SI Lichfield are delighted to welcome two new members to our club.  Kath and Annette have been introduced by Lesley Warfield and when she spoke about them to us yesterday, we were humbled by their commitment to work and service.  Both have first hand experience in their work of supporting vulnerable members of our community – in the prison service and in elderly care.  We look forward to working alongside them. We also had a talk from Major Adrian Stringer of the Salvation Army.  He told us about the breadth of the projects that the Salvation Army supports, domestic violence victims,  trafficked men, women and children, ‘missing’ young people who live away fromt heir families, nursery education and their work with the homeless.  This list is by no means exhaustive.  We are delighted that we are having our annual fundraising event for them – they are

On the left is President Elect Donna and on the right, current President Chris.  Both are keen Soroptimists who are leading the work of the Club, locally, nationally and internationally.  They extend a warm welcome to women living or working in Lichfield and surrounding district to attend a regular meeting of the Club.  This takes place in the training rooms of the Bowling Green Ember Inn on the second Wednesday of every month from 7.15pm.  At the October meeting, our speaker will be Kathryn Duncan-Brown from the Association of Girl Guiding.  We looking forward to seeing you!

A wonderful morning for Young Carers to participate in a drumming workshop – the noise becoming music!! The whole event was filmed by Red Door Studios and we now have a fabulous DVD for promotion and lobbying by Mandy Rollins – Head of the Service. Watch this space for more info!

A collection of bikes was organised jointly by Nether Stowe School and Lichfield Soroptimists. The photo shows the Mayor at the time, Chris Spruce and Lichfield Sorptimist President, Chris Corless. A total of 17 bikes (including a unicycle!) were collected in the morning, a further 6 arrived during the day and 5 more have been donated since. A wonderful effort and this phot appeared in the Lichfield Mercury and we also had a feature in the Express and Star. A wonderful effort for a very worthy cause!

A right royal invitation to Lichfield Soroptimists to attend the St Chad’s Brownies street party. We arrived to see a long table with Union Jack cloths, royal couple photo bunting, flags and more food that we could share in a week! As you can see, we dressed for the occasion and were the honoured guests of the evening. Brown Owl Sylvia was delighted to welcome us and was pleased with the generosity of parents who had provided the refreshments – not forgetting Trevor’s Mum who produces fabulous cakes. Janine and Trevor’s daughter Paige is featured with Donna, President Elect as another guest at the party. (Photo with kind permission of parents) A lovely event and we were proud to represent SI Lichfield. Due to restrictions, we were not able to take photos of the Brownies but the division press officer attended so maybe we will

This has to be the event photo for Lichfield Soroptimists!  Soon to be President of Lichfield Club, Donna stepped in at short notice to be Tweedledum for the bucket collection outside the Guild Hall.  The collecting took its toll on her socks and a fellow Soroptimist bought her some new spotty ones to change into!  She is obviously delighted. – in the background you can see the cafe in full swing and proxy Soroptimist Megan busy selling cakes and sweets that she and Chris had made – despite having no kitchen…which is another story! 

Jackie sits with Nina and Alan, our table hosts at Wrekin Lunch today.  Donna, Jackie and I travelled to Telford for a very convivial luncheon in a beatiful part of the world.  Great food, great company!!

               President Lesley was delighted to present Chris and Dishi with the President Elect regalia.  The duo (called the trio by Lesley?!)  will take office from the AGM in April.   They are already committed to continuing the good work done by Lesley for her named charity, ‘Staffordshire Young Carers’. 

          This evening we were delighted to welcome Ro to join Soroptimists of Lichfield.  Wendy, as sponsor, spoke in glowing terms about Ro’s drive and energy and we are sure she will be a great asset to Soroptimism.  President Lesley presented Ro with her badge of membership.  

President Lesley, Donna, Angela and I attended theconference – I found these wonderful notes and unashamedly copied them into our site!!  Margaret arrived for the AGM only.  Very good conference! First Full Day of Conference – There’s a Buzz in the Air  Bill Turnbull, popular BBC Broadcaster was our first speaker – with “honeyed” words he told us about his shared interest with President Jackie Mosedale in bee keeping. He informed us about the Bees for Development charitywww.beesfordevelopment.org Bill is patron of the Bees for Development Trust,  an international charity working to promote sustainable beekeeping in developing countries, to support livelihoods and to conserve biodiversity.    International President Hanne Jensbo updated us on the work of Soroptimist International around the world, and encouraged us to attend the International Convention in Montreal July 10-14 2011 www.si-montreal2011.org/   Anne MacDonald encouraged us to go “Full Steam Ahead” for the last year of Project SIerra www.projectsierra.org we have