Soroptimists Light up the Mersey Gateway Bridge For International Women’s Day this year Larraine spoke to Mersey Gateway with  a request from our Club to light up the bridge in Suffragette colours – green white and purple – to mark International Women’s Day #IWD It was great to see the bridge lit up on March 8th 2025. Next year we will ask Halton Borough Council to light up the Jubilee Bridge in the same colours.

Club Quiz Fundraiser We held our first BIG Fundraiser of the year at Runcorn Golf club and raised over £530 for our project work this year. Please click our  Fundraising Flyer  to read more about our Projects. Thanks to all our Supporters for coming along to this ‘Good Fun Quiz’. Thanks to Simon Chesterson our Amazing Quiz - master and to staff of Runcorn Golf Club for all their help in making this evening so special. Thanks once again to member Karen and Pat for organizing this successful annual event. Congratulations to John & Lesley and their winning Team

Mayor of Halton Charity £500 to The Halton Foundation This Christmas we raised £2000 for our chosen charities. We held a number of Fundraising Events this year for our appeal, and were thrilled to raise £2000. Our  'BINGO NIGHT" was very successful this year - thanks to member Pat for leading on this. We also held a 'Coffee Morning at St Michael's Church' - thanks to member Helen for leading. A very enjoyable 'Mulled wine evening' at the home of our member Sandra and her husband Trevor. A BIG THANK YOU To all our friends and supporters for coming to our events and supporting us throughout the year. Lady Mayoress of Halton The Mayoress of Halton visited our club in October and told us about the Mayor of Halton's chosen charity this year 'The Halton Foundation' - a charity which gives bursaries to young people

‘Operation Christmas Appeal’ £500 to Mary’s Meals – Supporting School Feeding Programme in Zambia This year our Appeal has been a huge success and we have raised £2000 for our chosen Christmas Charities. With our Local Fund Raising Events we have raised funds for Local Charities. However Soroptimists work Locally and Globally to improve the lives of women and children. Our own club and member events this year support Mary’s Meals and their School Feeding Programme in Zambia. The £500 we have raised has been match funded and £1000 will go this wonderful small charity Mary’s Meals – School Feeding Programme in Zambia Today in Zambia – 10 years after Mary’s Meals programme began – 400,000 children eat Mary’s Meals every school day. Across the Eastern Province children are coming to school – amid the current catastrophic hunger crisis – because they know they will

The Mayoress Visits Club Meeting – In her very busy schedule, we were really pleased that the Mayoress of Halton was able to accept an invitation to our October Club Business Meeting. As we worked through the agenda, she showed great interest in our project work and in turn she told us about the work she and the Mayor were doing to support ‘The Halton Foundation’ a great local project to provide bursaries for young people who need help to go into or continue with further education – something that really resonated with us as Soroptimists. The Club has now agreed to support this project as part of our ‘Operation Christmas 2024 Appeal’.   The Mayoress was impressed with our Mastectomy Cushion/Drain-Bag project and very interested in the women we were supporting through our ‘Lend With Care’ project. BINGO Fundraiser Following the success of our

Teddy Tombola 2024 Runcorn/Frodsham Soroptimists have been running a ‘Teddy Tombola’ stall at the ‘Festival in the Park’ Frodsham since 2009, raising funds for our local Hospice. The Festival is staged by partners ‘Rotary’ as part of the community voluntary sector for the Festival. Throughout the year all club members collect Teddies and Soft toys for the Teddy Tombola Event, these are washed ready for the stall – pictured here Teddies hanging out to dry. Members of the club man the stall throughout the day. Our club runs the Tombola in aid of our local hospice ‘Halton Haven’.   Here are the teddies waiting to be numbered ready to go to Festival in The Park in Frodsham the next day, and getting excited about being on the #Soroptimist Tombola stall raising funds for Halton Haven Every number is a winner, and the teddies are wondering

 Celebrating 90 years of Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland -#90for90 Another batch of cushions waiting to be packed ready for the Breast Care Units But before that we wanted to record that we have so far this year made and donated 90 cushions to our local breast care units.

Fairtrade Picnic - Women's Empowerment through Agriculture and Trad The first event in our new club year 2024/25 was our Fairtrade Picnic. This was held at the Arts Centre in Castle Park, Frodsham on 15th May this year, and was a really enjoyable event. All members were asked to bring a 'Picnic Tea' which included items of Fairtrade and/or local produce, and members brought many interesting items. Sue and Clare led the event and  prepared a presentation showing the work of 8 women Farmers/Producers from around the world - pen portraits telling of their work and successes. Four of these women worked with Fairtrade, and four women with Lend with Care. Members took the parts of these Farmers and told their stories -  we all discussed the problems they faced and celebrated their successes. Supporting Lend with Care is our new project this year, we

Cheers to us!! At our AGM last week, we drank a toast to ourselves – even though it was only tea/coffee! Well done us - the last year went really well we achieved all we set out to do in our programme for the year. The chair, on behalf of the club, thanked the officers for their reports. Special thanks were given to Sandra Jones who is standing down as Treasurer after ten years of service in the role, and who has dealt with many challenges and changes to banking with tenacity, efficiency and patience. We have good succession planning for our club to work Flexibly - this works so well for us. Our three essential officers are in place, volunteers to chair and note take at each meeting, projects and events planned and all members signed up to plan and organise them Club year

International Friendship Soroptimist club Chester invited members from our club to a meeting to speak about our Mastectomy Cushion project. The aim of the meeting was to bring together Soroptimists from across Cheshire North Wales & Wirral Region to meet six visitors on a Grant of Friendship from SI Phnom Penh, Cambodia. President Wendy gave us all a very warm welcome, we felt very much at home. They had arranged it so that 2 of the Cambodian Soroptimists were on each table, so we all had a chance to meet them and chat. The first speaker was Glenys from SI Heswall, talking about the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). CSW was founded in 1948. It gathers information on women's lived experience. Implementation of the SDGs is key. A lot of data is needed, and it's important to involve men and boys in