Welcome to Soroptimist International Milton Keynes
We are part of an international women’s voluntary organisation working to improve the lives of women and girls locally, nationally and at an international level. To learn more about our friendly group click here.
We want to raise awareness of the many ways we can help women and girls to reach their potential and realise their ambition. If you want to make a difference why not join us at one of our events. Contact us via email at soroptimistsmk@gmail.com
To see when we are meeting and our planned events click here
Two great fund raising events in October
Classical Music Concert Friday 1 October – live Quintet raising funds for the homeless of the Winter Night Shelter MK. For more details and how to book tickets click here
Brilliant Breakfast Wednesday 6 October – join us for tea/coffee/pastries to help raise funds for young women in the UK who need our support achieve a positive future. Help us reach our target of £200 for The Princes Trust Women Supporting Women Fund. For more details and how to make a donation click here
What have we been up to lately
Firstly, apologies for our tardiness, but we have continued to be very busy. We Soroptimists do what we do best, we get on and do things when needed and the last couple of months has been no different from the past year.
We were so pleased to hold a lovely summer evening meeting where members brought along a friend and hopeful new member. It was lovely to get together and we are so pleased to welcome a new member and we also raised £112 for the Winter Night Shelter MK, one of our linked charities. They used to open for the winger months to help the homerless but as a result of Covid are now open all year round and are still experiencing a very busy and need more help than ever before. Click here to find out more. And if you can make a donation, THANK YOU for your support.
And then the day after our summer event, we heard that the first families airlifted from Afghanistan were to be housed here in Milton Keynes. We got on to our local Councillors to find out how we could help and then reached out to all our friends and what great friends they are. We collected and dropped off 5 car loads of clothing, toiletries and toys.
We are so proud to be able to give some help to these families and hope they are able to make a new and safe life for themselves here.
And on the 3 September we held our Violet Awards for “Women of Action”. How to celebrate Soroptimists 100 birthday. We wanted to celebrate the work of unsung female heroes in the city, women who are members and linked charities thought had gone above and beyond their normal duties during this Covid pandemic. And why Violet, in honour of Violet Richardson Ward, one of the founding members back in 1921. Her life motto was “It’s what you do that counts”.
Women linked with local front-line charities & groups including The British Red Cross, Works for Us, MK ACT, YMCA, The Winter Night Shelter, Woughton Trust & MK Dons SET were recognised and celebrated at the awards event. It was a privilege to say thank you to all of the nominees for their unstinting dedication to the users of their charities. Every nominee received a certificate, flowers and a Violet heart but there had to be one winner. Chief Inspector Kelly Gardner, Deputy Police Commander Thames Valley Police presented overall winner Ruth Legh Smith from Winter Night Shelter with her award for her unstinting dedication. Her story of dedication was truly inspiring and we say well done Ruth.
We also raised over £60 on the raffle to go towards the Winter Night Shelter and they also benefited because at the end of the night they took home all the left-over food, so a win win for them.
We were very lucky to have Chief Inspector Kelly Gardner as our main inspirational speaker and Helen Bryne our Regional President also spoke.
It was a truly humbling evening and great to see all the nominees be recognised for their hard work and tireless dedication, we say Thank you.
Click here to see more pictures of what we have been doing.
We also have a number of events going on in our Soroptimist International Centenary Year 2021. To find out more about these events, scroll further down this page.
