President Ann Cottier welcomed members to the June meeting.

Ann told us how much she had enjoyed her recent visit to the national WI annual general meeting in Liverpool then gave an excellent report on the proceedings.

We were very pleased to hear that nationally membership of the WI has increased by 131,000 over the past year.

ocally 200 craft boxes containing 250kg of craft items, donated by members from the island WIs, have been sent to the Associated Country Women of the World charity project in Romania.

Also Ann asked for volunteers to knit or crochet poppies for Remembrance Day.

Our speaker this evening was Sandy Moore from the Manx Hedgehog Conservation Society.

Sandy told us the charity was formed two years ago, to try to save as many young hoglets, juveniles and injured adult hedgehogs as possible.

When they are found they are fostered by volunteers, usually for about five months, until hopefully they are strong enough to be released into the wild.

The first ones to be found were christened Mr Nozy and Mr Dozy, he was released into the wild in Ronague last year, but Mr Nozy is still not strong enough.

Sadly the hedgehog population is in decline due to many reasons.

Milder winters causing them to come out of hibernation to soon, diseases such as lungworm, eating slugs and snails killed by blue slug bait, this is poisonous to hedgehogs, increased traffic on our roads especially at this time of year.

Litter, like cans and crisp packets, are also a danger as they can get their heads stuck.

We were told of things we can do to help.

Creating a wild patch in the garden, holes in fencing so they can travel through gardens looking for food, checking under bonfires, in case they are hiding.

Hedgehogs like to eat cat food, but not fish, meal worms, dried banana chips and eggs and only water to drink.

Their life expectancy is about eight years but are lucky to survive to two.

The babies are called hoglets and then juveniles at eight to 10 weeks.

Hedgehogs the size of a pineapple or gratefruit have a good chance of survival but smaller ones less so.

We were then thrilled to meet and hold Mrs Tiggywinkle. She is an orphan of about two years old, she can’t be released into the wild as she cannot curl into a ball to protect herself, so is now a pet.

Normally fostered hedgehogs have as little human contact as possible so they don’t become to tame. An interesting fact, a hedgehog has about 6,000 spikes and to find the sex of a hedgehog place on a mirror until it uncurls.

A fascinating evening.

Mary Cringle then thanked Sandy for such an interesting and informative talk. We will all be doing what we can to help the hedgehog population on the island survive and hopefully multiply.

The meeting finished as usual with a cuppa and chat.

Gillian Thompson, Ballabeg WI