More fun was to be had at our first face to face meetings.

We were delighted to acknowledge Marion’s 40 years of membership as a Soroptimist.   Not least as for once we managed to turn the camera on her and get a piece about her in the local newspaper!    It’s normally Marion who is behind the camera.   In Club she is renowned for her photographic capabilities.   Somehow she always manages to show us at our best, so we were thrilled to get a photo of her for a change!

Zoom has been very helpful for keeping in touch during the pandemic and Lockdown.   But there’s nothing like actually meeting up and hearing how the various groups especially Programme Action have been getting on.

Updates included:-

Art Project at Refuge – weekly sessions resuming again in September after the school holidays.

Recycling Project – Blister packs and Milk Bottle tops – As one of our contributions to SIGBI Day of Action on ‘climate change’ during the whole of July SI Kenilworth & District members collected

Empty medicine blister packs (just over 1000) were collected.   These were taken to Superdrug who are running a project with Tetra-cycle to recycle them with proceeds going to Marie Curie.    In addition plastic milk bottle tops (4.5 litres) were collected.  These were taken to Mencap who recycle them with proceeds going to their own projects.

Refuge Well Being Fund donations – by the end of August £905 had been collected. Sue will be asking Refuge about their current needs. We may get match funding from Lions as last year.

Programme Action Awards at Midland Arden Region meeting – Jean presented our ‘partnership’ (one of the 5 P’s) work with Lions.    Last December Lions supported our Club by providing furniture from their store for the Refuge.

Not only were we able to hold our first business meeting in September, we also celebrated our first dinner meeting!   Who says that a baked potato with a choice of fillings can’t be considered fine dining when in the company of friends!

As President Julie so eloquently put it

Dinner last night was excellent. The food was delicious and abundant, the tables elegantly set with artfully arranged flowers and conversation flowed.
Our speaker, Anna, gave a talk about Dogs for Good which interested and entertained but also gave us some insight into the immense challenges many people face every minute of their day but are made easier to meet by the company and help of their assistance dog. An admirable and moving comradeship.

Many thanks to Carole and Amanda for leading the newly fledged Furniture and Catering Groups and to their good humoured, efficient and energetic volunteers – which in fact comprised virtually the entire group of members present! As someone remarked, “It’s what Soroptimists do”. And from where I was standing, you all made it look effortless.

We were able to do some more fund raising for The Parenting Project at our stall at the Kenilworth Lions Charities Day.

If only we’d had more of Carole’s wood-turned Christmas decorations!    We could have sold however many Carole could have made; they were really popular. One very pleased customer bought one of Carole’s bud vases to show off just one glorious dahlia bloom she’d found at another stall.