Clubs and Societies

                                                      EPPERSTONE  WI
 
The Village Festival in June went ahead in spite of uncertain weather. The WI teas and cakes made a good profit of £410, and everyone was thanked for their hard work and generous donations of cakes.
 
Susan Hannington introduced our speaker, Nancy Appleyard whose talk “What everyone is Saying” examined how we read hidden messages , and some not so hidden, in body language.
Nancy is a social anthropologist who has spent time living with different communities around the world, especially in Asia, and has observed their daily lives.
We discussed with Nancy some of her more obvious illustrations of body language such as folded arms creating a defensive barrier, hands on hips being a powerful gesture, and triumphant sports personalities with arms outstretched in celebration, or head down in defeat.
Reading facial expressions can be vital for survival in learning to know friend or foe. We scanned simple drawings of faces to try to identify a range of emotions such as anger, happiness, disgust, interest and sadness. Surprisingly we learned that baby-faced people tend to be given lighter sentences by judges in criminal cases – their baby faces being read as innocent.
Smiles can be interpreted in different ways; they can be polite smiles, two-faced smiles (with an example from Donald Trump), and genuine smiles where the eyes are also smiling.
Hands are important in body language. It is difficult to speak without using our hands. Nancy ended her talk by showing TV footage of Lord King in the House of Lords referring to Baroness Trumpington’s great age to which she promptly responded with a two-finger gesture – there was certainly no difficulty in reading that body language!
 
We meet again on Tuesday 13 August for the Fish and Chip supper and Skittles night, at 7.30pm in the Village Hall. (£10 per ticket).
                                                     M.G.