Soroptimist International St Albans and District had two face to face meet ups in one week – what a change from a year ago!
On Monday 11 Oct we were delighted to be able to welcome our new Member Maria Podrajanskaya – pictured here accepting the hand of friendship from SI St Albans President, Barbara Saunders OBE. Maria (known as Masha) is originally from Moscow. She lived in Paris for 3 years before moving to St Albans with her husband and 4 year old daughter last year. Masha’s work experience is in digital marketing and she is passionate about wanting to build a better world for women and girls – so we know she will be a wonderful asset to our organisation.
Club Members introduced themselves and Barbara led the formal part of the induction proceedings. When we welcome a new Member we are for all reminded about why we are Members of the Soroptimist worldwide organisation with the common goal of transforming the lives of women and girls. We always read out the Soroptimist Vision and Mission at the start of our meetings for the same reason. Welcome Masha!
The Club meeting started at 7.30pm (instead of 8pm) – this is something we are trying out so any feedback will be gratefully received!
Barbara led a thought provoking session on mental health – marking World Mental Health Day on 10 Oct. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.
After an open group discussion where we all shared our thoughts on how we define mental health, Barbara asked us to think about two questions: 1. what does the current focus on mental health mean to us? how does it make us feel? and 2. should we be addressing mental health as Soroptimists?
There were 13 of us at the meeting so Barbara split us into 3 groups of 4 and she moved between the groups as the facilitator. The group discussions were lively and open. Each group then fed back to the others. Notes from this session will be circulated to Club Members by email.
To improve our own mental health after these tough discussion our Member Bev Keech, an Alexander Technique teacher, led us through a wonderful 5 minute relaxation session before coffee. We are fortunate to have Members with great skills in our Club!
After coffee we covered Club business and forthcoming events (see Club Programme). Everyone agreed it was an excellent meeting and really good to be meeting face to face again!
For the full notes please click here: Club discussion about Mental Health 11 October
On Thursday 14 Oct, Sarah Lichman organised a “Tree Walk” in Highfield Park on behalf of the Club’s Planet Team. This event made a lovely change from our monthly coffee mornings. There were 10 of us – 8 Soroptimists, 2 Soroptimisters and 1 Soroptimist friend. We are pictured here under a splendid old copper beech tree.
If you were unable to join us and would like to do the walk yourself the address is Russet Dr, St Albans AL4 0DB and you can download the Tree Trail from the Highfield Park Trust website www.highfieldparktrust.co.uk/tree-trail