At our meeting on November 13th we packed 25 Christmas Gift Bags for homeless women using the Joseph Cowen Healthcare Centre and the 24 hour access hostel in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne

            At our meeting on Tuesday, Immediate Past President Jill Smith, welcomed two new members to our club. Rosie is from Northern Ireland and works for a charity in Newcastle.   Christine is a retired Head Teacher. She is a returning member who has previously been Club President. We all wish them a long and happy time as club members.      

After our two new members were inducted by Past President Jill, we had a discussion about the subject of our last meeting: W.A.S.P.I. Women. We all agreed that their message had been very powerful and moving. It was agreed that, as a club, we should write to them and ask how we could help them. Next we considered the report from the Rural Issues sub group meeting. The aim being to establish whether there was a project the club or region could be involved in. Communications, Transport, Housing, Employment, Health Care and Social Care were the main topics discussed. It was decided that we would discuss this further at another meeting. We also discussed briefly: funding Uma Badel’s education in Nepal, the four gift bags received from S.I. Bangkok, the progress on the provision of Women’s Sanitary Products for the West End Food Bank and

After the business section of the meeting and before our speaker arrived, members posed with the latest batch of ‘Teddies for Terror’ teddies before they were donated to Northumbria Police.   Our speaker this evening was Claire Robinson who is the Chief Executive Officer of ‘Positive Response to Overcoming Problems of Substance Misuse’ or PROPS. PROPS is a North East based service for individuals, families and carers living with alcohol and substance misuse. The service is based in the Linskill Centre in North Shields. PROPS offers one to one work, peer support groups, training around substance misuse and family training, respite breaks and an emergency out of hour’s telephone helpline. They help over 650 NE families each year . PROPS began life in 1997 as Scotswood Family Drug Support Group. It was set up in the west end of Newcastle upon Tyne, as a result of

We began the meeting, by agreeing to allocate items for members to be responsible for coordinating the collections of items, for the 25 Christmas Gift Bags. At a meeting in November, the gift bags will be assembled and arrangements made to deliver them to the Joseph Cowen Healthcare Centre. Next Cris Young reported back on the collection of sanitary products for the West End Food Bank. She was delighted to show us the 3 large bin bags full of items, approximately 60 in total representing £38.50 out of £100 which the club has allocated to this project. It was a sobering thought when we realised that for the price of a large cup of coffee, we could provide sanitary protection for a woman for a year. Sheila Manchester from the West End Food Bank will be talking to members later on in the year, as

Meru Garden Report At the end of our business meeting, on Tuesday, May 22nd, we were entertained by SI Newcastle member, Patricia Gatherum’s lively and amusing account of her visit to the Meru Garden Project in Kenya earlier on in May this year, in her role as Federation Ambassador.