MEAVY and Sheepstor WI will soon shut its doors after 90 years of success.

Numbers attending the club have diminished within the past few years and members have had a struggle to keep the group going.

President Margaret Owen said the group realised it was ‘silly’ to invite speakers to come along to such a small gathering.

She added: ‘It’s a shame but numbers are really low. We have to hold a formal meeting to make the decision to fold and that will be on January 19.

‘We have been approaching our 90th anniversary which is officially in January but we decided to celebrate in December. We really wanted to go out with a bang.

‘A lot of us were determined to keep it going for as long as possible but we didn’t want to just fade out. It is sad but positive at the same time.

‘There are lots of other WI groups that our members can join in the future. There is Horrabridge, Bickley, Lamerton and High Moorland. What does happen quite regularly is a WI can’t find someone to be a president and a treasurer — very often it’s the case that if you have a role you maintain it as well as you can.

‘My niece recently started a group in Sussex – it was going very well with a full hall but unfortunately she could no longer maintain her role because she was travelling to London for work and no-one else out of the 40 other members would take on the role so it had to fold. Anything worthwhile does tend to take commitment.’

Margaret said that most members had made their own decisions about which group to join in the future but they would stay in touch.

She added: ‘I am already an additional member of Horrabridge and will likely maintain that membership. I think I joined Meavy WI in 1997-1998 but some of the members joined much earlier —it’s a shame as we have a lot of fun and were doing quite well.

‘We have held all kinds of activities over the years. I travelled up to Buckingham Palace for the WI centenary as one or two members from each group could go. The annual meeting was held at the Royal Albert Hall this year and that was also attended by royalty.

‘We also went to North Wales to visit where the first WI meeting was held over 100 years ago. It is a really good organisation — I have been president of Meavy and Sheepstor for about six years. The celebration we held recently was a really enjoyable afternoon which a lot of people attended.’