Theme for the Year: It’s What You Do That Counts
Trish, thank you so much for all you have done as our President over the past two years. You have made sure that the club has met even under the very difficult circumstances of the last year often giving one to one tutorials on Zoom to some of our members. Everyone who joined the meetings has said how important they have been to them during the pandemic. All in all Trish you will be a very hard act to follow!
Well, after a year the like of which none of us have ever experienced before, we are now looking forward to hopefully a brighter future. It has been a year when I’m sure most of us have questioned what is important to us, a year when the things we often took for granted such as meeting up with family and friends, popping for a coffee or going for a meal and most importantly hugging those we hold dear have been missing from our lives. Many of us have lost loved ones, an experience made worse by the fact we couldn’t say goodbye in the way we would have wanted to, highlighted so poignantly with the funeral of Prince Philip.
Throughout the past year, SI Cannock have continued to give support to those that have needed it the most and I thank all who have contributed. This is why I became a Soroptimist almost four years ago. I wanted to make a difference to the lives of women and girls in my community and around the world. In those four years I have lost count of the number of times we have been faced with an issue and the question ‘so what can we do about it’ has been asked. As Soroptimists we look at how we can change things, improve things, make things happen and I love that. To show that this has always been the case, and to celebrate the centenary of Soroptimism I have ‘borrowed’ my theme for this year from Violet Richardson, the founder President of Soroptimist’s first club in 1921, ‘It’s what you do that counts’.
And while I know we will continue to do all of these things and respond to other calls for our help and support, this year I want to focus just as much on looking after ourselves. I know that in the past year many of us have had to change how we live, the support networks that we have been used to have not been there and this has often affected our mental health and wellbeing, so I want us to focus on how we can become stronger and happier, it is often said in order to help others you first have to help yourself. With that in mind, my charity for this year is Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles. They are a charity that works with Cannock Chase council that provide ways on how to improve health and wellbeing. We are going to work with them to create a bespoke programme of experiences that we would all like to be a part of. We will also be exploring what U3A has to offer and experiencing a mindfulness session.
We have events planned to celebrate the centenary of Soroptimists throughout the year; more of them in the coming few weeks.
Running through the whole of the centenary year is also our commitment to performing 100 Acts of Kindness. We are well on our way but now that things are slowly opening up more, I really hope that we will be able to focus more on this.
So ladies, I am hoping that our next year together is going to be fun, interesting and maybe we will all be persuaded to step out of our comfort zone and try something new!
I am sure that if anyone can do this, you can, that’s why I’m proud to be a Soroptimist but even more proud to be an SI Cannock Soroptimist!