THE WINNER of the beautifully crafted hand-made patchwork quilt raffled by SI Gosport and Fareham at Conference was Iola Evans from Dolgellau. Liz Morgan-Lewis, then still SIGBI president, is pictured drawing the winning tickets alongside club president Margaret Smith. Other prizes in the raffle – a cushion cover, a table runner and a carrier bag, all in patchwork – were won by Margaret Phelan from Bath, Shirley Willae from Torquay and H. Shulver from Southport.. Led by former president Alison Jenkins, pictured left in a red jacket, who did most of the work, around a dozen members had met once or twice a month over two years to create their blue and yellow masterpiece. The £800 raised will go to the Alzheimer’s Society.    

  FIVE club members joined SI Reigate and Banstead and other clubs in the region to have lunch at The Clink Restaurant at HMP High Down in Sutton, Surrey. The restaurant is run by the Clink Charity and gives prisoners the opportunity to learn skills to enable them to work in the hospitality industry on their release. As HMP High Down is a closed prison there are strict security checks and strict instructions about what can’t be taken into the prison, ranging from the obvious such as mobile phones and knives to the more obscure such as paracetamol and hand wash. Having been escorted from reception to the restaurant, guests were offered non-alcoholic bucks fizz followed by a splendid three-course meal of deep fried camembert, pork cooked three ways and a delicious sponge flan and homemade vanilla custard. Prisoners prepare and cook the food in an open

President Margaret Smith is pictured with our speaker Duncan Colin-Jones and club member Christine White who had suggested he be invited to address the club.  During his clinical career Duncan had worked locally at QA hospital. He challenged the club to answer the question “How much is a life worth?” which had been his focus in his work with NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.  One part of their role was to evaluate new drug treatments for efficacy and cost-effectiveness.  He reminded us that any money for new drug treatments had to be taken away from something else within the NHS capped budget.  The money spent on drugs amounted to £11bn a year, about a tenth of the total NHS spend. Duncan included a quick biology lesson, to explain the structure of human cells, and the bits of DNA (genes) that cause cancer.  Modern

HELPING to make life more pleasant and providing comfort for hospital patients is the aim of Radio Haslar,  manned  entirely by volunteers. Peter Turnbull, publicity manager for the station, pictured above with president Margaret Smith, gave an interesting talk on daily life at the broadcaster launched in March 1993. The service was originally set up to serve Haslar Hospital then in 1996 it was expanded to cover Gosport War Memorial Hospital. Although Haslar Hospital was closed in 2009 the station continues to thrive and in March this year their new studio opened in Bury House at Thorngate Halls in Gosport. “It’s still at the proposal stage but the long-term aim is to provide a service for the new Coldeast Community Hospital at Fareham,” said Mr Turnbull. He explained that as well as broadcasting a variety of programmes for hospital patients and staff they supported other

ALL smiles at Bishop’s Waltham community day where the club held a stall to raise awareness of Soroptimist International and the work we do alongside selling books and hand-made Christmas decorations. Pictured are Sue Baddeley, membership secretary, right, and Ann Johnson who were fortunate to be doing the morning shift when the weather stayed largely dry. It was a less lucky situation for Rosemary Coward and Kathleen Durning who took over manning the stall in time to be hit by a torrential downpour that turned them both into “drowned rats”, in Rosemary’s own words. The bedraggled duo did their best to save the goods on display. “Unfortunately, about half the books got really wet and others were quite damp,” said Rosemary. “The damp ones are in my conservatory waiting for the sun to dry them out, the really wet ones I think will have to

RIPE, fruity and quaffable were words on the lips of members (above), their families and friends, who went to a wine tasting at a local vineyard. Four wines from grapes produced in Wickham were sampled along with a tasty selection of canapés. Three of the wines were white, one of them sparkling, and the fourth was rose. The event was held at Webbsland, an eight-acre vineyard where the grapes grown and used in the making of the wine are of Wurzer, Reichensteiner, Bacchus, Pinot Noir and Dornfelder. Organised by club member Kathleen Durning, (fourth from right, almost hidden from view in the picture above) proceeds from the evening,  just over £200, will go to Rowan’s Hospice and Gosport and Fareham Women’s Aid refuges.