After our break for Christmas and New Year, the club gathered on Saturday, 20th January for our Annual Planning Meeting. This is an extended meeting which we hold each January to plan everything for the next club year – i.e. April 2024 – March 2025. With a mix of discussions and brainstorming sessions, we manage to cover a lot of ground.
Programme Action
We started with an overview of what we have done in the current year’s Programme Action, and what we already have in the calendar for the rest of 2023-24 and beyond. It is always surprising when we get to this point in the year and reflect on all we have done. This year it was:
Funding activities
We held a Bingo Night at Richmond Rugby Club, 2 Town Hall coffee mornings, and generated income for the Club via members use of EasyFundRaising when making purchases online. These have funded:
Breast Cancer Support Group, Northallerton & district
EVA Women’s Aid – equipment and supplies for flats: our thanks go to Sue Eastham’s husband Barry, who is continuing to fund EVA via his garage business
Lend with Care – micro-financing: seeded with £250, further small loans made each month from repayments
Colburn Foodshare – food donations from meetings plus funding for Christmas Hampers and donations for warm rail
SI President’s appeal donation – Opening the Door to a Brighter future
Richmondshire Museum – annual donation of £50
SI Harare – annual donation to support their work with supporting traditional birthing attendants, aid and equipment for Chikupo school & Dalston school, funding Society Of Destitute Aged (SODA)
Paying for SOS student’s meals at meetings
We also agreed at the meeting to donate to Kids Cancer charity. This will go towards a respite trip to Disneyland Paris for a local family who have a child with cancer
Other activities
Sharing our Skills project – ongoing involvement with Richmond School students
Spouse Force – adaptation of SOS to provide similar support to Catterick Garrison project
Orange the World – awareness raising: UN 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence, Orange Cafe sessions, Methodist Church Christmas Tree Exhibition
Coffee, cake and chat sessions at Richmond and Colburn libraries – support for local residents
Soroptimist Cups for Making a Difference – annual presentations continue in Wavell, Risedale & Richmond schools (plus Zimbabwe and India). Cups are presented to the student who has “Made A Difference” to the school or community. This is aimed at encouraging volunteering and community awareness
Recycling – spectacles, mobile phones, used stamps, sewing machines, tablet, printer cartridges
Reading and recording news items for Richmond Talking Newspaper
One of our new members has also revived a project called Reminiscences, done a few years ago. This involves her and another member visiting a local care home with a box of items loaned by the Richmondshire Museum. These encourage conversations with and between the residents. Lorna hopes to write these sessions up! A first one was held in December in Bedale, and was very successful.
Looking forward
We have an event planned for March for International Women’s Day – two sessions of an exhibition (with refreshments) at the Town Hall on “Women of Richmond”. We will be in the Town Hall again in May, for an event in association with Grumpy Mule coffee company, about their work with Cafe Feminino charitable foundation, and for 3 more Coffee Morning fundraisers through the year.
Next Year’s Programme
During the day, we decided upon the programme for 2024-5:
Several proposed charities were discussed, and we decided to support three next year in addition to our ongoing commitments. We will be raising funds with Richmondshire Swimming Club in support of their campaign to fund special clothing for female swimmers to use during their periods. Many of their less wealthy swimmers have to lose 25% of their training time for lack of these expensive pieces of equipment, making it impossible to reach their potential. We will also be supporting Smart Works, which provides used clothing and accessories for young unemployed women, plus advice and support, so that they can make a good impression in job interviews. Finally, as the Richmondshire Museum was founded by Richmond & Dales Soroptimists, we will be working with them to mark their 50th Anniversary this year.
For our meetings, we chose speakers we wish to hear, including contributions from members: a wide variety of topics, some to do with our work, and others for interest
We agreed some further fund-raising events in addition to those already booked. The students from Richmond School who attended the meeting were also enthusiastic about organising a fundraiser themselves at the school.
And finally, we agreed some activities to bring the Club members together in a lighter vein: a visit with afternoon tea to Thornton Hall Gardens, and a Christmas Meal.
Overall, a very successful day!