On Monday 15th April the Club held its 67th Annual General Meeting. It was held at Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre.
New Member Induction: We were delighted to start the AGM by officially welcoming new Member Deirdre Millar to our Club. Deirdre found out about Soroptimists when Denise Powell asked the choir they are both members of to wear orange for our “Orange the World” campaign last November https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/2023/orange23/
Denise is pictured here left of Deirdre and Barbara Saunders who was leading the meeting is on the right.
Most of Deirdre’s working life has been spent in social care in local government, some front line, but mostly Commissioning future services and quality marking services and managing teams of people who do this. Deirdre is looking forward to getting to know Soroptimists and they are looking forward to getting to know her. We are sure that Deirdre’s experience will be really valuable for Club projects.
Liz Perry from the SAHWR Women’s Refuge gave us an update and we were proud to be able to present her with a cheque for £1500 from our fundraising efforts in the last year. The Club’s Treasurer Sarah Lichman is pictured here presenting Liz with the cheque.
SAHWR is now under Safer Places but the ethos has not changed – the houses are homes for women and children seeking refuge from domestic abuse.
Liz is in her 25th year at the Refuge, having done her social work placement there. She described the women who arrive as startled in headlights, but once they become accustomed to being safe then they become chatty and they blossom. Refuge is often a place to repair the relationship between mother and child.
SAHWR has 26 family spaces across St Albans, Hertsmere & Dacorum plus some individual places too. The largest space is for a mum with 5 children. There has been big increase in women with complex needs – drugs, mental health. Also lots of kids with special needs labels e.g. ADHD etc. It is a big problem getting kids into school so they can be out of school for quite a long time. SAHWR has 4 fabulous support workers who have a great relationship with the children and provide therapy in creative ways. Liz said that every women is amazing, they have to be brave to leave – sometimes travelling a long way away by car or on a train to get to a safe place.
Women should only be with the Refuge for 4 months but are often with them for longer otherwise they go into a hotel, and can end up staying for 6-8 months.
The outreach service is still working well – SAHWR are directly contracted with Herts County Council for St Albans and Dacorum and Hertsmere is subcontracted. St Albans & Dacorum are their busiest areas. Mind in Mid Herts provide the outreach service for Watford and Three Rivers.
They run programmes in the community for victims – the 3 Rs – Recognition, Recovery & Resilience and an extra module on the impact on children.
Liz was asked about the status of their Contract with Herts County Council and she said they are waiting to hear if their contract is being extended. It takes quite a bit of time which is very unsettling for everyone. There was a comment that it will be interesting to see what happens with the new Police and Crime Commissioner (elections are in May). SAHWR has 26 of the commissioned 94 spaces in the county.
As always Liz was grateful for the money we donate to them, plus gifts at Christmas and tea, coffee and toiletries all year round. Liz reminded us that we offered to support them as our main Club charity for 1 year in 2009, and have continued every since! Last year’s money went towards revamping the playroom and making the houses feel like homes. Liz 
was delighted with the latest donations (she is pictured here with Jean Eaton, the Club’s liaison with the Refuge). She always says the best way to address a crisis is to sit down with a cup of tea!
The tray of children’s books were donated by the Harpenden and St Albans Lions – and passed on by Denise Powell whose husband John is a Harpenden Lion. They both volunteer at the Lions charity bookshop in the Marlowes in Hemel Hempstead https://lionsbookshop.org/
After the AGM Liz sent us a delightful thank you letter – please click here to read in full Thank you Soroptimists from SAHWR it includes pictures of the joyous playroom, referred to above, recently refurbished with some of the money we raised for the Refuge last year.
Annual General Meeting – reports were circulated ahead of the meeting and Members can access the reports in the Members area of this website. It was inspiring to hear how much the Club had achieved in just one year!
The accounts for the last year were presented and approved.
Our Treasurer Sarah Lichman reported that we do not see our aim as a Club to be primarily fund raising, however we have we have had a really good year and have been able to donate an amazing £4,790 to causes that align well with the Soroptimist Vision and Mission. Our significant donations were £1,000 to the St Albans Women’s cricket team as sponsorship for a 2-year term, £3380 to the Refuge in total and £1,000 in end of year donations (£100 each to 10 local charities.) We had 5 successful speaker events and with donations from attendees plus a Club contribution, we were able to give a total of £610 to charities relevant to the meetings. We added £100 to Lend With Care and gave £200 to the SI Foundation.
Programme Action: Our Club Project, the Orange the World campaign to end violence against women was our best ever in 2023 – click here to read more https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/2023/orange23/
We have submitted 23 Programme Focus reports which is the most we have done. The projects are a good spread across the range of hands on service projects, money raising, advocacy and awareness raising and across the the Peace, Planet and People Team project areas – click here for more about the teams https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/about-our-club/project-teams/
Officers were re-elected and Janet Tansley and Beverley Keech put themselves forward too – click here to see the Officers of the Club https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/about-our-club/club-officers/
The meeting was wrapped up with a reminder of forthcoming events – dates for diaries for the new Club year are on the website https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/club-programme/
Sarah put a plea out to people to start collecting paper back novels and children’s books in preparation for our bookstall on 22 June.
After the business part of the meeting snacks and refreshments were enjoyed by everyone to celebrate all that the Club achieved in the last year.