The culmination of our fundraising activities for the year took place in early April with cheques presentations to the following local charities: Southport Offshore Rescue Trust SWACA (Sefton Women & Children’s Aid) Headway Light for Life The Marian Care Centre Claire House We were also delighted to present a cheque to President Paulene’s charity, the Dewi Jones Unit at Alder Hey Hospital. This unit is an inpatient mental health facility, designed for children and young people who are going through difficult times.  

SI Southport held their biennial ‘Celebrity Auction’ in aid of raising funds for local charities. This year our celebrity auctioneers were Flanagan and Allen  – also known as Jean Tweddell and Margaret Davies – who encouraged the bidding, as well as interspersing the sale with some lively singing. There were over 100 lots on offer – everything from kitchen items, jewellery, clothing and toys, plus some ‘promises’ of delicious meals and desserts – and members and their friends were very generous. Great fun was had by all and over £750 was raised for local charities. Many thanks to all who attended and donated lots to make it such a successful evening.                

Regional President Margaret’s Rose Bowl Challenge this year was to ‘Walk a Memorable Mile’ and spread the word about our organisation along the way. SI Southport members decided to walk along iconic Lord Street in Southport (a ‘measured’ mile between the roundabouts), handing out leaflets about Soroptimist International and the work we do. The dress code was predominantly blue – with sashes and ‘Ask Me Why’ t-shirts as the uniform. As this is for the Rose Bowl Challenge, Membership Officer Carol Cookson has submitted a full report, so I attach just a few photos of event. We had a very happy morning of friendship and camaraderie and hopefully passed on in a very public and visible way the wonderful work of SI, not just locally but nationally and internationally.

Member Heather Shulver very kindly hosted a BBQ in September in her beautiful garden to raise some funds for the Meru Women’s Garden Project. We raised £465 from the event, including £150 on the raffle and £40 from the sale of knitted cactus!

Have you ever tried the ancient art of sabrage? Neither had most of a group of 15 Southport Soroptimists, plus husbands and friends until they embarked on a trip to Reims at the end of April.  Sabrage is the ancient art of decapitation (of a bottle of champagne) with a sabre. In total about 25 bottles of champagne were ‘sabraged’ and, in true Soroptimist style, not a lot wasted! Of course, we needed to make best use of the residual champagne, which was disposed of with great efficiency along with a splendid 3 course meal! In total, 3 champagne houses were visited as part of the 4 day tour and there was also time to visit the main sites in the town. The trip was organised by Beata Kowalska of Southport Soroptimists and a merry time was had by all.  We arrived back in Southport, tired but

Edge Hill University are celebrating 100 years of women’s right to vote in 2018, and they invited SI Southport to their ‘Wonder Women’ launch event on 6th February, exactly 100 years after some women received the vote. Our stall was set up in Hale Hall with a number of others, including a range of organisations, staff and students linked to women’s rights and campaigning. We had a very productive session, explaining the work of Soroptimist International on local, national and international levels and had a lot of enquiries from women of all ages. This proved to be a really good mechanism for introducing Soroptimism to our local communities and we hope we will have the opportunity to participate in similar events.