This year’s NFWI Huxley Cup Competition is themed around Our Fabulous Flying Friends (think about birds, bees, butterflies, moths, and bats!).
The Huxley Cup is NFWI’s annual design competition and allows members to enhance, develop or share their creative skills and knowledge in gardening, flowers, nature and wildlife. Over the course of the year, members are encouraged to work together as a WI to create a piece of work that reflects a specific theme. Each year the competition theme and style change, but the final result will always be either floral art or garden-based.
The cup (also known as the challenge bowl) was presented to the NFWI by Mrs L K Huxley OBE in 1938.
The first competition took place at the Annual Flower Show in Norfolk, where the cup was presented to the winner of ‘the competitions among the counties at the Annual Flower Show’. Mrs Huxley was keen that the winning federation should use the bowl at county events for displaying flowers and not merely show it.
In 2022, the competition is supported by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), and invites WIs to design a small community space for wellbeing and wildlife. The wildlife aspect of the entry should focus specifically on the theme of:
The planned space must be accessible and enjoyed by the community. It can be linked to a health care setting (e.g., GP surgery, hospice), or community garden (e.g., community hall), or transforming a grass verge or area in the community which has frequent pedestrians passing by (e.g., village green, car park area, local park flower bed or cycle path).
Designs should be bold and inspiring; the judges will be looking for your idea to be colourful, engaging, and inclusive.
Think about growing your own plants, plant sharing, upcycling, reusing, and recycling.
For more detailed information, you can download the full competition schedule here.
The deadline for entries is 19 August 2022. The cost to enter is £10 per entry. Only one entry per WI will be accepted.
Please download an application form here, and submit it directly to NFWI (not to CFWI). The address you need to submit the application form to will be confirmed at a later date.
Get planting!