Lively business meeting again after a very interesting & informative talk by Carmel from Havens Hospices. We have long had a link with the hospice so it was great to get an update on their new building with all its planned facilities. Lots more programme action to come, starting with a stand at The Royals in Southend on Saturday March 9th celebrating International Women’s Day. We will be there from 10.30 to 3.30 and we are asking people to donate individual chocolate bars, cereal bars, packets of crisps, cartons of drink with straws, pot noodles, cup ‘a’ soups and small roll on deodorants – all for the One Love Soup Kitchen helping the homeless in Southend.

Unfortunately our speaker was unable to join us tonight due to problems at work. However, we had 7 guests which was fantastic and we were able to take longer over dinner to chat and catch up with each other after our Christmas break. We discussed all our recent programme action work and set out our thoughts and ideas for the coming months. It was a great way for our guests to learn all about us and what we do and there are some good plans in the pipeline. Our next major event will be a stand in The Royals in Southend on Saturday March 9th to raise awareness of the club and celebrate International Women’s Day. More details to follow next month!

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!