What we get up to
Around twenty-five events a year, most of them small. Some are in the diary months ahead. A good many happen because one member offered to organise something she knows about.
Upcoming
Nothing in the diary at the moment. The calendar usually fills up again a few weeks into the season. Send us a message and we will let you know what is coming.
The shape of the year
Our year runs from 1 September to 31 August, so it starts with a welcome back and ends with a summer that empties Montevideo out.
September to December
The busiest stretch. A welcome-back lunch, the first coffee mornings of the season, walks on the rambla while the mornings are still cool, and an end-of-year lunch in December.
January and February
Uruguay goes to the beach and so do we. Very little is scheduled in January. Things pick up again in February with a lunch and the first coffee of the year.
March to June
Workshops, guest speakers, sport, food. This is when most of the one-off things happen, because this is when everyone is back and available.
July and August
Quieter, and then a farewell lunch for the members who are moving on, which in a group of this kind happens every year, before the new season starts again in September.
The regulars
Coffee & Connect
A standing morning coffee at a café in the city. No agenda, no speaker, no preparation. Turn up, sit down, talk. It has run most months for years, and it is the easiest possible first MIWA event to come to.
Coffee mornings
Longer, usually with a guest speaker: often someone from a local foundation talking about their work, sometimes a member with something to teach. Held at a member’s home, and the address goes to the people who have said they are coming.
Lunches
Somewhere in Montevideo, usually one o’clock, usually long. Recent ones have been at Charo, Hoy Te Quiero, Café Misterio, Alquimista and Vela Resto.
Happy hour
Late afternoon drinks, most often at Manzanar.
Walks
The rambla at Carrasco, the beach, or a stretch of the city. Half past eight, before it gets warm, and followed by coffee.
And then whatever anyone offers
The rest of the calendar is made of one-offs, and they are the reason it is worth being a member rather than just following along.
In recent years members have run or joined a photography workshop, watercolour painting, ceramics, flower arranging, bread-making, cooking sessions, weaving a manta, sound healing with a gong, a clothing swap, an empanada and wine tasting, a bike tour of Ciudad Vieja, a walking food tour of Pocitos, a gastronomic tour, bootcamp in a Carrasco park, Zumba, padel, an artists’ coffee house, an International Day, and a fifth-anniversary lunch.
Almost all of it exists because a member said she could organise it.
Coming to an event
Events are for members. If you are thinking about joining and would like to come to something first to see whether it suits you, say so when you write to us. A Coffee & Connect is usually the easiest one to start with.
Events are paid for separately, on top of the annual dues. The dues go to community outreach, not to the calendar. If we are having lunch at a restaurant you pay for your lunch, and if a workshop has a materials cost it is shared between the people who come. A great deal of what we do, a coffee morning or a walk, costs nothing at all.
When an event is at a member’s home, the address is sent to the people who have confirmed they are coming, and it is not published anywhere. Where an event is at a café, a restaurant or a public place, the venue is on the calendar.