The Club is having an active summer so please scroll through this blog to find out more…
Food for thought at a Plant-based shared meal and Success at the latest Repair Fair
The Club’s Planet Team have been busy this summer with two successful events – a bring and share plant-based meal on 28th July and the return of the Repair Fair to the St Albans URC on Sat 28 June.
On 28th July members sat down to a bring and share plant-based meal, enjoying convivial company whilst learning about the need for everyone to reduce their intake of meat and fish.
We were delighted to welcome new member Gill Arukpe to the meal, her first meeting. Gill was a guest speaker at the SI London Chilterns Regional Meeting in June (click her to read about it https://sigbi.org/london-chilterns/jun25/) and was so taken by what she heard about Soroptimists and the Club she quickly decided to join.
Watching some of the hard hitting documentary “Eating to extinction” https://eating2extinction.com/ showed members the dramatic impact on the world’s rainforests and the ocean of growing soya to support meat production, the massive reduction of fish living in the oceans because of industrial scale fishing and the alarming influence the vested interests of the food industry have on national and international environmental planning.
In a snippet from a Zoe podcast, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shared his passion for the new evidence-based push for “30 plants per week” to support a healthy microbiome, showing how changing our diets can support our health as well as the planet’s.
In a discussion, members were concerned that children may not find out about plant-based foods as they aren’t always taught how to prepare simple nutritious meals, that the cost of plant-based ingredients may be prohibitive for many, although a fully plant-based diet is always going to be cheaper than a meat-based one, and that vegan or vegetarian alternatives to meat may not always be healthy because they are processed. However, everyone agreed that the dishes they had tasted during the meal, which were entirely or mostly plant-based and almost all prepared from scratch, were delicious and offered some great options if you wanted to reduce your intake of meat and fish.
The Team shared some good advice from BBC Good Food on how to eat less meat and fish and some links to good vegan and vegetarian recipes as an encouragement to members, as well as links to further reading on the issues involved – please click on the links to view the two attached documents: Meat free alternatives and recipes and Hows about going Flexitarian.
Members went home happy after the meal, with something to think about and suggesting that another bring and share meal would be a popular choice for a future meeting.
There was also a real buzz at the latest Repair Fair on 28 June hosted by St Albans URC Greenwood and Soroptimist Club members. The afternoon session was a great success with 25 items fixed on site and an estimated 43kg of waste and 350kg of carbon emissions prevented., sustained Fixers and owners throughout the afternoon.
With the help of our Club’s cashless payment option, appreciative owners donated an amazing £264.29: almost twice as much as was raised at last year’s fair and more than the average amount raised at other Repair Fairs held in the St Albans area. Half the proceeds go to the Fixers & Sustainable St Albans and the other half to a charity of the URC and our Club’s choice.
Our joint donation choice is to use the funds to twin the Greenwood Park Community Garden with a garden in rural Africa through the charity Ripple Effect, providing a family with three years training in sustainable organic farming and hope for the future.
https://rippleeffect.org/gifts/twin-my-community-garde2/
Please scroll down to see the plaque being presented.
The comfortable facilities at the URC’s new Church Hall, the yummy refreshments on offer, many supplied by Club members, and the donation success mean the Fixers and the Repair Fair will definitely be back at the URC next year.
The photo above is of our special member Anna welcoming owners to the Repair Fair which she has spearhead for the last 2 years. Earlier in June, Anna won the second St Albans Ember Eco Award 2025 for her unflinching commitment to sustainability and the planet. Please click the link to read the news item about it in the St Albans Times: https://stalbanstimes.co.uk/st-albans/church-environment-lead-claims-latest-ember-eco-award/. Her citation reads: “Anna is a tireless champion for all things ‘green’ and her list of achievements is certainly impressive and has proved more than worthy of the award”.
In characteristically humble fashion Anna’s reaction on receiving the award was: “I believe that if we all do our best to keep doing little things and encourage other individuals in the communities around us to do little things we can have a hope for the generations that follow us.”
Friendship Visit from SI Muenster
Also in July, Soroptimist, Eva Hoffman, paid a return visit to the UK with her daughter, Eva and her friend, Moonya. Our Member, Barbara Saunders kindly gave them home hospitality – a great way to deepen the cultural exchange of Soroptimist Friendship Links. Eva brought a formal invitation from Kathrin Schepers, (President 2025/26) for members of our Club, to join SI Muenster for their 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2026. Events for 26 and 27th June are already organised and include a celebratory evening at the historic city hall, otherwise known as the Peace Hall where in 1648 the Treaty of Muenster was signed, ending the Thirty Years War in Western Europe.
The three visitors joined host Barbara Saunders and other members of SI St Albans and District for a healthy lunch in St Albans. They followed it up with some friendly banter with two local policemen who happened to be on duty walking in George Street (the girls having not seen policemen in full uniform before), before an even more entertaining visit to the Museum where the visitors stood in the dock in the historic courtroom, and went down the narrow stairs to visit the cells. A beautiful folk song has been written to commemorate some of those treated harshly by Victorian justice, including a child of twelve transported for stealing a lollipop. The song has been recorded and plays in one of the cells.
After a couple of days sight-seeing in London, the weather held out and the visit concluded in the local countryside. Mia and Moonya (both aged 15) discovered the fun of kite-flying on Dunstable Downs before feeding the ducks and geese on Tring Reservoirs, and chatting to holidaymakers and locals on house-boats on the canal. It was a short, but entertaining visit for us all, sharing cultural and social pleasures which underline why Friendship Links are so valuable.
Presentation of the Garden Twinning Plaque to the Grow Chiswell Green Community Garden in Greenwood Park
Planet Team members were able to celebrate the Garden Twinning with Christy Mitchell & other Greenwood Park, Grow Chiswell Green Community Garden volunteers at their open garden event on Sunday 3rd August. The Ripple Effect garden twinning was funded by donations from the Repair Fair (see above). Soroptimists Helen Byrne and Janet Tansley are pictured here on the right handing over the Garden Twinning Plaque to Christie which will be displayed on the garden gate. Christy spoke to the Club in February 2024 https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/2024/12feb24/ and then the Club had a picnic at the Community Garden in June 2024 https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/2024/jun24/.