Pakenham WI News - Texas Here We Come! - Part 4

Texas Here We Come! - Part 4 - 27.03.2010
The departure date looms ever closer and in the last few days I have been made so aware how important the support and friendship from the British companies involved in Tea Time in Texas is to this venture.

It has been very difficult to get the flour and sugar shipped into the States. Karla from Waitrose, Hannah from Marriages and Laura from Tate and Lyle have been fantastic pulling out all the stops to ensure all we need will be there in the right place at the right time. Thank you so very much, we are proud and delighted to take your name and goods to our Tea in Texas event.

My grateful thanks also go to Rob at Butterworths who donated four x 24 boxes of Suffolk Tea. We have managed to sell these at various functions and the proceeds will be a super help with our ever escalating travel costs, thank you Rob we look forward to introducing the Americans to Suffolk Tea.

Sarah at Yorkshire Tea has generously supplied extra aprons for us to wear for photo shoots to maintain our red, white and blue on entry to America and to fly the British flag as we cook.!!!! The dress for the Tea Time event will be our very feminine frilly pinnies in brilliant pink kindly donated by Mandy at All Things Cake in Cromer these will match our cakes and buns.!!!!

Last but not least I must thank the girls Amanda and Patricia at KLM / Air France for the bookings, tickets and reservations for the flight. We are only sorry we will not be allowed to bring any samples for the crew on board.

My team and I find it very surprising and very sad that we have had no interest, no support and no acknowledgement from the Federation of Women's Institutes at either a national or local level. We are no ordinary W.I. working non stop for the benefit of our members and reputation at every culinary opportunity that comes our way. This is a one off and hopefully will eventually get the recognition it deserves.

Mary S Kirby
Pakenham W.I.

A taste of Tiptree transported to Texas.
One Saturday afternoon I emailed Wilkin & Sons Ltd, Tiptree of Essex, to see if they would be interested in supporting our trip to Texas. Within seconds Sally Carpenter, their PR officer, pinged an email back (via her blackberry.) It was agreed that they would be happy to supply 144 mini jams to accompany our scones at our special English tea (what could be nicer!) We soon realised that these boxes may not be either allowed into America and would be too heavy to take as personal luggage. Through negotiations Sally managed to organise for the jams to be sent directly to our hosts in Texas via a US supplier. They are safely awaiting our arrival and we look forward to sharing these little pots of English jam with our American friends. Once again, a big thank-you Sally.