Well as a Club we certainly embrace change so we must be resting.   However a look back over this past year under the leadership of President Julie, we seem to have rested in a very lively way!   And although we haven’t got a president this year, the calendar of events looks no less active.

President Julie should certainly be allowed to rest on her laurels.

Amanda will take over as President in 2023.   In the meantime Club has responded by changing the way we will be organising some things.

Programme Action have certainly set us up with a great set of projects and activities to get on with in 2022-23.   Some of these are well established  such as the Refuge, Lend with Care, Joan’s garden, Friends of Sick Children in Malawi.    Others include looking at Town Toilet Twinning, Compassionate Kenilworth and Modern Slavery and Trafficking.   Sadly the latter is likely to become even more important to campaign about given the news coming from Ukraine.

The new Fundraising group will be working hard to make sure that we can provide financial support when needed.   And having fun whilst we do it!

The aim will be to keep what works well for future years, and adapt those things that prove to be less successful.   Our mission to stand up for women and children will, as ever, stay in the forefront of our activities.

And just to get us off to a cracking start

Our speakers at our first dinner meeting with the new system were two inspirational women from the a local organisation called Flourish.   Char Bevan is one of the founders, and Helen Laycroft one of the mentors.

We were slightly bemused, and to be frank there was some jealousy, when we sat down to dinner.   Because there were small packets of ‘Lovehearts’ sweets at about one in three place settings.   We discovered that this sadly represents the one in three girls who experience low self esteem and problems as teenagers.   The statistics that Char gave were very worrying.  Girls ambitions to be our future professionals and entrepreneurs have taken a severe blow as the various Lockdowns with Covid have only made the situation worse.

The aim of Flourish is to –

• See a generation of girls set free to flourish to their full potential.
• Nurture self-esteem, mental wellbeing and emotional resilience.
• Support girls aged 11-18 to Flourish

These dovetail so well with Soroptimists aspirations for the future of women.

How does Flourish help?

However on the positive side, the courses that Flourish provide are starting to show their worth.   And girls who have taken part in the various programmes are now starting to support other girls.   Success as always breeds success.   Positive affirmation to help these girls to stop worrying that they might fail but instead take the chance to fly.

Club members were also asked to write on a note, some wise words they would like to have given their 14 year olds selves.   Char and Helen collected these to use at future workshops.   To show the young women what those of us more mature ladies wished we’d known when we were their age.   Twenty twenty hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Moving forward

Flourish clearly isn’t an organisation that rests either and is actively looking to change and improve the ethnic diversity of their mentors.    As Char says ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’.

Club has decided that Flourish is definitely something we wish to support this year.   And if you’re interested in finding out more about how we’re going to do this, do contact us.   If you’d like to know more about Flourish, you can check out their website www.youcanflourish.co.uk