He made it clear that a lot more needed to be done to tackle the horrors of travelling sex offenders, commonly called sex tourists, who travelled to countries such as Ukraine and Cambodia where a child could be bought for ten dollars a night.

“We need more boots on the ground and some changes in UK law,” he said.

Guest speaker Det Insp John Geden with acting president Stella Astbury

Why did offenders travel abroad? The law was not very robust in other parts of the world so criminals knew there was less risk of getting caught, and in addition there was no age of consent in Ukraine for example and “in Spain it’s age 13.”

In many countries the only child protection available was provided by charities and offenders often ran charities such as orphanages as a cover for their activities. Corruption was rife, abject poverty meant families often sold their children into sexual slavery and a culture of deference to Westerners was common.

DI Geden said he had been seconded to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), the agency that works across the UK to tackle child sex abuse and had helped to bring back the pop star Gary Glitter.

He had been fortunate enough to gain a grant from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust enabling him to travel abroad to carry out research on the subject.

He explained that sex crime often escalated, offenders would start by, perhaps, fantasising then downloading photographs from the internet before progressing to an actual assault.

He said it was important to try to convict travelling sex offenders as they could return to the UK and assault children in their locality.

“But in this country it’s easier to get a court order to prevent a football hooligan travelling abroad than it is to prevent someone intent on committing child sex offences.”

He said he had been co-author of a report published this month that criticised the fact that the system was flawed, especially where orders banning overseas travel were concerned.

Changes were needed in the law to rectify this and CEOP was working towards this end. In Australia, for example, sex offenders were prevented from having passports.

“And the US are much more proactive than we are in this country,” he said. There, an agency had been set up to trace American travelling sex offenders and they had brought 85 perpetrators to justice.

As a result of his work rescuing a group of children from abuse in Cambodia he had become involved in the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF).

“My wife and I sponsor a child and in 2012 we visited the organisation in Phnom Penh as part of a family holiday in Asia.

“The highlight of our week was watching our two daughters singing a One Direction song along with the Khmer children. It just shows that children are the same the world over.”

Thanking him for his talk, Christine Wilkes gave him a cheque for £50 for the CCF.

It was the beginning of a new reign with the club being run by the executive committee in the absence of a president.

Thanks to some earlier planning everything had gone smoothly, there were few problems with continuity, people pulled together and the club was very supportive, particularly when it came to filling the 21 backpacks for Mary’s Meals charity.

She said the executive would continue to run the club in the year ahead with a rota for president for the month with the added responsibility of coping without a secretary.

“The past year was quite a good one with everyone involved.”

Lesley Hobbs reported on programme action activities including the bookmarks project, backpacks for needy children in Malawi and quilts being made for children suffering from trauma as well as a summer outing organised for children at the Women’s Refuge and a tea party for Contact the Elderly.

A new member Wendie Douglas was welcomed and Rosemary Bell asked all members to think about recruitment.

Ann Pibworth was elected treasurer and Rosemary Bell and Stella Astbury were elected as regional representatives.

Pupils at the Gosport junior school had asked Dee to take the bear with her on her first solo round-the-world trip and she received such a vast amount of publicity in sailing-mad France that the school was invited to join the AWARE project, Around the World, a Race for the environment.

The youngsters linked up with pupils at two schools in France, along with one each in Poland and Spain to produce a charter to take care of the sea and a copy was given to each skipper taking part in the Vendee Globe race around the world that took place last November, one of the school’s governors Richard Baker Jones told club members.

He said the children in the five participating schools had jointly agreed the wording of the ten-point charter – such as keeping the sea free from pollution and respecting protected areas.

Speaker Mr Richard Baker Jones with club member Rosemary Bell

As well as producing the charter youngsters worked on an aspect of the marine environment in their own locality. The Alverstoke pupils learned how rubbish discarded miles inland could end up in the Solent and they collected litter from Stokes Bay and they even made a figure of King Neptune from rubbish collected on the beach. The talk was well illustrated with slides of all the children’s activities including some of French and Polish pupils who had visited Alverstoke and one of the impressive King Neptune.

