This is the meeting held once a year and is necessary to read the Treasurers report and pass any notices pending as well as hearing a summary of Dorset Women’s Institutes activities from the Chair currently Marilyn Holehouse. To offset what can sometimes be tedious there are usually a couple of good speakers and this year didn’t disappoint.

The star of the morning session was (in your writer’s view) not the farmer James Cossens - though his talk of farming on his large North Dorset farm was certainly interesting - it was in fact three ladies from the Armed Forces Diversity Engagement Team. They are based at Sandhurst, are made up from the Army, Navy and RAF and certainly challenged our perception of females in the Armed Forces. Their presentation was slick, funny and informative and your writer thinks many ladies at the meeting will be encouraging their daughters and granddaughters to consider it as a career.

The main speaker in the afternoon was Tom Heap from the BBC's Countryfile.   He said he usually follows glamorous Ellie and hunky Adam to present the serious side of farming, so instead of Tom Heap they call him the Grim Heaper!  However, he gave an uplifting talk entitled Reasons to be Cheerful outlining what we are actually getting right in the countryside.