On Monday 21st July the club was host to Revd. Phil Carroll from the Parish of Hurst in Ashton-under-Lyne, an area which is home to many refugees from various parts of Africa and Asia. In 2005 the Parish started trying to look after people coming from overseas and to try and help them integrate into our society. Now in its 9th year the Parish organises parties in the winter and day trips in the summer for the refugees who have come to live in the area. Phil is very committed to helping these people who through no fault of their own have had to leave their homes, sometimes with very few personal possessions. Many are victims of war, violence and various other life threatening events. He and his team are very keen to make these newcomers feel welcome. There are many nationalities and many language

On Friday 27th June SI Ashton-under-Lyne celebrated their 71st Charter Dinner at Stanley House. President Yvonne welcomed some eighty guests from many clubs in south Lancashire Region, together with many of Yvonne’s own guests. President Stella and members of our mother club SI Manchester attended along with members from Stockport, Bolton, Southport, Warrington and Widnes who sent representatives to join us and a good time was had by all. After a lovely meal and all the formalities of the evening were over, we were entertained superbly by members of the “Rock Choir” led by Phil Reynolds. They sang songs from all ages ranging from ballads to rock anthems and all things in between..

Lt Maxine Stiles daughter of Ashton-under-Lyne club member Kay Stiles has recently become of  three women naval officers to become the first female  submariners in the 110 year old submarine service. Lt Stiles (29) earned her “Dolphin” badge together with fellow officers Penny Thackray and Alexandra Osson after many months of training. The three officers will shortly take up their posts on the nuclear powered Vanguard class boat “HMS Vigilant.” Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has praised their “huge personal achievement” and said that this is “an historic moment for the Royal Navy.” Needless to say that all members of SI Ashton-under-Lyne have offered Maxine their congratulations and wish her and her colleagues every success in their chosen career. One day we hope that these enterprising women will join forces with Sorotptimist International.

The first speaker meeting of President Yvonne’s year was Dorothy Forster from Marie Curie. Dorothy is a former District Nurse, now working for Marie Curie.Dorothy talked about how a Marie Curie nurse can help a terminally ill patient who is living at home, by providing respite care in the patients home two or maybe three times in a week. The fact that there is someone with the patient all night takes the stress and strain away from family members and also give the patient the chance to speak about the things which matter to them, which sometimes they are not able to say to their nearest and dearest. There are currently 2,500 Marie Curie nurses in the country who are looking after 35,500 people and this is set to increase as the population gets older. Nurses work a 9 hour shift starting at 10.00 pm

SI Ashton-under-Lyne held their annual Distribution of Charities night on Monday 7th April and President Jill is pictured here presenting a cheque for £2,957 to Francis House Hospice which was her designated charity for the year. The cheque was received by Rev David Ireland on behalf of Francis House who are currently building a new annexe for teenage cancer sufferers. This is almost finished and an Open Day will be held on 14th May to celebrate the opening of this new facility. More information can be found at:  http://www.francishouse.org.uk/   Cheques were presented to other charities as follows: £100 was presented to Steve Carroll, The Business Development Manager at Ace Centre UK. Ace Centre is a national communications charity who help children and adults alike who cannot communicate in a normal way. More in formation can be found at:  http://acecentre.org.uk/       £100 was

North West Blood Bikers Paul and Kevin from North West Blood Bikers came to talk to the club at our March Speaker Meeting. The North West branch of the charity was set up in 2011 and now carries not only blood but other vital emergency items, which includes anything from scans to breast milk. There is only one area in the UK which does not have a Blood Bikers group and their purpose is  to transport items free of charge all over the country as an out of hours service. North West Blood Bikers currently have 14 riders and 5 specialised motor bikes and there are also 5 controllers, plus one response car and one transit van. The riders who all have full time day jobs elect to work any three nights out of seven for the charity. The Blood Bikers are not a blue

Feeling tired and under the weather? The long winter days and bad weather getting you down? If the answer is yes you should have been at the Club speaker meeting on Monday 17th February, when Masha Bennett came to talk to the club. Masha is a qualified psychotherapist dealing in trauma counselling. She has recently been in Sri Lanka with Challenges Worldwide charity, for three and a half months on a voluntary basis, counselling the people over there who have been victims of the long raging Tamil war. There is a very strong hierarchal status in Sri Lanka and they are not good at expressing their feelings and a lot of the population were struggling with Post Traumatic Stress and Masha was able to help to relieve some of their tensions with her “tapping” technique which uses acupressure points. She was housed at a Christian Theological College by the priests

Peter Denton, Manager of Healthwatch Tameside came to talk to the club in January. He explained that Healthwatch is the new Consumer Champion for health and social care in England, which gives children, young people and adults a powerful voice – making sure their views and experiences are heard by those who run, plan and regulate health and social care services. There is a Healthwatch team in all local authorities and its three main areas of work are: 1.     Listening to local people 2.     Influencing services 3.     Providing an information (signposting) service. Since it was formed in April 2013 Healthwatch Tameside have recruited many volunteers who are called “Healthwatch Champions” and now have a presence in all the libraries on a weekly basis. They also have champions in some doctors surgeries and at Tameside Hospital. Healthwatch also hosts an hour long programme on Tameside Local Radio ever Tuesday at 6.00pm. For more