President Jen Simpson opened the meeting. She reminded us that her theme for this year had been 
ACTIVE – Aspirational, Collaborative, Tenacious, Inspirational, Vocal and Empowering for Women and Girls globally.
ACTIVE – Aspirational, Collaborative, Tenacious, Inspirational, Vocal and Empowering for Women and Girls globally.She told us that the new Soroptimist International (SI) Presidents’ Appeal has been announced – Women Water and Leadership – there is more info about this excellent project on the SI website
The new SI President is Mariet Verhoef-Cohen from the Netherlands.
Barbara DIxon – the Soroptimist International Great Britain & Ireland (SIGBI) Programme Director was our 1st speaker.
Barbara is pictured here with President Jen.
She presented “Vision 2021” as a DIrector of SIGBI. The presentation materials are not included here because they will be updated shortly with incoming SIGBI President Sue Biggs..
The session was interactive with Barbara answering lots of questions on behalf of SIGBI.
Our second speaker was the inspirational Baroness Caroline Cox – nurse and social scientist – pictured here with President Jen. Her slide in the background says “I cannot do everything but I must not do nothing” ! She accepted the Honour to give a voice to those who don’t have a voice. She has written a book about slavery call “This Immoral Trade”
As Caroline said herself when she was made a Baroness she was the first one she’d ever met! Caroline was speaking as the founder of HART – the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust. Her presentation was stimulating – the slides are here: Baroness Cox HART but they don’t do it justice – she is a brilliant story-teller and puts such energy into everything she does. She said “fasten your seatbelts” and we needed to as she took us around the world in an hour via Armenia, Burma, Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria and Syria.
We had a quick review/showcase of excellent projects from all the Clubs in the Region. More info to follow….
AGM – the last part of the meeting was the AGM. Reports from all the Officers has been circulated ahead of the meeting, so they all just gave a brief summary.
The finale was the installation of our new President Margaret Badley – pictured here after she has accepted the Regional Chain of Office from our now Immediate Past-President Jen Simpson.
Margaret’s message that she presented at the meeting is on a separate page of this website – please see here: www.sigbi.org/london-chilterns/president
Everyone who was going to be attending the Soroptimist International Great Britain & Ireland Conference in Cardiff was looking forward to getting together – 55 Members of London Chilterns Region had booked to attend! The Conference theme, which was the SIGBI President’s theme for the year was “Step Up, Lead the Way”.
For more information about what will be happening in the Region looking forward please see the Programme on the website www.sigbi.org/london-chilterns/programme/