Medway and Maidstone Soroptimists organised a Zoom ‘Get Together’ with 4 of their Friendship Link Clubs on 30 July World Friendship Day.
SI Medway and Maidstone changed its name from SI Medway when it was approved in May after SI Maidstone closed on 31 March and 12 of their members transferred over. These changes all occurred during lockdown since when many members have been shielding and self-isolating. This has meant that in fact some of our own members have not yet even been able to meet face to face and only met via Zoom.
In transferring over the 3 Friendship Clubs (SI Accra in Ghana, SI Heswall, UK and SI Voorburg, Netherlands) linked to SI Maidstone also agreed to become linked to SI Medway and Maidstone making a total of 5 Friendship Clubs joining SI Le Quesnoy, France and SI Osnabruck, Germany.
Our Friendship Link officer Julia Search hosted a Zoom ‘Get Together’ on World Friendship Day for us to meet up with our Friendship Link Clubs for first time in some instances and learn about what each club has been doing during lockdown and in their Project work along with sharing ideas. There were 17 Soroptimists who joined in the call and we realised from our discussions that between us we had been linked to Soroptimist International for more that 362 years, all working to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide.
The ‘Get Together’ was a great success and we wondered why we have not done it before? – recognising that the use of Zoom in our daily lives is one of the positives that has come out of lockdown.
We are looking forward to organising another Zoom ‘Get Together’ in September.