AGM 2023/24 Programme Action Report – Presented by Sheena Renner
The club continued with our on-going collection of bottle tops (to region), stamps (for the Blind), toiletries/sanitary products for food banks in Bangor and Caernarfon.
Each month we have had an Orange cafe to raise awareness of the Soroptimist campaign ‘Women against Violence’.
We have been continuing to support local Ukraine families.
We are planning to promote ‘Easy Fund Raising’ again to club members as an easy way to raise funds whilst doing regular shopping online.
In July some members took part in the Big Butterfly count, 15th July – 7th August – butterflies are a good indicator of how well or badly the environment is doing.
In August we held a garden party to raise money with things created/given by club members and in November we had a stall at region with knitted items and cards. In December some money was collected in place of Xmas cards.
At the start of 2024 we did a club walk with litter picking. We took part in the Big Plastic Count organised by Greenpeace in March 2024 to gather evidence and put pressure on UK government, supermarkets and big brands to stop the harmful impact of plastics in the environment.
A club member gave a personal donation to support the girl guide Cymru, Seren Hinchcliffe.
£220 was forwarded to ‘Cardiac Risk in the Young’ via a Just Giving page on behalf of the club to help raise awareness.
Our club secretary completed 75 cold water swims to celebrate our 75th Anniversary year. She put £1 in the pot each time she dipped and the money will be shared between the Seal Rescue and the RNLI. And it seems that cold water swimming is quite addictive and possible good for our health!
Also as part of the 75 years celebration, club members took part in 75 Days of Kindness to Nature starting on the 1st January – 15th March with many activities such as the swimming, big plastic count, subscriptions to nature charities such as the World Wildlife Fund, packets of wild flower seeds distributed for planting, buying eco-friendly products, harvest mouse survey, eating less meat …. see our website for more actions.
A very successful charity event was held at Porthi Dre, Caernarfon on Saturday 23 March to raise money for President Marianne’s charity The Veronika Lemishenko Charity Foundation together with raising funds for Porthi Dre, Community Hub, Caernarfon.
We presented a cheque for £1500 for the well-being room Y Nyth (Nest) at Ysgol Gynradd Hirael.
We also gave £1662 (from last year’s fundraising) to Gorwel, Domestic Violence Service to purchase home electrical items and donation to their hardship fund.
We are planning to put forward our work for Ukraine as an entry to the Barbara Dixon Award at the next Region meeting in May.
Programme Action is almost back to normal for the club after the challenges of recent years.