The project ends in June with a visit by teachers and children from Alverstoke to the Polish school near Krakow involved with them. It was funded by a €25,000 grant from Comenius, the European Union’s lifelong learning programme that aims to help young people better understand the range of European cultures, languages and values. It also helps young people acquire the basic life skills and competences necessary for personal development, future employment and active citizenship.

Club member Christine Wilkes, a retired teacher, thanked Mr Baker Jones for his interesting talk and gave him a cheque for £50 that will go to his personal favourite charity Visoi Children’s Centre International in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

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The winning team from Fareham Rotary Club

THE atmosphere was thick with concentration at Whiteley community centre when Gosport and Fareham Soroptimists held their annual quiz night.

The very able quizmaster Chris Hobbs (son of Lesley, the club’s programme action convenor) kept the audience on their toes with a before-they-were-famous photograph challenge in addition to nine rounds of tough questions. These covered a range of topics including geography, science and technology, music and general knowledge. Questions such as who was Time magazine’s man of the year in 1938? (Answer: Hitler) and which is the largest landlocked country in the world? (Kazakhstan) kept the grey cells exercised.

There was good-natured competition between ten teams battling to be winners. This accolade eventually went to a team from Fareham Rotary Club calling themselves The Rotorvators.

A raffle organised by Celia Veal raised £108.50 and helped to boost the amount raised during the evening to £391.10.

Proceeds will go to several Soroptimist charities in particular MCAI, the club’s international project to improve maternal health in the Gambia.

Alison, a retired teacher and former club president, said that she had been sewing since her junior school days. Encouraged by her mother, a keen sewer and embroiderer, she made her own school cap and apron and eventually progressed to making all her own clothes before taking a place at Bath College to study home economics with dress as her secondary subject.

“In my final year I made a wedding gown for a friend,” she said.

When she married and became a mother to two boys she bought a knitting machine so sewing took a back seat for a while as she made sweaters for her sons.

After retiring she took up quilting on the recommendation of a friend while they were on holiday in Alaska where she bought a “a fat quarter” – that’s quilt-speak for a pack of quilting fabric usually colour co-ordinated.

Her talk was embellished by a wonderful range of her handiwork that made it hard to believe that she only started quilting in 2008 when she joined a local group. On learning that she was to become a grandmother she decided to make a quilt.

Along the way she attended numerous workshops and classes and on each occasion she learnt a different technique, beautifully illustrated by pieces of her work. Holidays also invariably meant a visit to a fabric shop and the inspiration for another project. One such item was a framed beach scene of Saundersfoot in South Wales complete with tiny shells and pieces of driftwood.

Quilts in all sizes, designs and colours, cushions, wall hangings, table runners, Christmas decorations, along with bags of all sizes were a remarkable testament to the skill she has mastered.

Alison Jenkins, left, with Pat Caulton and two beautiful examples of quilted cushions

She described how challenging it had been to master all the different techniques needed – hand sewing, machining, drawing her own designs and most importantly precision cutting using a special rotary tool.

“Each piece of fabric has to be cut perfectly accurately or it all goes wrong,” said Alison.

Alison is the leader of the club’s quilting group comprising around a dozen or so members and in 2011 a quilt they made was raffled at the Soroptimists annual conference in Brighton and it raised £800 that was later donated to the Portsmouth branch of Alzheimer’s Society.

Club secretary Pat Caulton thanked Alison for her illuminating talk on what is undoubtedly a demanding craft.

*See the item in this section entitled ‘Security and comfort for sick youngsters’ that explains Alison and the club’s involvement in the Project Linus UK.

Club member Celia Veal, centre, who introduced guest speakers Gill Cairns and Roy Taylor

Fareham’s Abbeyfield Society, the organisation that runs homes for independent and active older people, celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year.

The society has two houses in the town’s East Street where older people who no longer want to live alone can find companionship.

