St Austell & District’s 2024 Unsung Heroine Awards ceremony was a sparkling success at the start of March. Keira Georgiou was the winner of the youth category. Regional President Margaret presented her with a trophy and flowers. Samantha Smith was the winner of the adult category with Carolyn Boyce given a highly commended award. Guest, Mark Hewson, representing headline sponsor Imerys, presented Carolyn with her award and spoke to Samantha who received her award over the phone. During the evening we were entertained by the amazingly talented Kana Kres Quartet who sang a range of songs including a Cornish medley and ‘Shallow’. Carlyon Bay Golf Club pulled out ‘all of the stops’ with their support of this event. We enjoyed a buffet supper and a warm welcome. As always the raffle, which was Cornish themed (St Piran’s Day 5th March!), helped to raise funds for

Throughout February the Unsung Heroine project group worked on the organisation of the event that was to be held in March. Soroptimist Kay led the planning for this event and kept everyone abreast of developments as the month progressed. Soroptimist Dawn raised over £1000 in sponsorship and Soroptimist Jennie worked with the team to develop a new branding strategy. The event photos will be in next month’s news page. The first meeting of our new Book Club took place on  2nd Feb at the Merlin Centre in Hewas Water. The best seller and funny book, Lessons in Chemistry about a gifted woman scientist and TV cook and the prejudice she encountered in the early 1960s received high marks from all of the group. The Return by Hisham Matar was not so popular, a memoir from the prize winning novelist about his obsession to find what

Members started the new year with a most informative tour behind the scenes at the Hall for Cornwall on Saturday 5th January. It was fascinating to hear about the history of the building and it’s importance to the City of Truro. Our excellent tour guides were full of interesting and humorous tales about the goings on ‘back-stage’ and it was a special treat to be on the stage looking out instead of in the audience looking in!! Our thanks to the staff at @hall_for_cornwall for making us feel so welcome! On the 17th January we organised a most successful fundraising event.  Members were joined by lots of friends for Bingo! Our experienced bingo caller ‘Norman’, kept us on our toes as we played through our bingo booklets. There were prizes galore as we shouted for lines and ‘full house’. We raised £865.76 for Cornwall Hospice

We were half way through our 16 Days of Activism as we entered December, with our Day 7 post on 1st December. We followed the international theme of raising awareness of the dangers of technology in violence against women. At this time, our club President Jill was in Dubai meeting up with six women, three of whom were Soroptimist International Club Presidents, representing four clubs and three Federations: SIE, SIGBI and SIAF. Also on the 1st December, a large number of club members and friends shared a meal and then went on to see the Cornwall Air Ambulance Carol Concert at Truro Methodist Church.  Soroptimist Nettie presented a club cheque to Isla and her mum Carrie, in aid of the Air Ambulance fundraising effort. Isla had written a song to say thankyou to the ambulance crew for providing her mum with critical care. We were

November 2023 November began with the massive Storm Ciaran, but despite the weather a group of hardy club members managed to make it to London on the 2nd November ready for the annual national SIGBI conference at Friends House. You can read all about the conference (3rd – 4th November) on our webpage here. We had a busy club meeting on the 9th November. The London conference group shared their experiences and learning with other club members. We enjoyed listening to Stefan Winter-Baker, our guest speaker, who talked to us about the local Healthcare online system called KLINIK. At the end of his presentation he answered questions from members. We were very pleased to welcome new club member Helen to our club and to welcome Caroline who, already a soroptimist, transferred from SI Stafford. We hope that both of them will enjoy being part of

October 2023 News October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and so we promoted awareness of this through all of our social media channels and wore pink at our October Club meeting. At this meeting President Elect (joint) Diane welcomed two new club members. (Welcome Cathy and Zillah!) and celebrated long-standing member Mary’s 89th Birthday.                   On the 7th October, our ‘Music for an Autumn Evening’ Concert was a great success. This concert given in partnership with Lowena Voices and Imerys Mid Cornwall Male Choir raised around £500 which was split between two charities. (Cornwall Hospice Care and @inspiringwomensnetworkkw) We experienced wonderful singing from both choirs and enjoyed joining in at the appropriate times. Our Compere Soroptimist Karen kept us laughing as well as informed about the songs performed. Our social committee did us proud with the cheese

September 2023 News September started with a very busy Saturday (9th) where club members went in three different directions! Wendy, Claire, Mary and Jennie were very pleased to take part in the Leadership and Entrepreneurship Conference organised by the Inspiring Women’s Network today. There were a range of speakers, workshops and stands available and they certainly did lots of networking whilst raising awareness of our organisation. It was an honour to meet so many amazing women!     Angela, Aillie, Libby, Jackey, Rowena, Barbara, Heather and Sandra and a range of other helpers ran our 8th year of giving away books at the Lanlivery Vintage Rally and Country Fair to celebrate International Literacy Day. They had fantastic weather for this event (which ran across 2 days) and thoroughly enjoyed watching customers young and old walking away with their free books. This is a great two

August 2023 News St Austell & District Soroptimists had a great afternoon at Boconnoc House Open Garden’s Event on 13th August. Despite a few showers, we kept smiling, as we served cream teas, sold homemade cakes and shared lots of treasures with visitors to the gardens. All of the money raised was for Cornwall Hospice Care and we raised a whopping £1,400.00.  A big thank you to everyone who helped and gave generously today!!           This was the  month that our amazing England women’s football team made it to the final of the World Cup. We were immensely proud of this achievement and even though they didn’t win, we recognise that being 2nd in the world is still AMAZING!! This team are such an inspiration to girls across the world.   On 25th August we held our second Orange Cafe and