International Women’s Day event Sunday 17th March 2010
“Opportunities for Women and Girls”
This joint event with SI Thames Valley and SI High Wycombe and District was very successful with approx. 70 attendees from a number of local women’s organisations. Soroptimists from Oxford, Greater London, Hertford, and Freetown attended as well as members from the organising Clubs.
We also had the Mayor of Slough, Paul Sohal, and the Deputy Mayor and Mayoress of Windsor & Maidenhead, Colin and Samantha Rayner. I would like to thank all of you who took part for making the event go so well.
The speakers were excellent and inspired everyone. DCI Christina Berenger was unable to attend at the last minute but DCI Penny MacKenzie stood in for her and spoke about issues affecting women in the Thames Valley. Ex Club member Gerry Lejeune spoke about The Berkshire Community Foundation. Hannah Little spoke about the work of Womankind Worldwide. Two very enthusiastic schoolgirls spoke about Slough Youth Parliament. We gave all the speakers a £10 Boots Gift Card in appreciation.
We had several side stalls, from Women and Girls, Slough Fostering, DASH, Wycombe Women’s Aid, Womankind Worldwide, the Kori Project, and Healing Fit and Wellness Ltd. 
A member of SI High Wycombe asked the two schoolgirls if they would like to meet up sometime to discuss how Soroptimists might engage with young people to promote Soroptimism. They agreed wholeheartedly and we are arranging a meeting perhaps during the school Easter holidays.
We held a raffle in aid of the SIGBI Emergency Disaster Fund and had some lovely prizes. We raised £200.46 for this.
Everyone who attended said they enjoyed it. We received 33 feedback forms which were very complementary. The main complaint was the cool temperature even though I had said at the beginning there was nothing we could do about it, as it is a closed system..
Once again, refreshments were deemed to be excellent, particularly Irene’s Welsh cakes and Phyllis’s cheese scones.