Canterbury Soroptimists attended the Remembrance Day events outside Canterbury Cathedral and club member Keji laid a wreath alongside other local organisations. The wreath laying was followed by a short service in the cathedral attended by several club members.

  At SI Canterbury’s AGM members celebrated a new venue, the Abode Hotel, Canterbury. Looking through the archives just before the meeting secretary, Jane, realised that the club’s very first meeting 60 years ago, was held at the same venue. This provided a poignant start to our meeting made more so by the fact that it was our first face to face meeting in two years. During the meeting members listened to outgoing President Carol’s review of the year, celebrated and inducted four new members and welcomed new President, Agatha Okwudinka.     During the meeting we were reminded of the projects and fundraising achieved during two very difficult and isolated years. After the meeting, members chatted, ate cake, renewed friendships and made new ones. We now look forward with optimism, to another successful and fulfilling year supporting women, girls and their families through these

Club Secretary Jane, wrote this review of her challenge to celebrate our club’s 60th anniversary: ‘My challenge to celebrate Canterbury’s 60th year was to collect 60 bags of rubbish over the year. I live near the sea and swim most days so I was very aware of the hazards of plastic pollution. Especially in the summer, and when its a sunny evening, the rubbish is left by the public. That’s when the champagne corks and fish and chip wrappers appear. But there is plastic from the sea all year round. It’s worse after a high tide and even worse after a sewage outfall. I estimate that I’ve picked up 240 kilos of rubbish over the last 12 months and thousands of sticks from cotton wool buds. Every litter pick seems to include a Red Bull can, a ketchup sachet, at least one mask (though the

People made generous contributions to our chosen charity, The Ukraine Humaitarian Appeal, at the charity car park held at Whitstable Junior School this weekend. The sunshine drew lots of people into Whitstable and those choosing to park at the school supported the appeal with positive comments and often large donations. Between 8am and 5pm we raised a new record of £812 with half going to the school and half to support the humanitarian work in Ukraine.  Well done to those members who took shifts on the day and to the customers who donated so generously.  

              To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Soroptimist International Canterbury, our club donated 30 trees to be planted by SI Meru in Meru, Kenya and 30 trees which were planted in the grounds of Simon Langton Girls School, Canterbury. Members supported students and teachers of the school to plant the final three trees on Wednesday 30th March. #treeplanting #environment #sicanterbury

                Sainsbury’s Whitstable and Tesco’s Whitstable donated over 50 Easter eggs for children supported by Rising Sun Domestic Abuse Service. SI Canterbury club members enjoyed delivering these in plenty of time for Easter.

SI Canterbury members support International Womens Day 2022. This year’s theme is #Breakthebias but how often do you innocently contribute to the bias? If we want to collectively forge women’s equality, we have to take individual ownership. the responsibility to break the bias must start with ourselves. IWD sparks an important conversation about women’s equality and supporting women facing poverty to build a better future for their families. Domestic abuse will affect 1 in 4 women in their lifetime. Women still face challenges in the sciences and in business. The economic growth of the world has been found to be directly tied to the increasing percentage of educated women. In over 34 countries it has been seen that the education of women and girls resulted in 50% economic growth.

SI Canterbury members undertook a beach clean activity on Seasalter Bech, Whitstable on 5th March.     Lots of plastic, oyster bed debris, face masks and dog poo bags were collected. Thanks to Jackie, Keji, Jan, Mary, Ruth, Jane plus David and Adrian.