Four SI Presidents and a Baroness

Four levels of our SI organisation were represented: International President Hanne Jensbo, SIGBI President Liz Morgan-Lewis, the President of London Chilterns Region, Johanna Raffan, along with President Peggy Simson of SI Thames Valley. Eighty-two guests were welcomed and invited to celebrate the occasion. The excellent dinner was preceded by a guided tour of the House of Lords. Members of SI Thames Valley were delighted to be able to meet up with friends from their Link clubs SI Weston super Mare and SI Val Brabant, who took advantage of the trip to spend the weekend in an unusually sunny London. SI Thames Valley member, Rose Moriba, spoke about the club’s Kori District Project in Sierra Leone and Professor Jane Maher brought news from the Lynda Jackson Centre, SI Chiltern Region’s current chosen charity.

At the end of the evening Soroptimists crowded onto the terrace and with much posing against the impressive background of the House of Lords recorded in photos what had been a truly memorable occasion.

With thanks to Kay Heppell SI Thames Valley

A very successful and enjoyable evening with the opportunity to meet new people and have fun together.

A visiting Soroptimist from Abuja also attended with her daughter and was asked to light the candles of friendship. Baby Alexander accompanied his mum Sofia Despotidou and his grandma to the meeting. It was a fully packed evening with the club discussing and completing ballots to be submitted to the Federation office. A book sale was conducted with proceeds going towards Help the Heroes. I then had the opportunity to tell the gathering how my career had developed and the different areas within healthcare that I had worked.

A long standing member gave me a lovely poem which was inspired by the 9^th Annual Dinner of the Gravesend & District Club on the 3^rd October 1961.

Soroptimists are optimists
That’s what the name implies,
But Soroptimists can be organists
Capitalists or physiognomists.
Of course they are never polygamists
Terrorists or obstructionists;
You often find they are rhapsodists,
Medalists or Moralists;
You might find an egotist,
But much more likely a Nationalist.
Now and then you find a journalist,
A vocalist or a receptionist;
You may think I’m a humourist
But really I’m just a realist
For you’ll find among Soroptimists
Vocalist, pianists & spiritualists,
Suffragettes, telephonists & scientists
You might even find a Ventriloquist
They are nearly all diplomatists
Idealists and economists.
There are journalists & dogmatists
Fatalists and Moralists.
You may come across a pathologist
A Mineralogist or a Metallurgist
An Organist or an oculist
But there is just one thing I must insist
YOU’LL NEVER DISCOVER A PESSIMIST!

Anonymous

On July 19th 2011 a coach full of Bedford Soroptimists and their guests headed for London and in particular the House of Lords where they were met by Soroptimists guests from other clubs including our regional president, Johanna.

Our afternoon tea was hosted by Shreela Flather, Baroness Flather of Windsor and Maidenhead who has supported and hosted us in the past. She has held a number of senior posts in various organisations in which our members play a part including refugee, community, race relations and prison work.

Baroness Flather congratulated Bedford on its 80th birthday and helped in the ardous task of cutting the cake.  The event was organised by Bedford president Joan Howe.

Our speaker was Alan Bunce, Community Editor, of the Reading Evening Post, who spoke about his work as a journalist. He also gave us some valuable tips on ways of getting our club publicised.

London Chilterns President Yinka Soetan (left) at the first club visit of her year, with Club President Brenda Jenkins.

SILM distributed the remainder of the charity monies raised during their final year to extend the finance of projects which they had started, this meant that Project Mala in Africa had a further 3years finance and a pupil in San Fernando, their Friendship Link, had a further year. Since the closure, members have joined other clubs, from SI Ilford to SI Newbury, SI Central & SW, SI Thames Valley and SI Elmbridge. The good work continues!

Our thanks to Sakina for arranging these get-togethers and we look forward to the next time.

Eileen Alexander (member of SI Bedford since 1952) was 100 years old on April 2nd 2011. She is quaffing her bubbly with the club and looking very lively for someone in her third day of partying.  We congratulate her and wish her well. Region President Johanna joined the celebrations.

(Picture is 2010 Walk)

“Women on the Bridge” London Millennium Bridge – joint event with Women for Women International (WWI) – see the website www.womenforwomen.org/bridge

There will be events in the UK and all over the world.

The London event is the main event and it’s in our Region!

Liz Morgan-Lewis will speak alongside people like Annie Lennox and leading politicians after the march.

Sign up for an event on the WWI website www.womenforwomen.org/bridge or contact Jane Slatter.

The march will leave Borough Market at 11am (meet from 10am), walking along the south side of the river to Millennium Bridge, crossing the Thames to the North side then continuing west along the river walk past Victoria Embankment Gardens, then crossing back along Hungerford Bridge to the South side of the river and finishing at the Royal Festival Hall for speeches, music and celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall from 12.30pm to 1.30pm, where we will have a Soroptimist stall.

Wear all of your Soroptimist sashes, tabards, sweatshirts and bring all your banners, signs and umbrellas etc. Bring your friends and don’t forget to get publicity for Soroptimists both before and after the event – press release templates are available in the Members area of the SIGBI website www.soroptimist-gbi.org/members/ under “Communications”.

The Region holds this event every year and helps to introduce the new presidents to the Committee and to understand how the Region moves forward within the SIGBI Federation. After the introductions it was clear that we had a mix of recycled Presidents, members of longstanding who finally wanted to take office, and those newer members, who wanted to make an early start in club life.

Given this range, it is clear that these personalities are within every Club, and one of the fundamental messages from every President should be to recognise the differences within her club. It is important to recognise strengths, encourage the less committed, and to curb over enthusiasm where it prevents others taking part. The exercises we did during the morning were therefore meant to help recognise and make these characteristics work to the benefit of the club.

Eileen has a marvellous way of introducing characters and uses them as role play. She has a set of Smurfs, each of which represents a different character – it’s a bit of fun but works well. Each person has to describe what she thinks the character would bring to the club, and there are often two sides. It gives us an opportunity to take a step back and evaluate each person and her attributes.

It is also an opportunity to discuss Federation expectations and strategies and how they can be implemented at club level. Clubs have different personalities so may prefer to select certain elements within Federation plans which they feel their club can achieve with the members they have. We discussed how meetings are held, content, venue and how often they are held.

The finale was a fond look back to how things were, and also made us think about who we were. We were asked to bring a hat, a retro look to how one dressed up for meetings complete with gloves, in earlier years. We each matched the gloves and hats and it was interesting to see the change of formality and also gave us the opportunity to be a different person, associated with that hat!

After which, in true Soroptimist style, we went to the local pub for lunch………………….

Julie Blackwell   IPP London Chilterns Region