Our very own Soroptimist in Action Fran ran the 10k Two Castles Race this morning raising over £300 via her JustGiving page for our Wellbeing Fund, supporting the women and children at our local Refuge.   Eight more of us had the rather more sedentary task of raising money by marshalling the event!espite the early start, the weather was kind to us and we were able to cheer everyone on with a smile. 🙂  

Alan Titchmarsh eat your heart out!   A team of us set to and gave Joan a hand to get her garden ready for the summer.   Unfortunately we forgot to take a before picture!   We’ll be back again soon with more plants for her borders and some annuals from our stall at the Lions Grand Show.

Inside the Warwick University rape chat scandal This makes such distressing and depressing reading. One that supposedly educated and intelligent young men took part in this, the second the lack of meaningful response from such a prestigious university local to our Club

We were delighted to welcome Ian Holland, Senior Consultant to the United Nations, and his wife Samira to our dinner meeting this month.   Ian has lived and  worked all over the world, often in dangerous countries and indeed had only arrived just back from Jakarta, Indonesia, where he’d had to leave slightly earlier than planned due to the uprisings there due to the elections.   Any jet lag didn’t show and he gave us a very informative talk about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Like all good speakers, this wasn’t a dry presentation on the 17 Goals, but made lively and interactive by Club members joining in playing SDG bingo!   (Possibly a first for Club, bring prizes added to the competitive spirit and fun!!).   Ian gave us an update on the original 8 Goals 2000-2015 and what has been achieved.  And

This year’s emphasis is on body image –  find out more here How does body image affect mental health? Having body image concerns is a relatively common experience and is not a mental health problem in and of itself; however, it can be a risk factor for mental health problems. Research has found that higher body dissatisfaction is associated with a poorer quality of life, psychological distress and the risk of unhealthy eating behaviours and eating disorders. Higher body dissatisfaction is associated with a poorer quality of life, psychological distress and the risk of unhealthy eating behaviours and eating disorders.

On Friday President Sandra and Club members were delighted to enjoy the company of our MP, the Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC, Town Mayor of Kenilworth Mike Hitchins  and many friends from other voluntary organisations in Kenilworth to celebrate our 50th birthday.   We were also pleased that Isobel Smith, President Elect of Soroptimists International Great Britain and Ireland, and Jan Hemlin, President of Midland Arden Region Soroptimists were able to join us. As we are not a large fund raising organisation, we were especially grateful to Gordon Henderson, President of Kenilworth Lions, for presenting us with a cheque for £1000 from their Dream Scheme. The money will be put towards our ‘wellbeing’ fund for the local women’s refuge, enabling children to have some our of school activities such as swimming and music lessons, new school uniform, and perhaps some well deserved pamper sessions for

We had a very happy AGM this year, as newly installed President Sandra had the happy task of giving out many long service membership certificates, and inducting Marion, our latest member.   (Cloud, Marion’s assistance dog has become very popular with members!)  

We had a great time supporting our local WaterAid group at their quiz night.   Although we managed to provide two teams, we didn’t win but a fun time was had by all

In response to President Sue’s theme of ‘Think on it and her request for all clubs to hold at least one event which promotes wellbeing, one of our members organised a speaker from MIND for our dinner meeting last Thursday. Louise Ferro is responsible for the development of mental health services for Coventry and Warwickshire Mind This new project which is called Rise is being set up to provide emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children and young people in Coventry and Warwickshire.. The website for the project is: www.cwrise.com