Our last fund-raising event of the Soroptimist year was a fun Race Night, which we organised in collaboration with our friends from Southport Lions. It was a brilliant evening. We had six thrilling races, each sponsored by a local business or organisation. The eight horses in each race were named and ‘owned’ by members, friends and guests – each took their responsibilities very seriously (especially as the winning ‘owner’ was awarded a celebratory bottle of champagne). The seventh race was an auction, with the audience bidding for the horses – and the winning owner receiving a proportion of the auction takings! The tote was in full swing all night, with bets placed, hopes raised, and winnings paid out immediately — no stewards’ enquiries, one or two photo finishes and  good old‑fashioned excitement – plus the occasional triumphant cheer. We enjoyed real race footage on the

At our AGM in April, President Lisette Muddiman presented Long Service Award certificates to 5 members of SI Southport, who between them have dedicated 215 years of continuous service to SIGBI. Congratulations to: Arlene Allan, who joined SI Southport in 1991 – 35 years as a Soroptimist Joan Lunt, who joined SI Bootle in 1986 and then transferred to other clubs, re-joining SI Southport recently – 40 years as a Soroptimist Ghislaine Fletcher, who joined SI Southport in 1986 – 40 years as a Soroptimist And our two ‘Golden Girls’: Ann Bryan, who has given 50 years of service, joining SI Southport in 1976 Jean Tweddell, who joined SI Carshalton in 1976 and transferred to SI Southport in 1980 Many congratulations to these awesome ladies, who have contributed so much to the work of Soroptimist International locally, nationally and internationally – and still do!

As has been the tradition for many few years, we schedule a Christmas event in November for those who like start planning early for the festive season. As last year, the 2024 event was ‘re-branded’ as a Christmas Market and superbly organised by members, Doreen Roberts and Janet Williams. As well as our popular ‘home-made produce’ stall, brimming over with delicious cakes, biscuits and preserves prepared by our members, we also had stalls of scarves, jewellery, Christmas flowers, boxed games and Chinese crafts and delicacies, as well as a bottle tombola and a hamper raffle.  Our young visitors were especially welcome – we had a ‘Children’s Corner’, with a name-the-elephant competition, plus games and crafts to keep the little ones occupied whilst their parents and grandparents were browsing and shopping. Refreshments, including mince pies and shortbread, were in good supply, thanks to our catering team.

This is the second year that Southport Soroptimists have worked in conjunction with The Arts Society Southport and Compassion Acts, who run the local Food Hub and Pantries around the town to distribute packs of free art materials to primary age children. The reasoning behind the project was, with the cost-of-living crisis and the expense of keeping younger children occupied during the long school summer holidays, buying paper pens and crayons may not be a priority for parents. To make the project more inclusive, the children could also enter an art competition with the possibility of winning vouchers for further art materials if they wished. The benefit of working as a group meant that the three societies were able to provide help and expertise in different areas. The Arts Society sourced and collected the contents of the bags and set the competition, whilst the Soroptimists

In line with SI South Lancs President Pam Wrights’s theme for her year, SI Southport ‘ROSE UP AND ROARED’ as we welcomed the Chinese Year of the Dragon in great style in mid-February 2024. As a pre-cursor, President Agnes Ng gave club members an introduction to the Chinese New Year, which marks the beginning of the year based on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar.  It is very complicated! To celebrate the start of the New Year, President Agnes hosted a magnificent celebration dinner, with over 130 guests, including the Mayor of Sefton, Cllr June Burns, and her consort and SI South Lancashire President Pam Wright. It was held at ‘Valhalla’ at Southport’s Pleasureland. The room was adorned with red Chinese lanterns and lots of gold and red balloons and the video wall showed some a continuous loop of traditional celebrations. Our guests were greeted by

With thanks to President Agnes, we celebrated in style with a festive buffet!!! We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy, successful and peaceful 2024.

Once again, SI Southport is sad to report a great loss, with the devastating news of the untimely passing of our dear friend and dedicated member, Margaret Davies. Many of us have wonderful memories of Margaret. She had been a member of SI Southport for many years, working tirelessly on the Executive, leading the club in 2008/9 and rising to the lofty heights of Regional President just a few years ago. With her organisational skills, combined with her caring, patient and compassionate nature (amongst other qualities), she was not only an outstanding Soroptimist but also a truly special person and friend. Barbara Welby presented this tribute to Margaret at our meeting at the start of November: “I first met Margaret when we worked at college on a joint cooking project with children from Merefield Special School. She was lively, friendly and caring. She knew of

SI Southport has been working closely with the charity Against Breast Cancer and, as October was breast cancer awareness month, we decided to ‘go pink’. Bernie’s pink Bra Banks have been established in Southport for well over a year and she established some extra venues for October. All our amazing and supportive embraced Breast Cancer Awareness Month and held special events to support the campaign including the following: – The Imperial Hotel hold a monthly Car Boot sale and the proceeds from their last event were donated to the ABC charity – The Bijou cinema screened ‘Grease’, with the proceeds donated to the ABC Charity – The Richmond took a Bra Bank during October and collected 3 bags full of bras at their Pensioners’ Lunch – The Grand hosted a bra bank and coloured their lights pink. Additionally, the Atkinson, our wonderful arts centre on

The last meeting of President Carol Cookson’s year celebrated our fund-raising efforts. Heather Shulver and her team prepared a wonderful West African buffet and gave us an update on the Don McMath School in the Gambia. For a number of years, our club has sponsored girls at the Don McMath School to progress their education through both primary and senior schools. It is always rewarding to read the girls’ reports – and to receive some lovely photos.           We invited as our guests the recipients of our fund-raising activities. Cheques were presented to Riding for the Disabled, Samaritans, Alzheimer’s Society and Compassion Acts . The last presentation was made at the May meeting to the Learning Rooms, Southport. They gave an excellent presentation in the form of a video and then answered questions from SI Southport members. Well done to the team