The next club meeting will be on Monday 20th February 2012. It will be held at the Golf Club at Garons Park and you should book with Diana. We shall have speakers from both the Southend refuge and the Basildon refuge, so members, if you’ve collected items for the refuge bags from other groups, invite your helpers  to come along and hear them. Guests can book through our members or by contacting us on southendsoroptimists@blueyonder.co.uk the meal costs £12 and you need to let us know any special dietary needs.

We shall have a collection at this meeting for UN World Water Day, which is on 22nd March. The donations will be given to our speaker at the March meeting, to buy LifeStraws, shown to us at the Regional meeting last year.

Look out for our PA events – following our successful UNite to Eliminate Violence Against Women Day events in November, we’re now planning our UN International Women’s day event in Southend to take place on 10th March 2012 at Royal Square. The event will be at 11.30am – can you spare an hour to make our voice heard? Women all over the world will be standing up for PEACE and hope for women everywhere.

The executive meeting will be held on Monday 13th February.

The Programme Action Committee met on 26th January and have planned the International Women’s Day event, as well as planning our support for other action during the spring and summer.

We still have room for visitors and prospective members in the club – if you are interested, please contact us on southendsoroptimists@blueyonder.co.uk  We’d love to meet you!