Members of the Soroptimist International Solent East club supported the NSPCC Walk for Children 2021. Five club members gathered at the Cams Mill pub on Sunday 19 December, and walked at least 5km round Fareham creek, to raise sponsorship money.  The initial target was to raise £100, but the final total of donations and gift aid was about £470. Well done ladies!The NSPCC’s Walk for Children is designed to raise money to help protect children from abuse. For children facing abuse, the winter nights are dark, long and lonely.  For those children, every night feels like the longest. So, close to the longest night of the year, on 21 December, the walkers were out to raise money. How NSPCC use the donations:– £4 could pay for a trained volunteer counsellor to answer a child’s call for help to Childline;– £27 could pay for a Childline

The club supports Re-engage, usually entertaining the local groups to tea in the summer.  Visitors come from Southampton as well as the Gosport and Fareham group.  When it comes to Christmas we arrange for gifts to be delivered to all those who come to our teas. The picture shows club members Rosemary and Alison with the decorated bags full of Christmas goodies, ready to be distributed.

We were happy to welcome Shamila Dhana to our December meeting to talk about refugees and the work of Portsmouth City of Sanctuary. She was a migrant herself, arriving in the UK in 2003 from Zimbabwe. She was passionate to speak the truth about migrants. There are many terms used, often wrongly, for a refugee, or asylum seeker, migrant or illegal. The main definition comes from the refugee convention of 1941, followed by a protocol a few years later. It defines a Refugee as someone out of their country of birth, with a well-founded fear of persecution, against race, nationality, political group, religion or sexual orientation. It may seem like the UK has a big problem, particularly with those trying to cross the English Channel, but we are not even in the top 10 countries for arriving refugees; Turkey leads the table with about 6

About 60 people gathered today in Lee-on-the-Solent to remember Rosemary Hampton (10 May 1930 – 16 June 2020). There were reminiscences from her sister Jen and three daughters Fiona, Judy and Nicki. We then raised a glass to her, as she had for her ninetieth birthday last year, and had tea.

The club would normally have hosted a large tea party in August for the local groups from Re-engage (previously Contact the Elderly).  This was not possible this year, particularly at the scale we used to host at the Wheelhouse at Hill Head.  However, club member Carolyne held a small tea party at her home with 2 other club members, Rosemary and Alison.  There were 5 guests who came along, to the first tea party in 18 months.

Our club meeting in July was always a walk followed by a pub supper.  This year we decided to go ahead with the same format, after the COVID restrictions were lifted.  And so it was that members of the club, and a few partners, gathered at The Ship Inn at Langstone for a short walk to the mill and back before supper.  The meal was technically outside, but thankfully under cover in a marquee.  It was good to see everybody!

At the club meeting in June, on Zoom, we heard from Sophie Lombard, the owner of Confiserie Verdonk in Wickham Square.  She and her mother (now retired) have run the chocolate shop there for the last 20 years.  The original Belgian owner, who gave the place its name, started the business some years earlier.  Mr Verdonk and all subsequent owners have been purveyors of top quality Belgian chocolates. There have been hard times, when trying to expand to another shop in Southsea, and through the 2008 recession, Brexit and COVID-19.  Friends in the Square helped out during the pandemic, allowing Click and Collect while the shop was shut, when Sophie set up a website.  She has seen profits eroded by increased costs due to currency fluctuations and Brexit paperwork, but has stuck to a quality product with a continental style of packaging.  See the box

At the club meeting in May, on Zoom, we heard from Dave Stubington, the Gosport Borough Council arborist who arranged for our 3 cherry trees to be planted in Lee-on-the-Solent Recreation Ground. They will need some tending over the next few years, but Dave and his team will be there to make sure they get established.He had started work with no particular interest in trees, but ended up responsible for over 70,000 of them! The storm of 1987 had seen him called out at 2am to collect a chain saw and deal with all the fallen and hung-up trees.  He went on to study at Sparsholt College, and after he qualified, he took the new role of Tree Officer for the council.