Happy New Year to all! As we had no meeting to December, this is the first post of 2022, SI Richmond and Dales January update.
Quiz Night
We held a fundraising Quiz & Supper at The Holiday Inn Scotch Corner at the end of November. Approximately 70 contestants too part in the quiz, and a total of £404 was raised. The Hotel served a very good Pie & Pea Supper, and the quiz was set and run for us by local regular quizmaster Dave Tucker. First prize was a voucher for dinner for two in Fratello’s, the Scotch Corner Hotel restaurant. Members of SI Richmond & Dales marked the occasion by wearing orange to highlight the international campaign 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
Xmas Meal
We were able to celebrate Christmas with a meal at The Station, Richmond, which was enjoyed by all who attended. Our booking coincided with the local music and dance academy presenting a free performance to showcase the pupils skills. This provided a delightful and unexpected addition to our evening.
Xmas Card Sales
Our member Chris Bowran once again sold her artwork greetings cards with Christmas designs. Chris donates money from the sales to our funds for our sister club SI Harare. She will know the total raised by March.
Presentation to Just The Job
Past-President Faye Doorbar and Treasurer Babs Hunt visited the Just The Job site in Richmond on a chilly morning in early January. They presented a cheque £1,000 to Steve Biggs, General Manager of this Environmental Enterprise, and Work Team Member Alan . Just The Job has been our main charity for 2021-2. Refreshments served at the spring and summer Open Garden days at Mr. Yorke’s Walled Garden and the Quiz night were organised by members to contribute to Just the Job’s ‘Big Green Build’ project. This will see a new, larger and specialist facility for the charity being built nearby supported by Zetland Estates. This will ensure a sustainable future for the organisation and creating a pioneering project for the Richmond area.
January Meeting
Instead of our usual evening meeting, we met on Saturday 15th for our January meeting at the Holiday Inn, Scotch Corner. This enabled us to have a 4 hour session split by lunch, and avoided any problems for members with travel on a winter evening. We had a very fruitful session to organise programme for 2022-3. We have agreed to become what Soroptimist International terms a ‘light-touch’ club. Normally planning programme would be done by the incoming President and her supporters, but we will not have a President for 2022-23. We have agreed to share presidential duties (chairing meetings and attending events) across the membership, with a different person in charge each month. Volunteers have agreed to take on (or continue) in the posts of Secretary, Treasurer and Programme Action Coordinator. This is the minimum needed for our Executive Roles. Non-executive roles were also taken up by members, who will attend Executive meetings as they see necessary.
We gathered suggestions and designed the programme of speakers and other events for the year’s meetings. We agreed our charities would be Garget Walker House (the local dementia support centre) which is operated by charity Dementia Forward, and a new community support charity Colburn Community Trust which is being established by Simon Eastwood, formerly of The Jonas Centre, with whom we have worked over several years. We scheduled several fundraising events, which were allocated members to organise them, and some social activities for members were also planned in. We are now well placed to go forward into next year, which we hope will see a return to our usual level of activity. Although Executive meetings will continue to be by Zoom, as this has proved to be a convenient travel-free option for small meetings, we are planning for all Club Meetings to be face-to-face as normal.