Members and friends of SI Richmond & Dales highlighted the Orange the World Campaign against violence against women this week. They wore their Orange ribbons to highlight the campaign when they attended the Queen’s Jubilee Gala Dinner in Richmond. This month the focus of the SI Yorkshire Orange the World campaign is elder abuse.
We are delighted to report that SI R&D has completed it’s Toilet Twinning campaign. We have now organised 20 toilet twins across all the categories of organisations required by the Toilet Twinning charity. They have duly confirmed that Richmond is now a ‘Toilet Twinned Town’. Catterick, Richmond and Colburn Community Library Trust (CRACCL) has agreed to display the official certificate on our behalf in Richmond Library. Jenny Cathcart, who led the project, has presented the certificate to CRACCL Trustee Judith Clark and Chair Sue Young. This has been a long campaign which we had to put on hold during the pandemic. We are very pleased with this achievement, which has enabled twenty communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America to receive their first proper toilet facilities. This is a significant contribution to health and safety in these communities.
Talk by Hannah Russell at June Monthly Meeting SI Richmond and Dales held their June monthly meeting on 16th June. We were treated to a fascinating talk by local children’s author Hannah Russell. Hannah told us how her career began and grew. She started writing at the age of 18 after a riding accident caused a spinal injury, forcing her to stop horse-riding and give up her ambitions to be a riding instructor. At about the same time, she acquired Little Alf, a Shetland pony who suffers from dwarfism, so is only 28″ at the shoulder. He had been rejected by his fellow Shetlands, and needed a lot of care and attention. She started reading to him, and telling him stories – which became her first books. Alf makes up in character what he lacks in size, so she has plenty of material. Her books
A group of our members met recently for a stroll through the beautiful flower gardens at Thornton Hall, near Darlington. Thornton Hall was built around 1550 by Ralph Tailbois, and is one of the oldest buildings in Borough of Darlington. The gardens have been designed and developed by the current owners of the Hall since they arrived in 1989. They started with bare grazing paddocks and have produced a wonderful display of beds full of flowers and shrubs. Only open for a few days each year, a visit here is a real treat. And so was the Afternoon Tea: delicious!
Jane Beeton and Margaret Clayson represented SI Richmond and Dales at the recent inauguration of the new Richmond Town Mayor, Councillor Ann Brewer. This is a traditional ceremony, with regalia dating back to 1668. In addition to the Town Councillors, the ceremony is attended by representatives of a wide range of town organisations, to celebrate the appointment of the new Mayor following May’s local elections. Interestingly one of the new Mayor’s three nominated charities for the year ties in with ours, being Garget Walker House. She is also the Town Council representative for Dementia Awareness. The other charities are developing disabled access at St Mary’s Church and the Richmond Meet.
SI Richmond and Dales held its May meeting on Thursday 19th May. We welcomed as speaker Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Turner, Commander of Catterick Garrison, Richmond’s near neighbour. He gave an very entertaining and informative talk on the history and structure of the Garrison, and his role in command. Very wide-ranging it is, too. We also welcomed a new member, and guest Leslie Richardson, Head of 6th Form at Richmond School. She spoke briefly to mark 10 years of our collaboration with the school in our ‘Sharing our Skills’ Project. Leslie commended us for the considerable achievements of the project. It has introduced students to meetings and organisation skills, and raised their awareness of issues around the world. They have responded with fundraising to support our charities and organise their own groups. Our Programme Convenor, Jenny Cathcart, was also able to report that we will shortly have
Our April meeting was the AGM, as we move into the new year, 2022-23. The meeting began with readings by members from our ‘Women of Influence’ project (posted separately). What inspiring and remarkable women we heard about! As usual, the AGM was a fairly ritual process, reviewing the previous year and previewing the new. We were able to donate over £3000 last year, plus donations in kind, which was quite an achievement, given the limitations of the Covid pandemic. We were also very pleased to welcome two new members to the club. Chair Jan Beeton thanked all members of the club who participated in this successful year, in particular the members of Executive, who have kept the ball rolling. The new Executive was confirmed, and will continue to meet via Zoom, which has worked well this year. The new Executive follows the structure of a
Soroptimist International celebrated its centenary in 2021, and to mark this milestone m embers of SI Richmond & Dales decided to compile a record of women who, in their lives, had inspired and influenced them. Here are the citations for our Women of Influence, which were read out at the AGM: Jean Crouch – Role model for education, nominated by Jan Beeton As the co-editor of the “Girl” comic and annual, Jean Crouch provided life stories of influential women from British History and the Arts. This counterbalanced a very male view of history being taught in schools in the 1950s, being full of battles, revolutions, and royalty. Each Christmas I would get a Girl annual and as an avid reader, I read them over and over again. It’s via this comic that I learned about Boadicea, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavel, Flora McDonald, Elizabeth Barret-Browning, The
SI Richmond and Dales were delighted to host an evening with Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson at the Scotch Corner Hotel on Thursday 24th March. This was a really long-awaited event, as we originally planned this prior to the pandemic. After several postponements, we were very pleased the event was finally able to take place. This was despite an road accident just below Scotch Corner an hour before the event, which closed the A1 Southbound, and caused traffic chaos around the junction and the hotel. Luckily, Baroness Tanni arrived early. Sadly, many of our guests were delayed, and our fellow Soroptimists coming south from Darlington and Durham were unable to make it in time to hear her speak. The event was organised in support of International Women’s Day. SIGBI’s theme for International Women’s Day was Breaking the Bias and Baroness Tanni inspired us to seek a world
March Monthly Meeting Here is the update on our March Monthly Meeting. We did not have a speaker at this month’s meeting, as it was our annual Programme Action Review. Jenny Cathcart, the incoming Programme Action Lead, described the varied things we were able to despite the limitations of the Covid pandemic. These have been described on the news blog through the year, but it is always useful to remind ourselves of what we have been able to do, especialy for our main charities this year, Just-The-Job and Colburn Foodshare. As always, we seem to have been able to do much more than we remembered. Let us hope that we are less subject to restrictions this year, and can return to full throttle. Members have been active this month alongside others in this area in donating food and baby supplies to the Ukraine Crisis initiative
