November 2023 November began with the massive Storm Ciaran, but despite the weather a group of hardy club members managed to make it to London on the 2nd November ready for the annual national SIGBI conference at Friends House. You can read all about the conference (3rd – 4th November) on our webpage here. We had a busy club meeting on the 9th November. The London conference group shared their experiences and learning with other club members. We enjoyed listening to Stefan Winter-Baker, our guest speaker, who talked to us about the local Healthcare online system called KLINIK. At the end of his presentation he answered questions from members. We were very pleased to welcome new club member Helen to our club and to welcome Caroline who, already a soroptimist, transferred from SI Stafford. We hope that both of them will enjoy being part of

October 2023 News October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and so we promoted awareness of this through all of our social media channels and wore pink at our October Club meeting. At this meeting President Elect (joint) Diane welcomed two new club members. (Welcome Cathy and Zillah!) and celebrated long-standing member Mary’s 89th Birthday.                   On the 7th October, our ‘Music for an Autumn Evening’ Concert was a great success. This concert given in partnership with Lowena Voices and Imerys Mid Cornwall Male Choir raised around £500 which was split between two charities. (Cornwall Hospice Care and @inspiringwomensnetworkkw) We experienced wonderful singing from both choirs and enjoyed joining in at the appropriate times. Our Compere Soroptimist Karen kept us laughing as well as informed about the songs performed. Our social committee did us proud with the cheese

September 2023 News September started with a very busy Saturday (9th) where club members went in three different directions! Wendy, Claire, Mary and Jennie were very pleased to take part in the Leadership and Entrepreneurship Conference organised by the Inspiring Women’s Network today. There were a range of speakers, workshops and stands available and they certainly did lots of networking whilst raising awareness of our organisation. It was an honour to meet so many amazing women!     Angela, Aillie, Libby, Jackey, Rowena, Barbara, Heather and Sandra and a range of other helpers ran our 8th year of giving away books at the Lanlivery Vintage Rally and Country Fair to celebrate International Literacy Day. They had fantastic weather for this event (which ran across 2 days) and thoroughly enjoyed watching customers young and old walking away with their free books. This is a great two

August 2023 News St Austell & District Soroptimists had a great afternoon at Boconnoc House Open Garden’s Event on 13th August. Despite a few showers, we kept smiling, as we served cream teas, sold homemade cakes and shared lots of treasures with visitors to the gardens. All of the money raised was for Cornwall Hospice Care and we raised a whopping £1,400.00.  A big thank you to everyone who helped and gave generously today!!           This was the  month that our amazing England women’s football team made it to the final of the World Cup. We were immensely proud of this achievement and even though they didn’t win, we recognise that being 2nd in the world is still AMAZING!! This team are such an inspiration to girls across the world.   On 25th August we held our second Orange Cafe and

July began with our Regional AGM in the beautiful village of Cheddon Fitzpaine in Somerset. Representatives from St Austell & District met with 15 other clubs, which make up the South West and Channel Islands region. Lindsay Green Federation Programme Director spoke passionately about the future and importance of soroptimism. Janice Bardwell told tales of the ‘lady from the sanitary’, an amusing and inspirational speech. SI Jersey won the Ellen Brawn Programme Action Award. It was great to meet with friends from other clubs, share ideas and listen to our invited guests.               On the same day other St Austell and District Soroptimists were enjoying a boat trip up the River Fowey from Fowey to Lerryn and back. The weather was gorgeous and the afternoon was ‘topped off’ with a cream tea and a glass or fizz! Thanks to

June has certainly been a sunny month here in Cornwall. We’ve enjoyed lots of sunshine and lots of outdoor activities.                           We started the month with an interesting club meeting where we discussed World Environment Day and we were encouraged to make pledges to ‘keep climate positive’. Soroptimist Dawn led a group activity where we were asked to think about the changes that we could make to our everyday lives that would really make a difference to the world. We’ll be doing more on this at our meeting in July. Guest speaker Julie told us all about sex and bees!  An interesting and humorous talk!                               Our club collected equipment to support Hannah from Penrice School who is going

May is ‘membership month’ for Soroptimists and so we held a new members event at St Austell Sea Cadets Hall (13th May) and invited interested women to contact our membership officer Jane to find out more about the club. At our 4th May club meeting we were joined by Rachael Reid and Jonathan Grigg, who are Waste and Recycling Community Support Officers from Cornwall Council. They gave a presentation about Recycling. It was heartening to discover just how much of our waste is now recyclable. Of course, this was very close to the King’s coronation and so we had some lovely coronation celebrations, complete with cake and champagne! We shared our cake with STAK St Austell. Soroptimist Jane gave blood for the 107th time. What an achievement! Club members had a very enjoyable morning visiting the Hall for Cornwall and experiencing a ‘behind the scenes’