SI Derby
The Derby club was founded in 1937 so in October we celebrate our 87th birthday. We have tended to only have a formal charter dinner on our 5 and 0 birthdays, but we usually go out for a meal. The club has suffered from dwindling numbers over the last ten years or so but has particularly reduced in the last two years.
In our heyday we held lots of events from fashion shows to auctions. We chained ourselves up in Derby Market Place to highlight Modern Day slavery and even created a mountain of shoes to draw attention to the work of landmine charities. We provided Christmas presents for children leaving care. We tried to make Derby a Toilet Twinned city and had some success getting the local mayor to put up some toilet twinning plaques in the Council House. We also worked with Derby Women’s Centre providing courses and activities for women there. More recently we took part in the domestic violence court observations, planted trees and attended a march Reclaiming the Night.
Every February we hold a suffragette lunch when we wear purple and green to commemorate the work of the Suffragettes in enabling the vote for women,
Our activities recently have been mainly fundraising as it has been difficult to work with other community groups due to declining numbers. It is also hard to make an impact with awareness raising and lobbying. We have supported International Women’s Day for many years and took part in an exhibition at the Silk Mill in Derby highlighting local inspiring women. We still provide twice a year, welcome packs for women arriving at Derbyshire Wish, a women’s refuge
We recently completed our fundraising for the Rosie May Foundation through attendance at carnivals with our popular tombola, and although the fundraising took longer as covid intervened, we are very proud to have raised over £3000 to fund a pink tuk tuk in Sri Lanka bearing the club’s name. Mary Storrie, founder of Rosie May Foundation said it had changed the life of the woman driver in Sri Lanka.
Our current fundraising and volunteering is with Women’s Work a local organisation that provides support, mentoring and courses for vulnerable women who have been victims of domestic violence, suffered from drug or alcohol problems or have mental health issues. This year we will have attended several local carnivals raising money for this organisation and publicising their work and our local club. We are helping to support their One in a Million campaign to get a million people to make a yearly donation of at least one pound. We have helped them at charity events selling raffle tickets and making teas and coffees.
Club Meetings
We meet once a month in the Sleep Inn behind the King’s Highway pub in Derby at 7pm on the first Thursday of the month apart from August, and in December we have a Christmas meal. Some of us meet beforehand at 6pm for a meal in the pub. We did try meeting during the day due to some members struggling to drive at night, but this is not convenient for working members. We will probably meet on Zoom in the winter months. Over the last year or so we have had some very interesting speakers.
In the last year Dionne CEO, of Women’s Work, a very inspiring woman who started this charity 20 years ago came to speak at our meeting. We also met a local solicitor at the Women’s Work anniversary gala, and she came to speak to us about her work with the charity, specialising in domestic violence cases.
Another inspirational woman was the previous Police and Crime Commissioner who talked about her work with the police and funding projects to support women. She put us in touch with a speaker from the Willow project. This was a project to support women suffering from domestic violence in rural areas, where it has not always been easy to get help.
Speakers from Safe and Sound an organization offering support to young people who have been exploited have also spoken at a recent meeting.
Without being too pessimistic we are not sure whether the club has a future. We have recruited two new members in the last year, but keeping them when our activities are limited, recruiting new members and keeping the other longstanding members when we are down to the bare minimum, may be more difficult. We have not had a President for some years, but luckily still have a secretary, PA officer and treasurer. Hopefully we will recruit some more members and be around to celebrate our 90th birthday.
