A group of members met together to photograph their efforts in making hats from recycled materials – an initiative from our Yorkshire Regional President as part of her “Not written off” project. Photographs have been sent to Region to be included in a press campaign to mark Yorkshire Day. We were particularly impressed with Jan’s Yorkshire hat, complete with Yorkshire Pudding!
Past President Sue Young was recently gifted several boxes worth of baby clothes: cardigans, hats etc. She has arranged for them to be sent to an aid organisation, Conseil Spirituel, who have an ongoing appeal in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In addition to Face Masks, our Member Sandy Baxter is now also making Headbands for the nurses at Darlington Memorial Hospital. They are finding the constant wearing of face masks is making the backs of their ears very sore, so are attaching the elastic loops to headbands to hold their face masks in place. Sandy has so far produced 15, and asked club members to assist by providing more buttons and stretch fabric to enable her to keep going.
We have received letters of thanks in response to our latest donation to our sister club in Harare, Zimbabwe https://sigbi.org/harare/, and also from our Rishi Sunak MP, our local MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The President of Harare club said: Dear SI Richmond and Dales, Thank you very much for your unwavering support. We are truly honoured and humbled by the generous support you have given to Chikupo and the other projects we support. We will most certainly distribute the allocated funds to Chikupo as requested and we will distribute the remaining funds between the TBAs and SODA. I take this opportunity to thank SI Richmond and Dales for your kind support. In friendship Tsitsi Machingauta TBAs are the Zimbabwean Traditional Birthing Attendants, the local women to assist at child delivery, as there are no qualified midwives. We and Harare Club have contributed to
Soroptimist Richmond & Dales member, and expert beekeeper, Sandy Baxter has been delighted that her bees have defied ‘lockdown’ and continued to produce their wonderful honey! For every jar sold Sandy donated £1 to Soroptimist charities in Zimbabwe, and she has produced dozens of face masks for Zimbabwe too. Sandy is continuing to make facemasks for sale in aid of our other projects. They are available for £5.00 each. Please contact sirichmondanddales@yahoo.com to order yours! Sandy’s masks are two layered, and she recommends the following disposable liner made from a paper tissue to be used with them.
Members got together online using Zoom for our June Meeting. Much of the discussion was about things we hope to be able to do when the coronavirus limitations are eased enough to allow fundraising events. Our planned July Coffee morning is moving to February 2021, and our March event with Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson is now rescheduled to March or April 2021. We are also preparing ideas for our Sharing our Skills project with Richmond School, which will start in January. Next year we aim to provide trees from the Woodland Trust for planting by Just the Job, one of this year’s President’s charities. Tree planting links both the Centenary of Soroptimist International Great Britain & Ireland, and Richmond 950 – a celebration of 950 years since the building of the Castle and founding of the town. A new woodland is being planted to commemorate this.
Our new joint presidents, Faye and Jane are pictured here about to deliver a Food Bank donation to our local Food Bank, Storehouse ( http://www.influencechurch.co.uk/storehouse/). We have supported the Richmond Food Bank Period Poverty programme for some time, supplying sanitary products for women and girls in need. With the Coronavirus crisis bringing increased demand on the Food Bank, we decided we need to support them in a more varied way. Soroptimist member Chris Bowran put a request out to members to donate food and other household items, and to leave them on the bench by her front door. The club was overwhelmed by the amazing support of members. Presidents Faye Doorbar & Jane Priestley loaded the car to deliver a huge offering to the Food Bank, which was gratefully received.
We held our first Zoom meeting in May. It was great to be able to see each other again after so many weeks apart, even if it was only on screens. Most of our members were able to take part. This gave us a chance to review our Programme Action plans for the year. We hope to be able to do some fund raising activities in the coming months. Advocacy is easier on-line and we discussed plans being made for the SIGBI Project Empowering Girls in Nepal https://sigbi.org/what-we-do/our-projects/girlsinnepal/ SI President’s appeal Road to Equality https://www.soroptimistinternational.org/action/road-to-equality/ proposed Yorkshire Regional projects We continue to gather donations from members to help both Storehouse Foodbank http://www.influencechurch.co.uk/storehouse/ and our sister club in Harare, Zimbabwe. This is the sad reality there: The five week lockdown, to stem the spread of Coronavirus, has had a disastrous impact, and dealt a final blow
Our meetings for March, April and May had to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus emergency lockdown, as was a planned fund-raising Coffee Morning. As April’s meeting would have been the AGM we held this online. All the paperwork was distributed by email. We hope that we can carry out a proper “handover” to our new President’s soon. In the meantime, the club members have agreed a £100 donation to the local food bank http://www.influencechurch.co.uk/storehouse/ to help during the current emergency. Members are also making personal donations in cash and goods. We have also sent out £500 accumulated to the end of March from last year’s fundraising to our sister club in Harare, Zimbabwe. Conditions there are dire due to drought, corruption and now a lockdown, so our sister members have many calls on their help. News from our contact is so bad that members are
