Our President’s message

I am delighted to have been asked to serve the Cambridge Club of Soroptimist International as President for the year 2011 -2012.

The aim of Soroptimists is to make life better for women and girls, both in this country and overseas, and we work together in the Cambridge Club towards this object in various ways.

We lobby councils and Governments where we think proposals will have an adverse effect on women – one of our latest projects was to protest at the proposed closure of the ground floor toilets in the Grafton Centre – a decision that has now been reversed.

We also raise money and over the last year have supported financially the Cambridge Rape Crisis centre and collected necessary goods for the Women’s Refuge.

On an International basis we have been supporting through our International organisation a project to help women and children in Sierra Leone to build their lives again after the prolonged civil war.

In the current year I hope to help an organisation which works with trafficked women, a scourge of the present day, and also a Charity which helps women with educational grants to return to work.

We try to make our fund raising enjoyable and involve the public, as well as Club members, with fashion Shows, Bridge days, Quizzes, coffee mornings and tea parties.

Our Club meetings are varied and over the year we have several very interesting speakers and also some social occasions.

The maxim of the Club is service with friendship and fun and I hope that over the next year we will be able to achieve this.

I have been a Soroptimist for a number of years and feel that my life has been enriched by the experience. I have been given the opportunity to travel and visit exciting projects in overseas countries and am going to Montreal later this summer to the Soroptimist International Convention. This will be an opportunity to discuss future plans for the organisation, hear interesting and topical speakers, renew old friendships, and make new ones with members from other parts of the world.

The international aspect of Soroptimism is also enhanced by our friendship links with other Clubs. Members visited the Heidelberg Club last year and we are entertaining members from both Heidelberg and Walsall this year. We are also helping to nurture a new Club in Botswana and who knows a visit there might be on the agenda in the not too distant future.

If you feel this is for you and would like to find out more about the organisation do contact us and come along to a meeting.

Anne Ainsworth

President 2011-12