Liz Batten writes: “I was so sorry to hear of the recent tragic death on Good Friday of Vida Alford, who was the last President of SI Salisbury before it closed some eight years ago. Vida, who was in her eighties, was killed in a car accident in mid Wales in a collision with another car. Her daughter in law Gillian was killed in the same accident and her son was injured. The driver and passenger of the other car, a women driving her young grandson, were also both killed. Some members of the region will recall Vida, I had not met her, but I had quite recently spoken to her on the phone on a couple of occasions to talk to her about the plans to establish a new club in Salisbury. She had been delighted to hear of our plans and wished us

We knew that we had set ourselves something of a challenge when Region decided to launch the VIP (Volunteering in Pretoria) project. Finding the most suitable candidate to support women and children in the Gauteng Province of South Africa in a voluntary capacity was never going to be easy. Firstly, we had to overcome the obstacle of Soroptimist International being a ‘very well kept secret’! You can imagine the puzzled expressions and the comments – “Who are these people who want to send our daughter to foreign parts?” Also, VIP is a new initiative with no history and no available feedback from previous volunteers. How do you attract enthusiastic applicants to such a scheme? How do you persuade colleges and universities to promote the project, instead of pressing the ‘delete’ button? But then Mia came along. She is a student at Godalming College and will

Epsom Soroptimists are really proud of the part they have played in the setting up of My Time for Young Carers. They have been central to the management of the project from the very beginning and members have given practical support that has enabled the charity to grow. It could be said that young carers are the invisible children in our community.   When people are asked if they know any young carers, their faces go blank. Even professionals are likely to miss indicators that suggest that the home situations of the youngsters that they know or support are causing them stress or hardship. So many people think that young carers are only labelled as such if they carry out personal care for parents or siblings or take on an unusually large proportion of household chores. Although this is sadly the case for far too many

Members of the SI Winchester club enjoyed a fascinating tour of the conservation centre at the Briitish Library, led by Dr Cordelia Robertson. Researcher Vania demonstrated the painstaking assembly of manuscript fragments found on the ancient Silk Route and, in another section we saw how high tech imaging revealed hidden life drawings in a Leonardo da Vinci sketch book.