As part of the National Garden Scheme, Phil Broomfield head gardener at the Russell-Cotes, took a group of SI Bournemouth club members and family/ friends around the garden on June 10th explaining the history of the house and its grounds. Merton Russell-Cotes owned the adjacent Royal Bath Hotel and built the Victorian villa next to it for his wife, Annie, as a birthday present in 1902. When they passed away the house was left to the town of Bournemouth filled with treasures that they collected during their travels around the world. This included cuttings from several plants that still exist in the garden today including a willow tree which originated at the grave of Napoleon on the island of St Helena. Phil had many interesting stories to tell and brought the garden to life on the tour. We ended it with a cream tea in

St Peter’s Catholic Primary School in Bournemouth has completed the single use plastic challenge in fine style. The Eco Council, comprising children from every year group, met to judge the posters submitted by pupils and selected the best entrant for each year. SI Bournemouth launched the challenge at the school in the autumn term, asking children to create posters capturing good ideas about how to avoid, replace or recycle plastic in their daily lives. The results were creative and thought provoking, as were those in the other three schools where we supported competitions (Hill View, Christchurch Infants and Talbot Primary). SIB provided the winners with a certificate and a book token for their efforts. Well done to everyone who took part! If you are interested in this or other similar projects and would like to come along to a Soroptimist International Bournemouth meeting to find

SI Bournemouth was invited to have a stand and to present at the ‘Harmony in the Community 2’ conference at Bournemouth University on June 6, 2023. This initiative was launched by Michael Dooley, previous High Sheriff of Dorset, and Nigel Hedges, ex- Chairman of BCP Council, in 2022 to bring together organisations across the county to share their good work and outcomes. The participants were welcomed to the conference by four Ukrainians in their national dress, singing beautiful ‘a capella’ songs in their native language. It was the start to an inspiring day where two members of our club were able to network, learn more about local projects, share our endeavours and generate interest in Soroptimism. We were lucky to have Terry Waite, humanitarian and hostage negotiator, share his story of being held captive for almost five years in the Lebanon. There were certainly lessons

Bobbie White, long standing member of SI Bournemouth, was recently in New Zealand and attended the annual Conference of Clubs at SI Aotearoa New Zealand. It was held in March 2023 in Rotorua where the 19 clubs in New Zealand from both north and south islands participated.  Bobbie was invited to process with the Union flag with several well-known SI members. Yvonne Simpson (Past President Soroptimist International) carried the UN flag, Christine Johnstone (Federation President SI Southeast Asia Pacific) the Australia flag and Deborah Wood (President SI Aotearoa New Zealand) the New Zealand flag. Bobbie was also honoured to be able to wear the Māori cloak worn previously by Yvonne Simpson and felt very special indeed! If you are interested in this or other similar projects and would like to come along to a Soroptimist International Bournemouth meeting to find out more, please email us

Kiera Mauro was elected President of SI Bournemouth on April 24, 2023 and her very first job in post was to induct three new members to the club. Jenny Dvorak, Anne Mynors-Wallis and Gail Moneypenny were welcomed enthusiastically by all as they each bring life experience, skills and energy to Soroptimism. Kiera shared the duties of Soroptimists with each in turn, offering the right hand of friendship and giving them their badges and information packs. We are delighted to have them on board ! If you are interested in this or other similar projects and would like to come along to a Soroptimist International Bournemouth meeting to find out more, please email us at sigbibournemouth@hotmail.co.uk.

This year saw our 10th STEAM Challenge for girls in years 8 and 9 take place. Participants need to come up with an initiative, device or project that will help to improve the lives of women and girls in other parts of the world. They work in small teams, develop a project plan, and then pitch the idea to experts in the field having created a prototype to support the concept. There was a video shown at the finals of some of the girls who have taken part in the past ten years highlighting how influential the process had been in their subsequent study and career choices. It is a positive opportunity to encourage young women to use their full potential, engaging in roles that would have been seen as the purview of men in the past. The project links to United Nations SDGs 5

In addition to Hill View Primary, now Christchurch Infants and Talbot Primary Schools have taken part in the club’s project to encourage children to avoid and/ or reduce single use plastic (SUP). As at Hill View (described in an earlier post), the children were introduced to the issues at their assemblies and then created posters to demonstrate creative ideas about how to deal with plastic positively. We were pleased to award seven certificates and book vouchers at Christchurch Infants; there are only three years at the school and despite their young age, they came up with some super ideas. At Talbot we awarded fourteen prizes, two per year group, and were similarly impressed by the standard of entry; choosing the winners was difficult but the eco-leaders in the school did the judging with us. Great work all! If you are interested in this or other

On Sunday March 5th, six members of SI Bournemouth joined the other 8 clubs in the South of England region for our first ‘active’ regional meeting. Regional President, Kay Linnell, has started a programme of meetings in which Soroptimists deal with business and sharing in the morning and then go on to engage in community activities in the afternoon that benefit others. We met at Brendoncare Otterbourne Hill for the meeting, were supplied with a lovely lunch by the home and then divided up into groups to undertake a variety of activities. Two groups went outside and cleared, sorted, and planted flowers and bulbs in the garden; another group dealt with indoor plants, brightening up the lovely sunroom for residents; the final group spent the time chatting, reading to and playing games with residents, thoroughly enjoying the engagement. A great way to combine our business

On February 20 2023, David Sidwick, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset attended SI Bournemouth’s supper meeting and five members of SI Poole joined us. The two clubs had joined forces in advance and sent a comprehensive list of questions to David that would provide a focus for our discussion with him. He started by saying they were some of the most searching and insightful questions he had ever received. He then went on to say that he would answer them fully in writing in due course after the meeting as many of them required research and he had not had time to do them justice. He recapped on his progress since taking up his role more than a year ago sharing his six priority areas- cut crime and anti-social behaviour, make policing more visible and connected, fight violent crime and high harm, fight

We have recently had two women join our meetings to share their projects in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and they were inspirational! Sister Tama Mercadi shared her experience of setting up and leading BCP Shout Out (a largely online network that helps link together local people in need with resources), contributing to convoys to Syria and Yemen, working with refugees, victims of abuse, and the homeless. She was an amazing speaker; her energy, enthusiasm, and ability to connect people positively was humbling. For the last two years, she has organised events in the centre of Bournemouth for homeless people to come together on Christmas Day with the community for food, gifts, clothing, haircuts and pamper sessions- all through volunteers. Tracy Blick from the ‘Christchurch Food Bank Plus’ gave a stimulating talk about how the expansion of the food bank is making an enormous contribution to