We have been celebrating our club anniversary by nominating 50 charities for a donation of £50 from the Charles Jacob Charitable Trust.  Each day, for the 50 days since the anniversary of our charter on 4 May, we have put up a Facebook post about one of our nominated charities, in a random order. We hope that our donation of £50 is useful to the charity for work in the local area, and supports the aim of the Trust to help the disadvantaged.

Our club member Audrey has a natural wombling skill, to find and repurpose all sorts of things (and for those that don’t remember the childrens’ TV show characters, Madame Cholet is a very kind-hearted but short-tempered female Womble, and the cook of the Wimbledon burrow, styled on Beresford’s mother and named after the town of Cholet in France. She affects a French accent, though she is actually no more French than any other Wimbledon Womble and simply likes to think of herself as French.  https://wombles.fandom.com/wiki/Madame_Cholet ) Audrey came across a social media post from a local care home, offering some adult diapers that they had spare, for anyone to collect.  As it happens, at our regional meeting last weekend, the speaker was Jane Walker, founder and CEO of Purple Community Fund.  She had requested ring pulls, toiletries and adult diapers!  So, we collected them, took

Our congratulations go to club member Ros Hardiman, who has been inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2024.  The ceremony was held in Cancún Mexico on 18 May. She came home with a certificate, a sash and a plaque!  At the celebration dinner she had to give a speech to thank the people who had helped her during her swimming career – a bit like the Oscars! Ros says: It is a great honour to be nominated, there were thirteen successful nominees this year. I was the only British swimmer, the other Briton was recognised for his coaching and administrative contributions to the sport. I was determined to accept the award in person although Cancún would not normally be my resort of choice.  It caters for a young clientele, either for the beach bar/ night club

In the spirit of ‘Hanami’ – the Japanese celebration that literally means “flower viewing”, but commonly refers to cherry blossom viewing – members of the club visited our 3 cherry trees at Lee-on-the-Solent Recreation Ground.  We had arranged for them to be planted by Gosport Council in 2021, to celebrate the centenary of Soroptimist International.  They were accompanied by a plaque, also stating that the trees were in memory of past club members.  All trees are coming into bloom and looking healthy.

At each club meeting the tin is put round to collect any small silver change for the Barbara Watts Volunteering in Pretoria project.  We use the same tin every time, which (at great personal cost) was emptied of the double dipped chocolate almonds! The project was born out of the Friendship Link between SI Southern England (region) and SI South Africa, and has been running for a number of years. We are currently supporting a young woman called Leah, covering her living and working expenses.  She is from a township, and had just graduated as a qualified social worker, but her skills would have been lost without this opportunity.  In her work at Pretoria Psychologists she is improving her understanding of mental health issues and developing programmes to deliver support to those who suffer from these debilitating illnesses, particularly within the townships.  She has brought

The lunar new year was celebrated on 10 February this year; it is the Chinese Year of the Dragon.  It is the only mythical creature in the Chinese zodiac, and the dragon has long been associated with prosperity and imperial power. We hope that this auspicious sign will continue for the club through the year.

   Although January is usually a quiet month, the club celebrated the festive season at the traditional Epiphany Dinner.  It serves as a friendly occasion after the usual December disruption, and a good start to the New Year. The club has always tried to support the Bishops Waltham in Bloom annual Quiz, in memory of past club member Pam Simcock.  We nearly missed getting a table for this year, but they graciously squeezed us in because we were the runners up last year.  This year we only managed to come 9th, but were pleased with that result out of 27 teams.  It was a most enjoyable evening for the 7 of us that made up the team.

The club traditionally provides Christmas gift bags for the local members of Re-Engage. These are coordinated by club member Alison, with help from Rosemary Bell. These have been assembled and delivered for this year.Happy Christmas to all involved.

Three members from the club have been attending the Sorpotimist International convention this week in Dublin.  Every club worldwide had been challenged to design and submit a poster for display at the convention.  Our club had one accepted, as did other clubs from our region. Our poster was about the support we gave to WaterAid over the last few years, raising money to provide plumbing, toilets and hygiene lessons to primary schools in two regions of Rwanda.  A water theme had been chosen when we rebranded as SI Solent East, because of our proximity to the coast. A total of £5,000 was raised for the WaterAid project, which helped provide access to clean water and toilet blocks for 80 schools in Rwanda.

We have recently made 8 wash bags for the local refuges. As part of our new project ‘Are You Safe at Home?’ we are supporting the women and children in the local refuges.  Part of this is to provide a wash bag for new arrivals.  The bags were made by a club member, and the contents were assembled from donated toiletries. This was quickly recognised as an easy practical aspect of the project, while we investigated and defined the other support that we might provide.  It also formed a tangible example (and photo opportunity!) for our entry in the regional Programme Action competition, with a closing date of 31 July.