At the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 20th April, Penny Dmoch took over as President from Sally Radford.  The photo shows Penny presenting Sally with an Orchid, together with a gift to thank her for all her work during the past year. Sally gave a slide presentation covering some of the highlights of her year as President and thanked members of the club for their support in raising £3000 for the WRVS York Centre in Maidenhead. Reports on all the activities of the club were presented and the evening ended with President Penny donning her chain of office for the first time.

Angela Andrews of the SI Banjul (Gambia) Club was amongst 70 members and friends who attended the President’s Annual Lunch at Dorney Lake on Sunday 3rd April.  Everyone enjoyed a delicious three course lunch and had the opportunity of hearing from a number of speakers including Jim Jenkins of WAMSAD. The photograph shows President Sally with (from l to r) Laura Redhead, Angela Andrews, Jim Jenkins, and President Elect Penny Dmoch.

At the business meeting on Wednesday Rebecca Bond told the club about her role in helping children who had been in care get into employment.  Sadly it seems that it is far more difficult for those who have spent much of their life in care or with foster parents to become employed.  The Royal Borough is now working on this project with the 110 young adults who fall into this category in the area.  Becky talked about the challenges and some of the outcomes and also asked for help in looking for appropriate work experience opportunities.  Some club members are hoping to help by becoming mentors.  The photo shows Becky Bond with President Sally.

The 100th anniversary of the celebration of International Women’s Day was certainly a special occasion. Jackie Paling, Programme Action Officer of SI Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead, made sure that it was a day to be remembered. She worked with two other SI clubs – Thames Valley and High Wycombe – to organise a meeting of various women’s organisations in the area including Inner Wheel, Towns Women’s Guild and Womens Institute amongst others. They met for tea at the York Centre in Maidenhead on Sunday 6th March and heard speakers from the Girl Guides and had a talk entitled ‘Granny flew Spitfires’.  Of course such a special anniversary requires a cake and Jackie provided that too.

The cast of the Agatha Christie style ‘Murder on the SS Olympic’ really entered into the spirit of the 1920s with a splendid array of costumes to suit the period at the Murder Mystery evening on Saturday 15th January.  The evening was split into three acts enabling all the participants and guests to partake of a leisurely meal of lasagne followed by apple tart and custard whilst deliberating on who had done the deadly deeds. The event was held at the WRVS York Centre in Maidenhead.

A happy Christmas meal was enjoyed at the Copthorne Hotel on 1st December as members tucked in to their first turkey of the season.  A large turnout enjoyed a splendid meal and a festive glass or two!!  There were plenty of crackers and party poppers to make the evening a fun event together with a Christmas raffle.  The raffle together with donations in place of sending Christmas cards raised £131 for the ‘Loos for Lynn’ appeal organised by Soroptimist International in memory of SI President Lynn Dunning who died earlier this year.  As is usual at this event, the Mayoresses of both the Royal Borough and Slough were in attendance and are shown here with President Sally. 

One of the special aspects of going to the Annual Conference is the chance to meet up with old friends.  This year it as a great pleasure for members to meet their Friendship Link colleagues from Grenada and The Gambia as well as a past member of SI Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead, Caroline Alison who has moved to South Wales.  A dinner for all the group was organised on Friday night in Manchester and was a very convivial affair.  The photo shows President Sally presenting a cheque to SI Grenada for their charity which helps orphans.  Four members of the club visited this charity after the Federation Conference in Barbados in 2008 so have a personal interest in keeping in touch.

Eleven members of the club including four ‘first timers’ made it to Manchester this year for the SIGBI Annual Conference.  In the splendid surroundings of Manchester Central they were able to hear some fascinating key note speakers including BBC’s Bill Turnbull who gave a whole new meaning to being a Busy Bee. One of the club’s projects – the Sheila Rooney Travel Scholarship was nominated for a Best Practice Award and although it did not win it was satisfying to be in the top three of several hundred nominations.

Kelly Carpenter was the winner of the Travel Scholarship for gap year students for 2009 and as part of the award came to the club meeting in September to talk about the work she undertook.  Kelly travelled to a remote village in Ghana where she helped to organise supplies for a new medical centre.  She told the club that she was very shocked by the very basic nature of the centre and was delighted to help with getting it set up even though she found communications quite a challenging situation.  She showed considerable determination to get supplies moving before she had to return home.  In addition she helped with the teaching of reading which she found very worthwhile.  Kelly told the club that she really enjoyed the experience but was also delighted to return to the comforts of home! The photo shows Patrick Rooney, who

The latest fund raiser was a tea party at Ascot so the word went out that hats were obligatory and members certainly took this seriously!  A gorgeous array of hats were donned and a happy tea party was enjoyed despite the rain falling.    President Sally and Immediate Past President Judy were amongst the elegant participants,  as well as enjoying the opportunity to dress up, over £150 was raised for the President’s Charity.