Fund raising coffee morning at IFWA

Islamabad :The Islamabad Foreign Women’s Association (IFWA) fund raising coffee morning for this month was held at the residence of member, Waqar Boolani and featured a floral art demonstration by her and Asma Ansari, both former presidents of the Floral Art Society (FAS), assisted by a few other members ‘behind the scene,’ as they say. It was a well-attended affair.

A conducive atmosphere had been created for the occasion and arrangements had been made in the lawn, with seating facing the steps where the demonstration took place. It was pleasant to sit among the beautiful plants in the garden – where some of the ladies embraced the warmth of the sun and others were somewhat bothered by it!  Members who are interested in gardens admired the plants and inquired about the flowers in bloom. Keeping the programme in mind, even the tables where committee members were seated for the registration process had pretty flower arrangements which was a nice touch.

Welcoming the members and their guests, a cheerful Mookda Mairue -- president IFWA - introduced the two demonstrators and thanked the hostess for generously providing the venue. Waqar and Asma then began - working as a team and creating one arrangement after another, with Waqar explaining and Asma creating the beautiful works of floral art. Of course each arrangement takes a long time to complete -- it’s not as easy as you may think!  From conceiving the idea, planning and collecting the materials and executing it takes time, so parts of some of the arrangements were prepared beforehand and finishing touches put in during the demo. Both modern and traditional methods of floral art were created and displayed.

In between questions were asked and answered by those who wanted to learn from the experience. Cell phones were out to take pictures and it turned out to be an interesting and successful programme. The icing on the cake, so to say, was that refreshments were also served outdoors – more of a brunch I would say – and while a few members went off because they had other things to do, others stayed on to do some ‘gup-shup’ and enjoy the natural ambience of the garden.

IFWA is a member based association of expatriate and Pakistani women who meet about once a month to interact and the funds collected from these events are distributed to charitable organizations for the welfare of women and children.