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Junior Royal Northern College of Music Prize 2015

Junior Royal Northern College of Music Prize 2015

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Since the year 2000 SI Manchester has provided an award for a Soprano at the Royal Northern College of Music Junior School Prize Giving. and we are invited to be there to present it. A Legacy from former Member Helen Latto enabled us to do this and the Award bears her name. This year’s recipient is 17 year old Grace O’Mally, from Rossendale. Grace has been at RNCM since she was 11 year’s old and has one more year there as a Junior. She comes from a family of singers and although both her sisters sang in choirs with her, they have not continued. She hopes to move into a career as a soprano, but is not sure in which field that will be yet. She will decide when she has completed further training in the adult field.

July Speaker Meeting

July Speaker Meeting

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Val Moss our Programme  Action  Officer  introduced our speaker Martin Smedley from the charity Act4Africa. Also attending were Regional President Margaret Baker and Regional Programme Action Officer Margaret Molyneux. Martin came to update us on his recent trip to Malawi. Our club has put forward the charities Heal Project as the Sigbi ‘s Quadrennial project and it has been shortlisted to the final three . We were very excited to hear about his update . He played a short video- The Girl Effect- The Clock is ticking which was very powerful . It showed how 12 year old girls were considered women in some African countries and the consequences of that . It also showed how things could be changed and the girls kept in education and as a result their lives could be so much better. He gave us some case studies about how

June Speaker Meeting

June Speaker Meeting

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President Elect Molly welcomed Eliazar Rose as our speaker at the June meeting. Eliazar is the Director of the New Hope Rural Trust in Orissa, India, a charitable foundation which the club has supported for many years. He comes to speak to us whenever he is in the UK and this was his third visit. About 15 years ago, the late Dorothy Mountford saw an appeal in a newspaper from New Hope asking for clean, used tights. It was then a leper colony and the tights were used to secure patients’ dressings, thus enabling the expensive bandages to go further. Dorothy brought this to the club’s attention and ‘the rest is history’. New Hope will help anyone in need and a few years later the club sponsored the building of a 15 bed hospice for HIV positive children at New Hope. Later on we sponsored cataract surgery for the elderly, and most recently

Being Watched Conference, March 2015

Being Watched Conference, March 2015

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Several Soroptimists, along with women from other service organisations, spent a Saturday this past March assisting Empowerment People with the first ever ‘Being Watched’ Conference for young women at the new Birley Fields campus of Manchester Metropolitan University. Soroptimists were involved with several tasks throughout the day from registration and group leading to dressing up as revolutionary women, as well as President Stella representing the Soroptimists as a ‘VIW’ (Very Important Woman).         Here is the official press release: Young women were given the opportunity to influence local politicians on the issues of social media, surveillance and control recently, at a one-day conference in Manchester. Around 30 young women attended the ‘Being Watched’ conference on Saturday 14th March, which was also attended by a number of key regional influencers, including Julie Ward MEP, Judge Marilyn Mornington, and ITV News journalist Fadah Jassem. Three

March Speaker Meeting

March Speaker Meeting

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President Stella welcomed Gerard Curran from the charity Sightsavers, as our speaker at the March meeting. Gerard spoke about the fantastic work Sightsavers is doing, mainly in Africa, to cure preventable blindness. We learned how easy it is to prevent several types of blindness and how Sightsavers are working to educate and equip remote communities on this through community development programmes.

Visit to St Mary’s SARC

Visit to St Mary’s SARC

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On March 31st President Stella and 8 members were privileged to visit St Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). They were shown around by Charlotte Batra, the Training and Development Officer. The facilities there are much improved since the early days of the service that many members remember. There are now three self-contained areas where users can be seen in complete privacy – one of which is exclusively for the use of those under 16 years of age. There are also counselling rooms, offices, a meeting room and a video link room in development. The latter will enable a live link to be established to a court room hearing. This will mean that a victim will be able to give evidence without the fear of meeting the perpetrator. The public areas are beautifully decorated with images representing the four seasons. 2016 will mark the 30th Anniversary of St Mary’s SARC. Having supported the

89th Charter Lunch

89th Charter Lunch

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SI Manchester’s 89th ‘birthday’ was celebrated in style with the Charter Lunch held on March 1st  at Chancellor’s Hotel. Honoured guests were The Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Susan Cooley, and her consort and the President of the South Lancashire region, Margaret Baker. Rachel Lappin, the Manager of the Pankhurst Centre, proposed the Toast to Soroptimism and the Speaker was Jayne Bessant, CEO of St Ann’s Hospice.

Snowdrop City Manchester February 2015

Snowdrop City Manchester February 2015

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The snowdrops that members helped to plant last year in Parsonage Gardens in Manchester are now flowering. The initiative was funded by the National Trust to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. Each snowdrop plant has a delicate flower and they were planted in large groups to give the best effect. They will naturalise and return year after year and give much pleasure to the people of Manchester.  

February Meeting: Speaker and Welcome to New Members

February Meeting: Speaker and Welcome to New Members

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President Stella and members were pleased to welcome Lisa Waters as our speaker in February. Lisa is an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor at St Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) where she specialises in caring for young people. SI Manchester have supported the centre for many years by supplying toiletries and we funded the ‘Luna’ project with monies raised to celebrate our 80th year, but many of our newer members were not familiar with the work carried out there. Lisa gave us an overview of the services offered and an insight into the work done there, especially in her own field of working with children. A visit to the department will be arranged for members in the near future. President Stella also had the very pleasing task of welcoming two new members to the club, Elaine Loader and Yvonne Healing. The photographs show the President