A big thank you to club members Shirley and Margaret for organising a lovely Presidents Lunch for President Pat Downing MBE, SI Sevenoaks club members and guests. Club Treasurer Margaret presenting the orchids.    

SI Sevenoaks club members celebrated International Women’s Day at our March Meeting. UN Women all over the world acknowledge this important day annually. “The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023 (IWD 2023) is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”. Women make up only 22% of artificial intelligence globally. See full article https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/in-focus/2023/03/in-focus-international-womens-day By Penelope Robbins SI Sevenoaks Past President

Making It Happen Delighted SI Sevenoaks members received the news that Shirley Brigham’s nomination by her club to receive the coveted Sevenoaks District Council’s ‘Making It Happen’ Community Awards trophy in the Local Hero category was successful. Shirley accompanied by Isobel White and Isobel Groves attended the Award event at St. Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks on Wednesday 15 March to hear that she had won the trophy. The packed church was told that there had been a very strong field in the competition making it difficult to choose a winner. Shirley was nominated due to her fantastic support of the Trauma Teddies appeal knitting 350 bears, supporting Climate Change by gardening on her hands and knees weekly at the Vine and baking tray bakes for Sevenoaks Area Youth Trust. All activities at 87 years old! No wonder the presenter of the award, Dr. Hilary Jones, said

SI Sevenoaks President Patricia Downing MBE held her annual President’s luncheon at Nizels Golf and Country Club Hildenborough Kent.  Delighted that the Mayor of Sevenoaks Cllr Rachel Parry and SI South East England Regional President Lynne Chiswick and Regional President Elect Alison Driscoll were in attendance. SI Sevenoaks President Elect Pauline Payne and  Club members from SI Sevenoaks, SI Tunbridge Wells thoroughly enjoyed the event.

SI Sevenoaks held a very successful Quiz night on 18th February – the first one after a gap due to the pandemic.  SI Tunbridge Wells supported us, and an enjoyable time was had by all.  A very successful raffle was run by member Anne Bond and we raised over £1,000 for President Pat Downing’s 2 charities, Hospice in the Weald and CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education).  Herewith a picture of the winning team, I-Care.   The team goes round taking part in quizzes in our area and any funds or raffle prizes they win are used to raise funds to provide rehabilitative support to people in the Orpington area who are recovering from a stroke. I-Care have been supporting our quiz for many years, and they are very hard to beat!  They are pictured holding their bottles of fizz, with President Pat just in front of

A Joyous Big Picnic Platinum Jubilee Event! Friday 3rd June 2022 SI Sevenoaks Past President Penelope Robbins was invited to attend the Sevenoaks Town Council H.M. The Queen Platinum Jubilee Celebrations meeting. Plans were hatched! An article was written about the club for the Sevenoaks Town Council Jubilee Celebrations magazine which was published. See Photo. Part of the Celebrations included the Big Picnic Lunch at the Vine Gardens Sevenoaks where Penelope had volunteered to run a stall! Many thanks to Club members Pauline Payne, Sandie Higgs and Wendy Metcalf who took on the challenge of manning the stall and children’s game. Thank you too to our new club member Ann who helped to set up on the day. The intention of the stall was to raise the profile of SI Sevenoaks in the town together with the Programme Action work of Soroptimists and club President

SI Sevenoaks held an informal coffee morning for prospective new members at the delightful Cornflower Café, which is tucked away in the corner of a huge greenhouse at the Coblands Garden Centre near Riverhead.  In the end five club members met up  with one guest, and cheese scones and assorted coffees were the order or the day!  It was fun to meet there on a lovely, sunny day, and some members bought plants, so a successful morning!  Grateful thanks to Amy, our club North Kent College Design student, who prepared a great flyer for us to send to our guests.   Some of our guests were unable to come at the last minute, so hopefully we can repeat the event with more guests in the near future! Sandie Higgs SI Sevenoaks Membership Officer  

SI Sevenoaks Annual President’s Lunch – Wednesday March 16th President Pat Downing MBE & Members  were delighted to be able to hold their annual lunch at St Julian’s, after 2 years Covid postponement……and the wisteria was in all its glory! The 40 guests included Regional President Yvonne Freeman, Town Mayor Cllr Dr Merilyn Canet, members from SI Bromley, SI Croydon & SI Tunbridge Wells & prospective & former members, friends and family. Past President Penelope Robbins had fully briefed the Mayor on all the clubs Charity Fundraising, Programme Action and Advocacy work through the past 3 years. The Mayor proposed the toast to SI Sevenoaks & Yvonne responded. Ann Greenfield SI Tunbridge Wells responded on behalf of the guests. Guests stayed on chatting for a long time & many thank you letters received indicated that it was a very happy & successful occasion.

International Women’s Day 2022 in Sevenoaks SI Sevenoaks President Pat Downing and Isobel Groves Programme Action Officer joined a hundred attenders at the Mayor of Sevenoaks Merilyn Canet’s International Women’s Day lunch at the Bat and Ball Centre. It was a joyous occasion planned carefully and hosted by the Mayor and Linda Larter, town clerk who is a Sevenoaks Soroptimist. The aim of the lunch was to invite sixth form pupils from local schools and young women starting out on their careers together with professional and business women in the hope that by thoughtful mixing at lunch the opportunity of mentoring was offered.  The event was enhanced by having three speakers from different walks of life: Jennifer Godfrey spoke about her book The Suffragettes of Kent, Councillor Suzanne Clerk spoke about Women and their Impact on the High Street, and Juliette Cheveley spoke about her

International Women’s Day at SI Sevenoaks Members and guests of SI Sevenoaks met and mingled at their club meeting to celebrate International Women’s Day. A powerful talk was given to the club by Gillian Bishop, solicitor on Gender Bias in Family Law?  Gillian’s greatest achievement was setting up her Family Law firm in London in 1995 specialising in divorce. Her law firm’s aim is to keep the family unit as amiably cohesive as possible always looking for a holistic approach to divorce.  Gilly’s talk ended with a lively question and answer session. Following the reading of the Soroptimist Vision, Mission and Values at the beginning of the business meeting members and guests remained standing in remembrance of the atrocities in Ukraine followed by President Pat Downing lighting a candle in remembrance of the Women of Ukraine. Isobel Groves,  Programme Action Officer