President’s Message

President Jenifer McFarlane (on left) pictured with Sue Williams , Federation Councillor

As I write this to introduce myself to you as your President for 2011/12, I am

preparing to go to the SIGBI conference in Brighton where President Eileen will hand

over the chain of office to me at a ceremony in the Brighton Dome.

Although I have been a member of S.I.Paisley since 1988, I did not take up office

within the Club for many years until my daughter was a teenager. Looking back I

realise that it was only once I did so that I really began to learn about how the Club

worked and the wider world of Soroptimism beyond Paisley. Since then I have been

Programme Action officer at Club and Region level, both for four years, and

President of my Club twice. As Region Programme Action Officer I represented the

Region at meetings of the UK Programme Action Committee and was also the

Scottish Representative to the Federation Programme Action committee

I have learned an enormous amount in this time about Soroptimism and the

wonderful work that our members carry out. Programme action is what we are all

about and is the lifeblood of our organisation – we must never forget this. I am

always inspired and enthused after attending our own Scottish joint conference as

well as the SIGBI conference, when hearing about the amazing work that our fellow

Soroptimists are carrying out. It is only when attending conference that I think the

sense of being part of an international organisation and of the difference that we can

make to the lives of women and girls becomes clear. I would encourage everyone to

attend conference at least once if they can.

The theme for my year is ‘Celebrating Soroptimism’ as I feel that we have much to

be proud of but are very guilty of hiding our light under a bushel! As a Region we are

involved in many areas of Programme Action, carrying out valuable work that does

make a difference. I hope over the next year to raise awareness of this work and of

the many inspiring women who have given long service to our organisation.

It is an honour to become your President and I will represent you to the best of my

ability in the coming year. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible

during the year and to working with you to achieve our aims.

In friendship

Jenifer

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