Celebrating Women

Digital fun

Our February meeting began with some digital fun. We all tried out slido.com which allows everyone in a meeting to collaborate in answering questions posed to the group or as a quiz format. We tried both! The question pops up on your phone and you input your answer – it appears on the group screen for everyone to see! For the quiz, ours was about contemporary women, the questions and options appeared on our phones. Everyone could select their answer and send. The main screen showed how many people had selected each answer, then showed the correct answer. At the end everyone’s scores were collated. It proved a successful experiment!

STEM/Arts project

Leonie talked about her project Zingera. This encourages the use of apps in education to promote STEM but also incorporate the arts. The aim is to encourage learning through diverse means but in particular in using apps to enhance learning. The aim is to work with such online resources as the World History Project, Big History project, Magic Lantern and the National History Museum, making them accessible to children and educators. Leonie is planning a workshop day for local children at Bemerton Heath in July.

International Women

Michele regaled us with an account of her tour of New Zealand and how inspired she had been by the Soroptimists she met there. She showed us photographs of the stunning scenery, aptly illustrating the long white cloud – the Maori name for New Zealand: Aotearoa. In Hokitiki, on the south island’s west coast, she met Yvonne Simpson, a widely travelled Soroptimist. Yvonne had met our Liz Batten in New York some years ago! She was also welcomed by other Soroptimists in Wellington.

We next had a break for a toast to wonderful women everywhere. We enjoyed non-alcoholic fizz and nibbles to celebrate all women in the hope that many would achieve their potential.

Inspirational Women

We split into table groups to discuss inspirational women. Each member brought the story of an inspiring women and told the table about her. The table then voted on their favourite to go forward to the final vote.

Here are some of the incredible women we talked about; a good mixture of historic and current figures – how many do you know? Click on their names to find out more.

Ada Lovelace – mathematician and early computer developer

Barbara Bodichon – artist, educationalist and women’s rights activist

Beatrix Potter – author and conservationist

Christina Broom – photographer, first female press photographer

Coco Chanel – fashion designer

Elizabeth I – Queen of England and Ireland

Elizabeth Hawes – early Soroptimist, advocate of League of Nations, resettled refugees during WWII, sent supplies to occupied Europe

Hannah Moore – paratriathlete

J K Rowling – author

Karen Harrison – first female train driver

Lyse Doucet – Journalist

Mary Warnock – philosopher

Mary Wollstonecraft – women’s rights activist

Margaret Thatcher – first female PM of UK and Northern Ireland

Maude Royden – advocate of women’s ordination, preacher, suffragist

Minette Batters – first female President of NFU

Pauline Cutting – surgeon who worked in Palestinian refugee camps

Salome Pelly – GP and activist

Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas – Lean-in.org

The four (or five!) to go forward to the final vote were: Minette Batters, Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas, Elizabeth Hawes, Elizabeth I. We all vote on the Slido app.

And the winner was …… appropriately: Elizabeth Hawes, Soroptimist!!