SI Newcastle member, Heather Niven was successful in applying to the Hadrian Trust for £500 which will be spent on the New Start Bags project. Another SI Newcastle member, Cris Young, provided club members with handy cards to give to friends, family and work colleagues as an aide memoire as to what can be added to the bags. Her colleague and friend, Barbara Tingate, donated all the contents of one of our New Start Bag when she requested support from her work colleagues in April 2017. She made the kind donation as her daughter Laura, whom she used to buy clothes for, left home to set up her own home with her partner. As she no longer had to support Laura she decided to give a donation to our group in Newcastle to hopefully make a difference and support women who needed a New Start Bag.

  On Friday, April 21 st, six Newcastle upon Tyne Soroptimists met at the Imperial Restaurant, Low Fell to enjoy a Chinese banquet. The food and the company were both delightful.   This food didn’t last long either.   Definitely an activity to be repeated.  Many thanks to Kath for organising it.

April 27th saw a visit from Kathy Warrick to our club. Kathy, who is S.I. Northern England Region’s Communication Officer and Web Administrator, gave us a presentation about the uses of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with regard to publicising Soroptimist International’s agenda.         Members of other Northern England Region clubs joined us: Tynemouth and Whitley bay, Morpeth, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Kathy’s main suggestion was that clubs linked together their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts in order to update all social media accounts at the same time. In addition, if the hash tags #SIBI and #Soroptimists@SIGBI1 are used then someone searching for information about Soroptimists will be directed to the article. Kathy also suggested that following UN Woman on Twitter and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) would give access to useful articles to retweet. She also spoke about using appropriate keywords and

At the S.I. Newcastle upon Tyne Action Planning Meeting 0n February 7th, two new members were inducted. The photograph shows Joint President Kath, new members, Michelle, Cris and Joint President Christine.  Michelle is a Family Services Coordinator covering the North East for a children’s charity. Cris works in retail. We were also told that another prospective member will be visiting us at our next meeting. .

Jacqueline Appleby, a SI Newcastle upon Tyne member, delivered the Christmas gift bags on December 12th. Members collect items for the gift bags to be given to people supported by the charity, Under the Bridge. Under the Bridge, is a charitable subsidiary of Tyne Housing Association that manages Tyne’s homelessness services. This is mainly their hostel providing emergency accommodation for 31 residents with 24 hour waking double  staff cover.  There is also a  homeless persons’ healthcare centre, which provides healthcare services to 700 people each quarter. Under the Bridge also oversees an occupational and training scheme. The Workshop provides occupational therapy to 14 vulnerable adults at any one time. If you would like to know more about their work, please visit their website: http://www.tynehousing.org.uk/utb.html

NORTHUMBRIA BLOOD BIKES VISIT THE CLUB The club meeting on 28 July hosted a visit from Nigel and his ‘Blood Bike’ to tell us about the life saving work of Northumbria Blood Bikes. The Northumbria group is only one of many that cover over 85% of the UK with this essential but voluntary service. This Group has 10 specialist motorbikes as well as 2 cars and an exhibition trailer. Over 200 volunteers provide the rapid response service for the NHS for blood products, specimens and equipment from 7.0pm through to 7.0am on week days and 24 hourly at weekends and on Bank Holidays. Their recent collaborative work with the Great North Air Ambulance now means that they transport blood and platelets to the air ambulance so that the medics can administer life saving treatment as soon as the helicopter has reached the casualty. This has