President’s Message

Welcome to our website.  I am Liz Batten, privileged to be elected President of SI Winchester and District this year.  I transferred to this friendly and enthusiastic Club six years ago when I started a new job locally and one of the many beauties of our organisation is the flexibility to move Clubs when your career or your lifestyle involves a life change.

I have been a Soroptimist for 32 years, which has given me the chance to travel to fantastic places and to meet the most wonderful people.  In that time, due to my career moves, I have been a member of four other Clubs and President of three of them. I have best friends literally all over the world, thanks to my membership of Soroptimist International.  I had the extraordinary privilege in 2010 – 2011 of serving as elected President of Soroptimist International of Great Britain and Ireland  and was humbled by and thankful for the hard work, energy and enthusiasm of Winchester members’ support for me in that role.

I am married to Roger, who gives me fantastic support in all my Soroptimist activities and I work full time in communications and media liaison.

This year the Club has decided to focus on Nepal, her people, her culture and her society and we are working with a local project for Nepalese ladies in Hampshire called Elders Crafts & English Exchange to give us an international and local focus all in one.  We are planning to work on a service project with Girl Guides, Brownies and Guide Leaders in Winchester.

We continue to support The BIG Project in The Gambia and we will be having updates from a Club member who has recently visited the Club there as well as from our Regional BIG Project Ambassador, Gerry. We have long supported our local women’s refuge and during last year the Club raised the phenomenal sum of over £12,000 for projects in support of the homeless and vulnerably housed in Winchester.

If you are interested in who we are and what we do please get in touch. We are a friendly Club and you are assured of a warm welcome at a meeting or a function.