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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

Annual Coffee Pot Lunch

Annual Coffee Pot Lunch

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Members and friends gathered on January 14th to lift their post-Christmas spirits and enjoy a friendly and relaxing lunch at the Wycliffe Villa Hotel. It was, as ever, a very enjoyable occasion and thanks go to Yvonne Mullen for organising it. It also happened to be President Stella’s birthday and this was marked with the gift of a plant and a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’.

January Speaker Meeting

January Speaker Meeting

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President Stella welcomed Gail Heath, CEO of Manchester Women’s Aid, as our speaker at the January meeting. Gail spoke about how Manchester Women’s Aid merged with the Pankhurst Trust last year and the work that is done there. She told us about the services offered to support women both at the Pankhurst centre and in the refuges and about the current financial problems of running these services. Women’s Aid are campaigning to make the use of coercion and control criminalised and have a strategy to move away from having to rely on local authority funding. There was also a presentation by Martin Smedley, CEO of the charity Act4Africa, and member Barbara Blaber who asked if the club would propose the charity’s HEAL (Health, Empowerment and Livelihoods for women in Malawi) project as SIGBI’s next Quadrennial project. Members voted unanimously in support of this, and the bid will be submitted as long as the

Cake Stall at Regional Meeting

Cake Stall at Regional Meeting

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Nine members attended the regional council meeting on 22nd November as it was our club’s turn to host the event. One of the duties of this is to ‘brew up’ for the 100+ delegates on arrival and at lunch time. Alongside this we decided to run a cake stall in aid of Handicap International’s ‘Forgotten 10’ campaign. The charity supports the victims of landmines and holds an annual campaign for 10 days from the 1st to the 10th of December to raise awareness of these often forgotten victims. The cakes were very popular and many members of other clubs took away information about the charity.

A Special Birthday

A Special Birthday

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Members and friends gathered at the Pinewood in Handforth on Sunday 16th November to help Honorary member, Yvonne Mullen, celebrate a very special birthday. Proceedings opened with guests singing ‘Happy Birthday’ as the cake was brought in for Yvonne to cut. President Stella welcomed everyone and then a delicious lunch was served. Our club’s other Honorary Member, Kathleen Beavis, made a short speech after lunch recalling the many years of friendship she has shared with Yvonne and guests raised a glass of champagne for the birthday toast. Immediate Past President Susan presented Yvonne with a Soroptimist rose to plant in her garden to mark the occasion.