"Hello my name is Valerie.I am so thrilled to tell you that I am now a W-Icon!!This was the Sky and WI competition I entered to become the ultimate WI member, the result of which is introducing three learning guides which offer handy hints and tips of home management to sexual health and wellbeing for the over 50s. There are six guides in total which go live on Monday 13th October on so log on here and look!If you voted for me. Thank you.If you asked your friends to vote. Thank you. Thank you.Please do give them the good news. It was amazing, humbling, that so many people voted for me. Friends and friends of friends; People I know and love and people I have never met or am even likely to. I know that people from eastern Ukraine to the west coast of USA - From Latvia to Australia voted for me. That is truly amazing!The judges decided to have two W-Icons! Me, the oldest finalist, and Emma, one of the youngest. That was exactly right! Emma and I are both typical of WI. We both do the traditional things and embrace the modern. WI has always been a campaigning and educational organisation and I helped found a new educational campaign. The prize money, donated from Sky will get Learn with Grandma, a not for profit company, started. I read that 60% of grandparents in UK care for their grandchildren on a regular basis and wanted to help.With this prize money we can now make progress. Please visit our website . This website will have a facelift very soon and be linked to a new website for Learn with Grandma. I write educational books that include our unique Learn with Grandma fun activity pages. We suggest all sorts of activities that parents and teachers as well as grandparents can do with the children. All the activities are designed to bring the story to life, make learning fun and memorable.Now we can do more! One plan is to create a directory of useful websites and cheaper places to take children. Theme Parks are great. I love rollercoasters but, at over 100 for a day out, they are for high days and holidays. Throughout the country there are lots of great places to go that are either free or cost were little. Please tell us of places you know of. Initially, while we are building it, it will be an online directory. Later on we would hope to publish. Not everyone is computer savvy!Which brings me to another important project - Many grandparents, like me, are computer literate to a degree but we did not grow up with computers, as our grandchildren have. Many of us do not fully understand how to get the best from a computer and the internet. I am off to Germany in December to speak about this at a conference about e-learning. While there I will find out as much as I can about e-learning and, hopefully, find people who will join us in a project that will help older people catch up. Our aims are to help grandparents instil a love of learning; create lasting memories and have fun. We want to help older people use the internet with the same ease and proficiency as their grandchildren.By now you will have realised that we grannies have big plans to help other grandparents and that, wonderful as a prize of 10,000 is, it is not going to be nearly enough! 10,000 will get us started. If you would like to help, with a donation or a loan (a not for profit company can accept loans) or help voluntarily in some way Please get in touch.Thank you again if you did vote for me to be the W-Icon, and receiving the prize money from Sky, has got Learn with Grandma off to a good start.God BlessValerieMrs Valerie Wood-Gaiger MBE2008 Special Award for Innovation in Education GWIINDirector - Grandma's Stories LtdC-Founder - Learn with Grandma - a not for profit company.Brynamlwg, Myddfai, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire SA 20 0NZ, Wales U.K.01550 720994 See our website "