Here is an update on our November activities, in what proved to be a busy month. As we don’t meet in December, here are some Christmas Greetings from the club:
16 Days of Activism/Orange Cafes
As already posted, we have been busy supporting the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. We held a fundraiser coffee morning at the Richmond Town Hall which doubled as an “Orange Cafe”. We raised a total of £263 for our charities, as well as promoting the campaign. To mark it’s end, we held a further “Orange Cafe” meeting on Sunday 20th December at Morro Lounge in Richmond. This was attended by 7 members, who share a pre-Christmas chat and cuppa.
Remembrance Day
Our President, Babs Hunt, represented the club at the annual Remembrance Service in Richmond. She laid a wreath at the War Memorial on our behalf alongside those presented by the many military and civilian organisations attending.
Presentation at Regional Meeting
Babs also spoke at the Yorkshire Regional Meeting in November. It was our club’s invitation to present our Programme Action, and Babs did a fine job. She began with the Sharing our Skills project, in which her daughter took part. This introduced her mum to the club of which she is both President and Treasurer! She highlighted the students’ contribution to our Toilet Twinning of Richmond, and ended with our current work on the 16 Days Campaign. Reading out the poem written for this project by our new member, Lorna had considerable impact, with requests to be allowed to use it from other clubs.
November Meeting
We were very pleased to be able to welcome 3 new members to our meeting in November. The meeting was held at the Colburn Community Hub, with a meal cooked for us by the Community Cafe volunteers. Instead of a speaker, member Wendy Arrowsmith did an interview with Angie Dale, the stalwart activist and supporter of the Colburn Hub, and dedicated independent local politician. We heard the diverting and at times difficult story of Angie’s upbringing in Colburn, her career in the army, and her journey through public service locally. Her dedication to the local community, especially those struggling to make ends meet, is inspirational.
Members of the club brought donations of food for the Colburn Foodshare scheme, and voted to fund a donation of further items for Christmas Food Hampers. Some hundreds of these hampers are given to the needy in the district. Two members of the club went shopping and took our donation to Colburn of £95:00 of goodies. Both donations included Fray Bentos tinned pies, which are particularly popular with clients.
Having received more repayments on our LendWithCare loans, we have been able to make two further loans. These went to a group of lady traders in Malawi, and a lady farmer in Cambodia. This is such a wonderful way of making our charity money go further, and keep doing good.
Finally, we were delighted to hear from new member Lorna that she is to revive the Reminiscences project. This was set up some years ago by our late long-standing member Sheila Harrisson. The project involves visiting care homes and similar establishments to encourage their residents to share memories about their lives with us and each other. This is done in conjunction with the Richmondshire Museum, which provides boxes of historical objects from their collection, which stimulate conversations. Lorna will be having a ‘trial run’ at The Millings in Bedale shortly.