Although the homes have permanent staff they are run by an executive committee of volunteers and two of them, Gill Cairns and Roy Taylor, told members all about the friendly ‘family’ home atmosphere the staff strive to provide.

“Each home has a housekeeper and they go that extra mile for the residents,” said Mrs Cairns. “There are a number of social activities such as cream teas, barbecues and gatherings at Christmas for those residents who don’t go to stay with family.”

Residents cater for themselves at breakfast but “they all get together at lunch and at tea time,” said Mr Taylor.

Each resident has their own bedsitting room with their own furniture with an en suite bathroom. They have their own front door key allowing them to be independent.

Both houses have a guest suite so that visitors can stay and there is a laundry room as well as parking spaces for cars and buggies. Housekeepers live in and are on call 24 hours a day.

Fees are inclusive of food and any expense you would incur in your own home except for telephone bills.

“Prospective residents can come and stay for a trial week to see how they like it,” said Mrs Cairns. Anyone interested can telephone for more information on 01489 881287.

The two speakers were thanked for their interesting talk by Stella Astbury who presented them with a donation of £50.

The club agreed to link up with Southampton Soroptimists who are working on a similar project. They passed over five backpacks that still needed to be completed.

Christine Wilkes, pictured left in the photo with Rosemary Hampton, Pat Caulton and Kathleen Durning, made a list of the few items still needed. Mrs Wilkes told the April business that there were now 21 backpacks ready to be sent off.

She said there had been a very good response from everyone.

The key to success is ensuring that Programme Action is central to what we do – Liz reminisced about the range of projects we had been involved in across the world, such as water wells in Senegal, the reverse in the draw of the sex trade in Bangkok through the SIAM project, lobbying against land-mines and raising money for Limbs for Life, as well as working with women survivors of war in Project Independence, funding ‘Loos for Lynn’ and now 3Es for midwives and birth attendants in The Gambia. The power of Soroptimist work is that it ranges from the popular issues to those less obvious: domestic violence, trafficking, prostitution, safe travel on railways, rape, even FGM – anything that affects the lives of women and girls.

The 3 main tasks for a ‘light-touch’ club to cover are Programme Action (obviously), keeping in touch with the members (i.e. the role of the Secretary) and managing their money (club Treasurer). These roles can be shared by more than one woman at a time, providing cover by having a buddy, or deputy, and bringing on successors. Other tasks can be run as a group activity, such as planning the programme, and the whole club can take turns at chairing meetings etc. The burden on the Secretary has also been reduced with Federation mailings now fortnightly, with links to the website.

There were various issues and questions raised in a lively debate. One comment, made by a prospective member visiting the club for the first time, was the lack of PR profile of the organisation, which has been a constant problem: Liz admitted that she has an intern soon to start work with her, who will be helping prepare a protocol for clubs to follow as part of a social media strategy for the Federation.  Let’s hope this gets our name better known.

Janet Ayres, pictured on the right of the picture, is a natural voice practitioner who has been running a choir for six years. With her is club member Kathleen Durning, a singer in her choir.

Janet explained how the Alzheimer’s Society began Singing for the Brain sessions initially to help carers but had since extended the idea to dementia sufferers, allowing them to socialise with others in a fun, stimulating and supportive group.

After describing how the process worked – including exercises to help with breathing and even yawning to loosen the throat and warm up the voice – she had her audience singing.

She said singing was connected with emotion and that as emotional memory was preserved it was a good way to help dementia sufferers to communicate. Even when many memories are hard to retrieve, music was easy to recall.

The Portsmouth group was set up in July 2011 and they meet fortnightly at the city’s Buckland Centre.

“At first everyone was apprehensive but I’ve seen a fantastic change in the carers and sufferers,” said Janet.

A year ago the club gave the group £800, money raised during Pam Grosvenor’s year as president, by raffling a lovely patchwork quilt, hand-made by a small team of club members.

Janet Ayres with her shruti box that produced a pleasant droning sound to accompany her lovely singing voice

Good food, good friends, a glass of wine, good chat that’s all you need. Good weather’s an extra!