CWL is a worldwide organisation, united in friendship and love, where members use and develop their talents in projects for the world, the nation, the diocese and the parish.

Dear Members

On behalf of your National officers I would like to assure all our members that you are very much in our thoughts and prayers in these strange and unprecedented times. I expect most of the Branches and Sections have understandably suspended meetings for the time being.

AGM POSTPONED UNTIL 19^th – 21^st March 2021.

Dear Members,
Back in June we wrote to advise you that our Annual General Meeting was going ahead as planned in October. Due to the lower than originally expected numbers indicating their intention of attending we were left with no option but to cancel 90 rooms at what could have been a great expense to the League.
As we are all only too aware, the situation regarding Coronavirus has not improved in the way we had all hoped and things are definitely not returning to ‘normal’ as quickly as originally thought.
At the end of last week we received a new email from the Hayes offering us the opportunity to delay our booking for a date up to 31^st March 2021. If we took up this offer we would be offered a new contract, thereby eliminating the cancellation charges we had thought would be incurred under the original booking.
Having given this offer very careful consideration your National Officers have decided to delay the Annual General Meeting until the weekend 19^th – 21^st March 2021. By taking this decision we would hope the national situation would be very much improved thus enabling as many of you as possible to be able to join us in a great AGM weekend.
Our thoughts are that this weekend will be primarily a social and spiritual weekend with probably the Friday evening taken up with essential AGM business. It is hoped that our National Chaplain, Fr Marcin Drabik, will be with us too. We are currently looking into the  possibility of a day trip on the Saturday to Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire – and if you look at their website  you will see that they have lovely grounds as well as a bookshop and gift shop and they also brew their own beer which is available for sale!!  We are hoping to be able to have Holy Mass there as well as Reconciliation and/or Benediction. Please put this date in your calendar.
The Annual Accounts will be ready by the middle of September and having been approved by the Trustees will be distributed to you shortly after. Usually, of course, the members are asked to adopt them during the AGM.

The decision to hold the AGM in March 2021 will have an impact on the timings of future Annual General Meetings and we will, of course, keep you informed of decisions on that.

The Spring Conference, normally held for a weekend at The Hayes Conference Centre each February, will not go ahead in 2021. This will not be a surprise to you as this year’s weekend was so poorly supported by members that it is no longer financially viable. Instead, in our efforts to maintain important contact with you, we will offer each Branch the opportunity to talk with National Officers either by Zoom, Skype or telephone whichever is your choice. As National President I sincerely hope you will all make the necessary changes and adapt to a different way of working to fulfil our motto of Charity, Work and Loyalty.

That leaves me to say God Bless to you all.
Keep safe and well and I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in March next year.

God bless, Jeanette