The Saturday evening of the Friendship weekend offered the chance to make a special long service presentation to the club’s longest standing member Rachel Seakins. Rachel has been a dedicated member of the club for 50 years after becoming a member in 1975 shortly after the club commenced.
Fifty years ago, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party, the first commercial oil was pumped from the North Sea and Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft at the age of 19. Inflation and unemployment were at record highs and Fawlty Towers made its first appearance on TV. 1975 also saw the birth of David Beckham, Jamie Oliver, Kate Winslet …….and, on 12th July, Soroptimist International of King’s Lynn.
Rachel Seakins, our longest serving member, joined the club later that year. Membership was by invitation of the Executive Committee. The club initially met at a nursing home at the end of Gaywood Drive, then moved to the building that is now the Southgates Surgery. There have since been many different meeting venues, but we have enjoyed meeting at Marriott’s Warehouse for 10 years now.
In the early days, Soroptimists had a reputation for enjoying their food. The Charter Lunch (3 courses) was for many years followed by full Afternoon Tea. Attendance at the annual SIGBI conference required you to pack 2 evening dresses. Rachel remembers a conference in Edinburgh that was so well-attended it had to be relocated to an aircraft hangar (this was extremely cold, and everyone rushed off to M & S for extra layers).
Rachel has seen many changes – not least the technology advances that have made communications so much easier and record-keeping less of a chore. There is less formality (and less eating) but the friendship and collaborative working to promote the interests of women and girls is still going strong.