Bilston club holds two meetings a month, the first Tuesday is a business meeting and the third Thursday is a dinner meeting usually with a speaker.
The Bilston club was formed in 1943 but owing to the war restrictions no metal of any kind was available to make a badge. Two members gave silver soup ladles and coffee spoons and the badge was created at Bilston College of Arts and is the coat of arms of Bilston. Currently we have 32 members from a wide area covering not just Bilston but the West Midlands and Shropshire.
We are a vibrant club whose members enjoy working on behalf of others, particularly women and girls, at home and abroad. For instance we support a local women’s refuge by providing household goods, personal gifts and financial assistance.
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Following the success of our Cardiac Screening Day, CRY, in 2008 we ran a similar week end at the Molineux in July 2018 with similar results. We know that at the end of that day we had potentially saved three lives.
As a direct result of working with West Midlands Police and in particular PC Trusselle on the Gift Box we were invited to take part in the Wolverhampton Police Family Fun Day in August 2016 in West Park. We had a stall with games and in addition we helped serve refreshments throughout the day and even carried out litter picks. Needless to say we were also promoting Bilston Soroptimists. The weather was superb and we were given finance for our charities in the way of a thank you. It was a great experience.
At the beginning of 2015 club members decided to host a United Nations Gift Box (7 feet x 11 feet) in the centre of Wolverhampton to highlight problems with Human Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation. Much preparation and research was needed including a visit to SI Bristol to see how the Gift Box actually worked. Contact with the City Council and West Midlands Police Force was essential to gain permission and support from the Police. In fact the planning including training of members took 7/8 months. The Mayor of Wolverhampton opened the week end and we gave out information, bookmarks and gifts for children supplied by the police to approximately 3000 people over the two days. Many thanks to our Soroptimisters who helped erect and dismantle the Box.
On 16th June 2014 Forced Marriage became a criminal offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Bilston members have been working with Karma Nirvana and Jasvinder Sanghera to help achieve this goal. Many Soroptimists in clubs throughout the UK completed the Home Office consultation which has led to this happening.
