI.

After an internet search, our President Lesley found the design of an origami kusudama flower and thought these would be perfect as they can be made in any size.

Members were instructed on how to craft these flowers at our May meeting. Unfortunately there was not enough time left after our the 2015 resolution discussion and debate to complete the number of flowers required. So drop-in sessions were held the following week at committee members’ houses to continue making the flowers. It was quite a challenge to craft 70 flowers, as each flower is made from 5 individual petals – each crafted from one single sheet of paper; so that’s 350 pieces of paper all carefully folded!

The finished flowers in their display basket

The Flower Festival is taking place this weekend at The Methodist Church, Waterloo Square on:

• Friday 22^nd May – 10am-4pm
• Saturday 23^rd May – 10am-12 noon
• Monday 25^th May – 10am-4pmAll are welcome to visit and there are refreshments available too.