Club member Tracy Gardiner visited in Montreal for the 19th international convention of Soroptimist International. This event is held every four years, by each Federation in turn – you may remember that it was in Sydney in 2003 and Glasgow in 2007. There was a packed programme, with four days of plenary speakers, workshops and exhibitions being hosted in Montreal at the Palais de Congres. Soroptimists all over the world do very similar programme work, and all the delegates were asked to bring any spare toileteries from their hotels to donate to a local refuge!
Tracy reports greetings from our Friendship Link club in Esbjerg, Denmark, having met up with Lizbeth Hass at the Friendship evening after the opening ceremony on Sunday night (10 July). Lizbeth said her club had just received the summer letter from Gillian Harris, telling them about all the activities we have been doing, and wanted to be remembered to her particularly. Esbjerg club is coming up to its 60th anniversary, so it must be ten years since we went over to visit!
Earlier in the week, before the convention started, Tracy had been to visit the science museum of Montreal, partly because she is a scientist and partly to get ideas to help mentor a girl neighbour who is pursuing further education in science. The museum was laid out as a sequence of interactive areas, covering innovations for humans, industry and the environment. A number of technologies were highlighted, ranging from the development of the fastest individual submarine to the sensors detecting gait for better design of prosthetics. Other displays showed manufacturing advances etc, but the one that caught Tracy`s eye was a very familiar colour and shape – it was a LifeStraw. The development of these miraculous, but simple, filters was showcased in the area dealing with improvements for the human condition, along with potential new medicines from insects and the development of bionic eyes attached to brain implants. It was good to see that LifeStraws had been recognised as a technological development of such importance.