Tonight was our christmas meeting. Purely social, no business and we enjoyed a festive meal & great company. We also ‘enjoyed’ 2 of Cathy’s annual quizzes which were really difficult this year with lots of groans when she revealed the answers! Luckily she rewarded us all with chocolate…. The lovely work you can see on this bauble was done by our Jan and she wanted the 6 she had made to be raffled/auctioned. President Sharon had taken them home the previous month and a friend offered £25 for them! This money will go into the President’s charity fund for Southend YMCA. Thank you Jan!  

Tonight’s meeting was all about wrapping and packing! We wrapped up christmas gifts for the hospital, made up toiletry bags for the hospital and packed pre loved handbags with goodies for the One Love Soup Kitchen, who help Southend’s homeless population. Leftover wrapping paper  went to Southend YMCA for them to wrap gifts for their young people. Prior to the wrapping we held our business meeting where we got through a vast amount of programme action. Look for an update on that after the January meeting. We also discussed the brilliant SIGBI conference in Liverpool.

Our speaker this month was former model Carla Cressy who told us all about her terrible struggles with endometriosis which lead her to set up her own charity – ‘Women with Endometriosis’. Not only does she support women suffering from the effects of the disease she is also raising awareness of the disease which will hopefully increase early diagnosis rates. Sir David Amess is a trustee of the charity and has helped Carla speak at Government level. She has also made contact with New York based Dr Masahide Kanayama, one of the world’s leading specialists in endometriosis and he has agreed to be linked to the charity and its important work.

Back after the summer break our speaker tonight was Alison Griffin who is the first woman to hold the position of CEO & Town Clerk of Southend-on-Sea Borough Council. She was a very interesting, informative and witty speaker who clearly enjoys her job. She gave us an insight into her role and an update on what will be happening in the Borough in the future. After Alison had ben thanked we moved on to our business meeting where a lively discussion on the future of regions ensued!

Busy day! Teams worked hard to distribute Loves Me Loves Me Not bookmarks in Southend to celebrate UN International Youth Day. We announced our Give Away on BBC Essex on 1st August at 3.15pm and were outside Waterstones Bookshop in Southend High Street on Saturday 12th August – UN International Youth Day giving out our Loves Me Loves Me Not bookmarks in support of Relationships Education for every child.

August Update! Many thanks to all the women who have supported us again [pardon the pun!] More bras boxed up and ready to go – What an event! For International Women’s day this year we collected over 1000 pre-loved bras in the Royals and the Civic Centre. The bras will go to S I Poole for the Purple Teardrop campaign, which supports women in Kenya. Forty of them have set up small businesses to recycle the bras, employing other women. This means they can feed their families, keep their children in education and avoid the dangers of trafficking and the lure of the sex-trade. Our local Mayor and local MP came along to support and signed the Purple Teardrop petition to Ban Sex-for-Sale Advertising. A Great Project! THANK YOU EVERYONE! And a thank you from Poole Soroptimist club …. Southend Soroptimists come to Poole Tuesday,

Really pleased with the sixth form college’s news item about our visit yesterday. Follow the link http://www.seevic-college.ac.uk/news/news-stories/2017/01/live-creative-help-sos-bus.aspx or find Seevic and go to the News tab. Well done students and thank you club members Susan and President Sharon for promoting the project with John and the SOS Buses.

Lovely to visit Seevic, the sixth form college to meet Level 1 Games students, who have been developing two games for our President’s project, as part of their ‘Working for a client’ work. The games track a teenager’s progress through the streets to the local SOS Buses. John Bastian, manager of the SOS Buses project joined President Sharon to present certificates to students and to thank them for their work on the project last term. Seen here with their tutor and Soroptimist member, Susan.

Several of us [wo]manned our stall at the Community Event held in Priory Park on Sunday 18th September. Our updated display boards and enthusiastic members attracted a good crowd and generated quite a lot of interest in our projects.