The tea's off, ladies... No more free cuppas!

The tea's off, ladies: Potty bureaucracy at the WI means the end of free cuppas for members

By EMILY HILL
Last updated at 1:48 AM on 13th March 2011

There has never been such a brew-ha-ha at the Women’s Institute. 

For 20 years the thirsty ladies in village halls have received free parcels of Yorkshire Tea. 

But now the complimentary cuppas, enjoyed by members in more than 6,000 branches, are to be stopped because of charity law red tape. 

Trouble brewing: Free cups of Yorkshire Tea have come to an end for Women's Institutes because of charity law red tape

The decision has caused outrage among the 96-year-old organisation’s 200,000 members – who shook off their once-genteel image with stunts such as the nude calendar that inspired the 2003 film Calendar Girls. 

A Facebook group has been launched called ‘Reinstate our Yorkshire Tea’, on which members complain that they were not consulted by the top brass about the decision. 

The Facebook page also carries accusations that discussions about the tea on the WI’s own website have been ‘censored’. 

Problems started when the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) decided that to protect the WI ‘brand’ Yorkshire Tea needed a contract to supply the organisation with free tea. 

But the tea’s makers, Taylor’s of Harrogate, decided the contract wasn’t for them and have now dispatched the last goody boxes. 

Save our tea: WI members have set up a Facebook group called 'Reinstate our Yorkshire Tea'

A Yorkshire Tea spokesman explained: ‘It was a case of “we need a contractual relationship”. This wasn’t for us. There were lots of elements to it. We started conversations and we didn’t get that far. 

‘It’s been difficult for everyone. We have had super letters of support and thanks from ordinary members. They’re a very vocal bunch and we hope they’ll carry on drinking Yorkshire Tea for years to come.’ 

The WI blamed the situation on ‘constraints and obligations on the NFWI Board as charity trustees under current charity law’. 

A spokesman added: ‘While members are free to accept gifts in kind, no public acknowledgement for the commercial company is allowed in return unless there is an agreed contractual relationship clearly stipulating the terms of engagement.’ 

The decision could provoke a backlash as fierce as the occasion when members slowclapped and heckled Tony Blair at a 10,000-strong WI conference. 

On Facebook, Shirley Markham of Farmborough WI writes: ‘Please NFWI have another think! Our long association with Yorkshire Tea has done nothing but good to many causes and people, why change it if it works?’ 

Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, said: ‘How ironic. We have a Government that promises to get rid of red tape and nurture charities yet somehow, the ever-more elaborate, trumped-up regulations imposed on charity trustees means a genuinely altruistic act by business is scuppered. 

'If the Big Society means anything, surely it’s butting out of informal arrangements. 

‘Mr Cameron promises to roll back the state to free up People Power.  Maybe he could start with rolling back charity law.’ 

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365744/The-teas-ladies-Potty-bureaucracy-WI-means-end-free-cuppas-members.html#ixzz1GSCV2xps