Congratulations were the order of the day at the club’s September business meeting. Treasurer Ann Pibworth revealed that Rosemary Bell, pictured, had been a Soroptimist for forty years, making her the club’s longest serving member. Veteran Rosemary has served the club well in a number of roles including president and membership secretary.
The annual Contact Tea Party organised by S.I. Solent East was held at the Wheelhouse at Hill Head on on a lovely warm summer’s day in August and members worked hard to prepare the venue providing afternoon tea for 24 members of the Gosport and Fareham Contact the Elderly group and their drivers. They all enjoy the annual visit to Hill Head with the view of the sea and sounds of children playing on the beach. Club members had made a variety of sandwiches, egg mayonnaise, ham and tomato, salmon and cream cheese as well as scones with jam and cream, chocolate sponge, lemon drizzle, coffee and walnut cakes and lots of tea. The members attending really enjoy their visit to the sea and talk about it for many months and always look forward to the next visit.
The club supper meeting in July includes a local walk. On our walk this year we learnt about the history of Wickham, starting from Neolithic times but mostly spotting Georgian houses, or older ones with new facades added in that period. We learnt to spot early examples because of the windows flush with the brickwork and ‘catslide’ roofs which covered extensions to the back of houses. Apparently the layout of the square was originally defined in 1269 when the royal charter was granted to run a market and the annual fair. There are still signs of the burgage plots around the square, being a plot of land enough to feed a family with vegetables for a year and a pig! A fascinating tour by Mike Hollis of the Wickham History Society. We then enjoyed a hearty dinner at the Square Cow.
Malcolm Brandt, a former water civil engineer and volunteer for WaterAid, told the club about its current campaign to bring safe water, sanitation and hygiene to all those in Rwanda who did not have it. Regrettably one in nine people still do not have access to safe water and sanitation. Starting with birthing centres in 2015 because of the high neonatal deaths WaterAid has been gradually extending its work and now proposes extending it to the provision of safe water and sanitation coupled with training in hygiene to schools so that all children will have access to safe water and sanitation. Only ten per cent of the projects they propose have been started as yet. Apart from improved health to the community and a reduction in the waste of time currently being expended in fetching water from the nearest source, the projects will result in
Intrepid wild swimmer and club member Ros Hardiman hopes to be taking on the challenges of Loch Ness this summer. She is due to ‘meet the monster’ in an encounter planned for late June / early July. Whilst there is no guarantee of being allowed to swim any part of the great Loch, the Paralympian swimmer will take her chances! Training continues at Dover, where this photograph was taken. The club fully supports her efforts, and is looking to use the personal challenge to raise awareness of the WaterAid project in Rwanda we are supporting. For instance, the WaterAid project aims to reach 81,900 primary school children, which is about one for every metre around the loch (approximately 72,600m based on its full length and widest point). The project plans to install rainwater harvesting systems in 41 schools; and a further 11 schools will be
A once in a lifetime experience and great volunteering opportunity in South Africa! Enhance your CV and spend six months in Pretoria. A unique opportunity for two young women aged 18 – 25 to volunteer as interns in a six-month placement from January to July 2019, in two schools and at Lerato House, Pretoria, South Africa. The successful candidates will need to contribute £1,500 towards the overall costs, but all accommodation will be provided as well as flights by Soroptimist International of Southern England. The interns will need to cover all medical, insurance and visa costs that are incurred prior to departure. Find out more here: https://sigbi.org/southern-en…/vip-volunteering-in-pretoria/ Closing date for applications 10 July 2018
Soroptimist International of Gosport, Fareham and District celebrated their final year under that name at their AGM in April. They have relaunched the club under its new punchier name SI Solent East with a brand-new logo. The club reviewed their achievements over the year but longstanding member Rosemary Bell reminded members about the history and achievements of the club over the past 44 years of its existence. The following members were elected to the club’s Executive committee which runs the club in the absence of a president: Stella Astbury, Pam Grosvenor, Rosalinda Hardiman, Ann Pibworth, Carolyne Trew and Christine White. Ann Pibworth was elected Treasurer, and Tracy Gardiner and Audrey Welsh regional representatives.
The Final Straw Solent beach clean. The second speaker at our relaunch party was Bianca Carr from The Final Straw Solent. She recently started a campaign to highlight the growing problems caused by single use and throw away plastics. Her group raises awareness and gets local businesses to stop giving out plastic straws, and she has started to organise regular beach cleans. We joined the latest one today at Eastney beach, to support this good cause and reduce the plastic waste being blown into the sea. This photo has already appeared on our Facebook page and been shared by The Final Straw Solent on their page, raising awareness of Soroptimists taking action.
As part of the Club’s effort to develop in challenging times, we decided to change our name from the rather cumbersome SI Gosport, Fareham and District to SI Solent East. We felt that this better reflected the area that we draw our membership from. As is the Soroptimist way – this means a party! So on the 28th April we gathered at Port House in Port Solent for our event, this was also to publicise our theme of ‘water’. This will form the focus for the Club’s activities for the next few years at least. The UN has defined a number of Sustainable Development Goals and number 6 is Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 Anyway back to the party – Tracy was our very capable host who managed to keep Ian Limb from Portsmouth Water from talking past
On 15 February we hosted Ian Limb from Portsmouth Water who gave us an insight into how the rain that falls from the sky is treated and transported and is there whenever we turn on the tap. Locally every person uses about 168 litres of water per day (compared with 140 litres for the rest of the UK or 125 litres in France). The tap water we have is ‘hard’ water because of the chalk in the area and costs about 55p for 1000 litres, which makes you wonder why we buy so much of it in single use bottles. There three main sources of water for the Portsmouth Water area the River Itchen for the West, Brockhampton Springs in Havant (for most of us) and a borehole for the Denmead area. The river is classed as ‘dirty’ water as it doesn’t come out of
