We were privileged to be invited by Sutton Women's Centre to their International Women's Day to promote the work of Soroptimists at Honeywood Museum, Carshalton. We had a stall in the building and were visited by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Sutton, who spent some time finding about the Club and the work that we do.  A presentation was delivered by one of our members, Sally Curtis. She emphasised the range of projects we have been involved in over the years for women and girls locally, regionally and globally.  We had formed a friendship link with Soroptimist International (SI) Lviv, Ukraine, in 2005. Orphanage No. 1 in the city of Lviv housed 110 orphan children, aged from birth to three, with different degrees of brain and psychological challenges.  SI Lviv supported this orphanage through buying food, crockery, furniture, lights, shoes, cleaning products, medicines, accessories

We were joined on Zoom by Jo Sherring, coordinator from Epsom Refugee Network (ERN) this week.  She began by telling us about how refugees are people who have been forced to flee because of persecution, war or violence in their own country and that they would go home if they felt it safe to do so. She described how ERN was formed in 2015 and grew out of the Epsom and  Ewell Foodbank as there were many refugees and asylum seekers who went there. ERN work with many people from Syria and are expecting 5 families from Afghanistan soon to arrive in Epsom and Ewell Borough for resettlement.  As a result,  they are one of the largest refugee charities in the area. Help is offered to refugees in the form of access to translators, doctors, dentists, legal help and other local support services such as

Saturday evening was a great success and hopefully enjoyed by all. Alexandra, our Quiz Mistress, led us through eight rounds of interesting and sometimes challenging questions! Participants included Soroptimists from our Club, Winchester and Salisbury, as well as friends and family. Well done to our winner Sally! Approximately  £205 was raised in donations which will go towards supporting the following domestic abuse charities: Reigate and Banstead Women's Aid, True Honour and East Surrey Domestic Abuse Services. Alexandra works for Parkinson's UK and she donated £40 to them for the quiz she used. You can view a short clip of the evening below.

Meeting face to face before the Christmas break at Sally's house was a welcome opportunity for members and prospective members to get together for an informal occasion.  Prospective members were able to find out about Soroptimism from existing members. They were presented with SIGBI jute bags with various leaflets  containing Club and SIGBI information as well as leaflets from the three domestic abuse charities we support.   Items left over from the Christmas Fair at the Mercure Box Hill Burford Bridge Hotel were sold including blankets, flowers, booties and a cushion. The sale of these, together with donations on the day raised £153.68. This will be added to the £120 made at the Christmas Fair and will go to the three charities: Reigate and Banstead Women's Aid, True Honour and East Surrey Domestic Abuse Services. 

It was an early start for us at the Christmas Fair, Mercure Box Hill Burford Bridge Hotel.  Setting up the stall to appeal to passers by was by no means an easy task but we managed it and were quite proud of our achievement.  We were surrounded by stalls who clearly had exhibited their wares before and knew how to entice people over by using Christmas lights and treats such as a box of chocolates!  These are worth considering for other occasions. Those helping out on the day were Diana, Sally, Veronica and they were joined by Jane and Norma. It was a well attended event with stalls selling a variety of products indoors and outdoors.  With our banner and leaflets ( including our new Club leaflet) available,  it was relatively easy to explain to people about Soroptimists and what our aims as an organisation

We began the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence with a talk from Anthea Sully, CEO White Ribbon UK. She started by giving us the following statistics:   1in 4 women will experience domestic abuse 1in 2 women have experienced harassment in the workplace 86% of women are harassed in public places 9 in 10 girls experienced sexist name calling or sent explicit videos in schools Almost 1 in 2 women and non-binary people reported experiencing online abuse during lockdown 120-150 women killed by men a year Anthea described violence as including: domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based violence, female genital mutilation, rape and sexual offences, prostitution, human trafficking, child abuse, pornography, coercion and control, harassment, online abuse and threats.  White Ribbon have been using the campaign message # AllMenCan …make a difference and prevent violence against women and girls. Their recommended approach is that men

On Remembrance Sunday at 11.00am,  a cherry tree was planted in a nature reserve to mark the death of Surjit Athwal. Surjit was murdered in an honour killing in December 1998 when she was 27 years old. Planting the tree was her sister- in-law, Sarbjit Athwal, founder of the charity True Honour and a Soroptimist with SI Epsom and District. Dr Clive Driscoll, Deputy Chair of True Honour,  supported Sarbjit with the planting by preparing the area for the tree. Also in attendance were Veronica and Jenny from SI Epsom and District Club. The tree is planted near to a bench so that Sarbjit and anyone else visiting the cherry tree can sit and view it. The tree should blossom some time in the spring, with cherries growing in the summer. It is hoped that Soroptimists can visit the site during July to mark Surjit's

We celebrated Black History Month (October) with mother, Norma, and daughter, Helen, over the past few days. Norma is a member of our Club and invited members and prospective members to her house for a special Ben Johnson Day meal. Participants were asked to bring along an ingredient to prepare a meal together. A very tasty soup made from lentils and vegetables was followed by spicy fried chicken with wild rice mixed with vegetables. The accompanying caper sauce had a very generous helping of white wine!  A dessert of apple crumble was then served up to complete the meal.   Norma (below left) is from Jamaica where the tradition of cooking whatever there was available in the house on a Thursday night was handed down through the generations. This was known as Ben Johnson Day. If you would like to find out about the origins of

We visited Surrey History Centre in Woking this week for the launch of a Soroptimist International Centenary Display.  The display included historical articles and photographs throughout the 100 years of Soroptimism. Programme Action work was very much at the forefront of the display as well as fundraising events. Visiting the launch was the Deputy Mayor for Woking Councillor Saj Hussain and Surrey clubs: SI Epsom & District and SI Woking & District. Here are some photographs of the display. By clicking on each image you will enlarge it.                   Left:    A photo of SI Reigate with Diana Porter, our member, at the presentation of a mammography unit at Redhill Hospital in 1986 Middle: Information about Graham House Right:  Photos of Graham House                         Left: SI Epsom & District support

We had very informative evening with Lisa Townsend, Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey. The evening began with a candle ceremony which celebrated the Soroptimist Centenary and International Day of Peace (21 September).Four candles were lit and all present on Zoom were asked to make four wishes, one for each: Soroptimist International, Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland, Southern England region and local Soroptimist Clubs. The ceremony was then followed by Lisa speaking about the work of Surrey police and how they are combatting crimes against women and girls. We had requested a number of statistics which Lisa was able to provide, some of these are quite disturbing. For example, on average a woman receives 36 assaults before she will report it to the police. The number of domestic abuse cases increased through the pandemic with 9754 cases being recorded by Surrey police. 9158 of