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

Superdrug are committed to recycling the waste from all of their activities. When they announced that they would be collecting and recycling empty medicine blister packets, SI Southport members sprang into action. Boxes and bags have been placed in the clubroom and members have been collecting blister packs by the score. Periodically, PA Chair Heather Shulver and IPP Rosemary Moore collect the bags and deliver them to the Superdrug Pharmacy in Southport. The most recent delivery was last week – Heather, laden with bags, paid a visit to Superdrug.               Superdrug have dedicated collection boxes in every pharmacy – for more information about Superdrug’s recycling commitments, please click here.

In early December, we celebrated International night with a Danish theme to celebrate our longest standing friendship link with SI Horsens. We were delighted to welcome guests Denise Parker, President of SI South Lancs, Carol Tynan, President of Southport Inner Wheel and Eleanor King from SI Widnes.