Wildings Virtual WI

Our members get 12 meetings a year as part of their membership fee and there is no additional charge for other meetings (e.g. our Wildings Interest Groups and the Virtual WI Festival events)

If you are coming as our guest, then there is no charge for the first couple of meetings you attend, but after that we would ask you to make a decision about whether or not you want to become a member.

The short answer is, £41 if you only belong to Wildings and £15.10 if you already belong to another WI. Here's the long answer: the annual membership fee to join a WI is set by the National Federation of WIs each year. This includes an amount that goes to the WI, an amount that goes to the Regional Federation it belongs to (in our case, West Sussex), and an amount that goes to the National Federation. When you join a WI, you also join the Regional and National Federations and get all the benefits that come from that including online and F2F meetings, newsletters, access to learning materials, and the WI Life Magazine, sent directly to your home address. Each WI gets to decide how much of its portion of the fees it will keep - for 2025/26, this was £25.10 and Wildings decided to reduce this by £10. This makes our membership fee £41 for full members, and £15.10 for dual members. Great value, eh? 

It is very similar to a face to face meeting, but just you join wherever you are by phone, laptop, iPad, etc. There'll be some news and welcomes from the President and maybe the Secretary or Treasurer and then we get cracking. We often have a recorded or live presentation from a great speaker. A quiz, a craft-along, a discussion, general chatter. Of course you'll have to go and get your own cup of tea and biscuit when we have a break, but there should be no queue of ladies at the toilet! We finish by 12pm although anyone who wants to stay on to chat is welcome.

Just before the meeting starts, you click on the link to the Zoom meeting that you were sent previously by email. If you're coming as a guest, we'll send you a link. Members usually get a reminder a couple of days before and if they're on our Wildings Whatsapp group, a reminder just beforehand. The link will open up a Zoom meeting and you can join anytime from 9.30am onwards for a 10am meeting start. This gives us a chance to have a natter, get settled in, before the meeting properly starts at 10am. If you can't find your link, ping one of the organising team an email and they'll help you.

Absolutely. If you join a virtual WI, you become a member of that branch. You also belong to the Federation they are under. Wildings is under the West Sussex Federation of WIs. Even though our members can be living anywhere, virtual WIs have a regional home, and ours is West Sussex, which is where several of the founding members live. You also get all the benefits from being part of the national organisation - the print magazine WI Life, 12 months a year; access to the My WI and Learning Hub, etc. 

Each virtual WI sends a delegate, or is represented by another WI's delegate, at their Federation and the National annual meetings. If the virtual WI is your main WI (some of our members join as Dual members) then you vote on the Resolutions too.