President Anita, Georgie, Tricia and Elaine received a very warm welcome from our Dutch Friendship Link club, SI Arnhem Oost, and our joint German Friendship Link club, SI Remscheid. The theme of the conference was ‘Empowerment’ and they attended interesting workshops, including one on mentoring. A big ‘thank you’ to SI Arnhem Oost for the invitation to the conference and for looking after Club members so well. Over 500 Soroptimists from 15 countries joined the weekend festivities and a full programme of events commenced with a welcome drinks party in the former Royal Palace.  This was followed the next day by a conference with interesting speakers (in English!), afternoon workshops, a fashion show featuring local designers, a cabaret and finished with a walking tour of Leeuwarden.  A canal trip on Sunday gave us the opportunity to experience Leeuwarden from the water.  Leeuwarden is this year’s

On United Nations International day of Peace, 21st September, Club members joined with children from St Augustine’s Primary School and lit a candle for peace around the world. Here you can see us with some of the prayers for peace that the children wrote on white paper doves.

“On Saturday 8 September, SI Kenilworth & District Soroptimists in conjunction with Kenilworth Books had a stall in Talisman Square where free books were given to children and families.  The children and passers by were surprised that the books were gratis, and some wanted to give a donation! The project was designed to encourage reading and literacy.  The children were particularly pleased to receive the books. Kenilworth Books were extremely helpful to us by  erecting a table and gazebo for the stall, as well as donating books.”

We were delighted to hear the following news from Refuge – an organisation we support:- The government has decided to continue to provide housing benefit for supported housing including refuges. You might find the links below interesting. This is a huge relief to us all and will do a lot to help us keep refuges open https://www.refuge.org.uk/refuge-welcomes-mhclg-announcement-on-supported-housing-funding/   Refuge welcomes MHCLG announcement on supported housing funding – Refuge Charity – Domestic Violence Help www.refuge.org.uk Refuge is delighted that the Government has announced plans to keep housing benefit in place for all those living in supported housing – something that Refuge has long championed for. Sandra Horley, CBE, Chief Executive of Refuge says: “Today’s announcement follows much lobbying by Refuge to protect funding for women’s refuges; emergency accommodation which provides a lifeline to women escaping domestic violence, a crime which claims the lives of around two

We were delighted to join in with a toast  to Georgie, who had chose to have  her special birthday meal with us at our July dinner meeting. This was so typical of Georgie and demonstrates her dedication and commitment to Soroptimism and our club. She is involved in all aspects of our club and gives her all. She also started the Public Speaking contest and has organised it for 16 years,  without much support at times. We are privileged to have her as a member of our club, and for each and every one of us to count her as a friend. Elaine organised a beautiful cake for Georgie to cut and make a wish whilst Marion made one of her fabulous cards for us to sign, and also produced cards for the table.

Our guest speaker, Sue Nightingale, became a volunteer for the charity Mary’s Meals following a two week work experience using her skills as a nurse in Kenya.   There she saw the impact that the simple provision of one meal a day made to impoverished school children. We are used to the idea of ‘Breakfast Clubs’ in the UK providing our children with a good nourishing start to the day but it was quite shocking to hear that these children are so grateful for ONE meal a day.   Mary’s Meals sets up feeding programmes in some of the world’s poorest communities, regardless of faith.   By providing a daily meal in a place of learning Mary’s Meals enable chronically hungry children to gain an education that could be their path to a brighter future.   It costs just £13.90 to feed a child for a

The Bluebell Centre is the new birthing unit at Warwick Hospital – we gave a donation of £225 from the money raised by providing teas and coffees at the flu clinics at Bertie Road Medical Centre last year.   One of our members represented club at the opening of the new unit on Thursday 28th June. She was very impressed by the whole unit which is separate to the main maternity wards in the hospital. It was very spacious and beautifully decorated and had a lovely calm atmosphere. The 4 individual rooms were very large in comparison with the usual size of hospital rooms each containing birthing pools and other equipment to assist in the birth. In fact the unit didn’t feel like we were in the hospital at all. In addition there is a large communal room which has catering facilities and small private

Rhiannon Evans gave us an amazing talks about how she found her mother’s war journals and turned them into a book.  Her mother Joyce Ffoulkes Parry was a Queen Alexandria nurse during WW2 and travelled via ship to Africa, the Middle East and India to tend the wounded.   The journals not only told of Joyce’s work but also what everyday life was like for nurses during the war.   Photos illustrated her life including the heavy formal uniforms they were required to wear, even in the tropics! It was a very hot evening and it was easy to imagine what life would have been like on the troop ship although thankfully we were only listening for an evening, not weeks in those conditions.   Despite the heat, Rhiannon held our attention as she re-created the journey of her mother’s war from these forgotten diaries.

We’re thrilled to hear that Charity, a nurse we’ve sponsored in Malawi has now graduated. To read more about this project, please look in our Programme Action section