SOME OF THE WORK THAT WE UNDERTAKE

The ‘Hands’ banner creation

In order to raise awareness of the Soroptimists’ national project – Violence Against Women, Stop It Now - members of the club took to High Chelmer shopping precinct on Saturday 18 July.

Together with roller banners describing our work, we invited shoppers and children to complete a ‘hand’ on a banner, using multi-coloured cut out paper hands, on which they then added their forename – and often a message – some quite poignant.

One of our first ‘customers’ was a four-year-old little girl who very expertly wrote her name on her paper hand. She is pictured here left with her younger sister, her parents and her granny – three generations signing their hands!

The completed banner measured 55 feet and contained 412 hands! It will be displayed at our Regional meeting and presented to the national committee for use at their Study Day.

If you would like more information on this or any of the work of this club do email us on info@chelmsfordsoroptimists.com

Raising money for Project SIerra

Club member, Yvonne Jaques, recently toured the Region in her Messerschmitt. Leaving from Chelmsford, she travelled to Braintree, Halstead, Colchester, Cambridge, Ipswich, Norwich, King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth, Southend, East London and Enfield. The trip had been devised to raise money for the International project – Project SIerra - a four-year partnership between Soroptimist International and Hope and Homes for Children which aims to raise over £1 million to transform the lives of some of the most deprived women and children in the world.

The idea was to try to guess the mileage that the 200cc engined car would complete. Entries cost £1 and a £10 prize was awarded to the person who correctly quessed that the total mileage was 462.

More Projects

The club is working on a number of Programme Action projects, as club Programme Action officer, Marie-Louise Dudley, reports:

At a local level, we raised sponsorship for a walk round Maldon and Heybridge, raising £730 for our President’s charity, Chelmsford Women’s Aid.

We continue to try to ban the free issue of plastic carrier bags. MPs have been lobbied, as have the major supermarkets. This issue has been gathering momentum over the last few years and radical changes are now being introduced nationally.

Further lobbying was made on the Sustainable Communities Bill.

A quiz was devised and sheets sold for£1 each. A total of £235 was raised and sent on to Project SIerra.

The Club took part in Operation Christmas Child. A total of 12 shoe boxes were filled and sent out to Belarus for distribution to young girls.

An ongoing project is Knitting4Africa. We heard that blankets are in short supply in Africa and it is often the children who go without. We responded to a request for child-size blankets to be knitted from squares. To date, we have completed enough squares for two blankets, which are in the process of being made up. In addition, we were given a ready made crotchet blanket so will be able to forward three blankets to the knitting4Africaproject.

On a more personal level, a number of us have revisited the Home Energy Project that was rolled out in Chelmsford a few years ago. This project is a personal appraisal of energy output from our homes. It is designed to remind us of our carbon footprint and to try and reduce our output and save funds at the same time. Other clubs in the Region have agreed to take part as well.

We contributed to the recycling of old and broken jewellery which has been forwarded to Wales South Region in support of their Licking Lassa Fever campaign.

We work with other clubs in the Region to provide equipment for two schools in Malawi. So far the list has included, tables and chairs, shelving, bowls and spoons and maize seed. The Chelmsford club’s contribution has purchased books. At present we are fund-raising for materials to build toilet blocks at the schools, which will enable the girls to attend school more often.

Together with members from the London Chilterns Region, we walked for Breast Cancer Care.

Our club participated in the Pyramid of Shoes at Harrogate at the Federation’s annual Conference to support Handicap International. It was back in 2004 that we were awarded the Federation’s Good Practice Award for our work with Handicap International on the Pyramid of Shoes in Trafalgar Square.