St Austell & District’s 2024 Unsung Heroine Awards ceremony was a sparkling success at the start of March. Keira Georgiou was the winner of the youth category. Regional President Margaret presented her with a trophy and flowers. Samantha Smith was the winner of the adult category with Carolyn Boyce given a highly commended award. Guest, Mark Hewson, representing headline sponsor Imerys, presented Carolyn with her award and spoke to Samantha who received her award over the phone. During the evening we were entertained by the amazingly talented Kana Kres Quartet who sang a range of songs including a Cornish medley and ‘Shallow’. Carlyon Bay Golf Club pulled out ‘all of the stops’ with their support of this event. We enjoyed a buffet supper and a warm welcome. As always the raffle, which was Cornish themed (St Piran’s Day 5th March!), helped to raise funds for our club’s chosen charities – Inspiring Women Network and Freedom Kit Bags. We would like to thank the nominators and the nominees, all of whom deserved to win. So many amazing women doing so much selflessly, to support their local communities here in Cornwall. A fitting event to show our support for International Women’s Day (8th March). Well done all!!
At our March club meeting last night, we wore pink for the cheque presentation to Stephanie, from Look Good Feel Better, the cancer support charity we support at our annual Autumn Fayre. The amount raised at our event in October came to £1,258.31 bringing the grand total raised since 2017 to £10,900! This total figure has allowed 219 women, men and young adults attend the free workshops and learn practical strategies to manage physical, psychological and social impacts of their cancer treatment.
What a day celebrating World Book Day on March 9th. A group of volunteers, led by Soroptimist Diane, gave
away over 1000 children’s books today!! 
Thankyou to St Austell Library for welcoming us in to your space. How wonderful to see so many happy smiling faces from the children, and parents too! 
From March 11th to 25th March, club member Jennie, attended the Convention on the Status of Women 68 at the United Nations in New York, as a delegate for SIGBI. Seven soroptimists, including one for outside of the UK represented SIGBI at this event. This is a major world event where women from all over the world come together each year to advocate for the rights of women and girls. We look forward to a presentation from Jennie on this amazing opportunity.
committee gave the opportunity for everyone attending to have a good old catch up as well as to look through some of SI St Austell and District’s archive material, bringing back lots of great memories.
On March 14th Soroptimists Jill and Catherine attended the second day of FIRST LEGO League UK and Ireland Cornwall Regional finals at RNAS Culdrose, in the capacity of judges. And what a fantastic day it was! More than 60 teams from both primary and secondary schools participated in the competition. As a club we sponsor 4 teams of girls from local primary schools, as one of our STEM initiatives: Sandy Hill, Probus, and Charlestown. This year, in recognition of the importance of women and girls in STEM, the competition recognised our continued support by providing an additional award, in our name, given to the team who demonstrated a strong commitment to fostering an inclusive environment, going above and beyond to encourage participation. This was won by another local school to us – Treverbyn. We want to congratulate all the teams who took part, however a big ‘Well Done’ to both teams of girls from Sandy Hill School who came away with 2 awards … they didn’t win the competition but they were certainly noticed by the other judges! (We were not allowed to judge any of the teams that we sponsor), as well as being recognised for their great teamwork!
On the 15th March our Book Club met for their regular meeting to discuss and review the latest book – The Lost Apothecary, by Sarah Penner with the usual coffee and cake! The book received good reviews all round and was seen as a very enjoyable, hard to put down and easy read – scoring 8/10. For our next book, we will be reading and reviewing Rip Tide by Stella Rimington. Our next meeting is Friday 19th April at the Merlin Centre at 2pm.
On Saturday, 16th March, 8 members joined other members from the Soroptimist International SWCI Region at the Regional meeting in Cheddon Fitzpaine near Taunton.
After a great lunch we were treated to yet another inspiring presentation from Sally Bee, President of the newly formed club SI Shakespeare. Sally spoke about her life, in particular living with Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) – having her first heart attack aged 36 – now aged 57 she has joined the ‘6 Heart Attack Club’! Sally shared with us her amazing coping strategies and how we can all use these in our day to day lives.
We had a good turn out for our March Orange Cafe at Par Garden Centre. Our bright, orange clothing serves as a reminder that we are ‘standing up for women’ in our campaign against abuse of any kind. Why don’t you come and join us next month? We meet on the 25th of every month!
St Austell & District Soroptimists donated thirty three Easter eggs to our local women’s refuge. Special thanks to Soroptimist Julie, who very kindly donated ten eggs and Soroptimist Libby who delivered the eggs. Staff at the refuge were very grateful and pleased that every child would have an Easter egg. Well done all!
A team of Soroptimist volunteers supported an event at Boconnoc House and Garden on Easter Sunday. They helped to raise funds for Cornwall Hospice Care. It was lovely to work alongside other volunteers for such a worthwhile cause. In addition we had the pleasure of a walk around the garden and it didn’t rain!!!!! Well done all!
