About our Club

Croydon Club meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month (except August) 19:00 for 19:30. Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are held at the Shirley Park Golf Club, Addiscombe Road, Croydon CR0 7LB.

The Croydon Club was chartered in 1927, celebrating its 80th birthday in 2007, and is one of the oldest clubs in the organisation.

In 2006, following the efforts of past president Vilma McKenzie, we were awarded the honour to display the Croydon Council Badge on all our stationery.

As Soroptimists we have the opportunity to widen our knowledge on such issues as the environment, social and economic development, education, health, and international understanding to make friends and to develop good working relationships. Within our older, retired membership there is an invaluable wealth of knowledge and expertise and this, combined with the skills of our working members, provides balance and a richness of ideas.

Soroptimist International is divided into four Federations: Europe, The Americas, South West Pacific and Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI). Croydon Club is part of SIGBI which more or less includes all the former and current Commonwealth countries. 

PROGRAMME ACTION
The core of the SI movement is in Programme Action, which embraces a wide range of activities in which all Clubs participate. Our Programme Action team has organised a seminar on AIDS to create better awareness and to banish the misconceptions about the disease; investigated water pollution and lobbied for safer rail travel. In 2001 a study into the hours worked by schoolchildren in Croydon was completed. Our report “All work and no play?” was featured on BBC2’s Working Lunch as the results of our small survey closely matched those obtained nationally by the TUC. We have also given help to day-care centres and the 60+ Club and supported a mentoring scheme at a local school. For the past ten years, we have organised an annual tea party for young carers. 

In 2005-6, the Programme Action team, in partnership with other Croydon-based organisations, established a breakfast club, computer room and library for pupils at the Beterverwagting (BV) Primary School in Guyana. [This project won an Award in 2006.] 

In 2010 we launched LOUD & PROUD, a public speaking competition for girls.

For a number of years, as part of our service commitment, we have been supporting the education of a child in Africa under Plan UK.

REPRESENTATION
SI Croydon is represented on local bodies – Croydon Voluntary Action and Volunteers In Action – and at national level. The Club is frequently invited to contribute its views on various aspects of community life. One of our members also sits on the Board of the Trade Justice Movement as a representative of our Federation, SIGBI.

FUNDRAISING
From its inception in 1927 our Club has adopted a specific community project. These have included Light-writer Communicator for the Spastics Society, a guide for Croydon Carers, and clothes and blankets for Croydon Women’s Aid. The Club also responds to urgent appeals and needs, including pillows for St Christopher’s Hospice, kitchen utensils for the Croydon Refuge, clothes for Bosnia, ‘School-in-a-box’ for Pakistan, the UNICEF Born Free From HIV Appeal and Christmas gifts for a primary school in Guyana.  

Monies have been raised for many causes including the Royal Marsden Hospital, Trefoil Guild, SIAM Project, NSPCC, the Blind Association, Muscular Dystrophy and Parkinson, Limbs for Life, St Pier’s School for Epilepsy, the Aplastic Anaemia Trust, The Orpheus Centre, the Croydon Neighbourhood Care Association, WaterAid, Croydon Women’s Aid, Book Aid International, a primary school in East Coast Demerara, Guyana, the Croydon Young Carers’ Support Project and various local Croydon organisations .

The focus of our fundraising for the period November 2008 to April 2010 was the Helena Kennedy Foundation, when over £3,000 was raised. This money was used to pay for two SI Croydon and District bursaries – one for law and one for medicine – which were awarded in November 2010.

In 2009 we donated £1,000 to the Young Carers’ Homework Club for the purchase of four laptops.

In the Club year April 2010 to April 2011, we fundraised for the Croydon branches of the Alzheimer’s Society and Home-Start. Each of these charities received a cheque for £1036, which was presented at CROYDON CLUB’s Annual General Meeting.

ANNUAL PROGRAMME AND SPEAKERS
Each new President brings together a programme of events and speakers, often related to their chosen charity and/or a particular theme. Over the years, our speakers have included Soroptimist International and SIGBI Presidents, the late Lord Bernard Weatherill, Baroness Ros Howells, the Bishop of Croydon Nick Bains, Richard Mehmed from the Brighton Wood Recycling Trust, local artist Jean Marie Eayrs, a representative from the BedZED environmental housing project, Paul McDowell, former Governor of Brixton Prison, Erwin James, former life prisoner and author, Dr Ann Limb, founder of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, Baroness Helena Kennedy, Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, Dame Stella Rimington, local MPs, local Councillors, Croydon Mayors, representatives from the various charities for which we have fundraised, and local speakers including Barbara Stevens on the Darwins, actress Pamela Lyne and Robert Wicks from the Westerham Brewery.
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