President Jill Barnard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I have always believed, as I am sure many of you reading this now believe too, that even small positive actions and gestures can improve the lives of anyone, but in particular by improving the lives of women in girls you are making a positive impact on not only the family but indeed the community as a whole.  Being a Soroptimist has given me this opportunity! 

My work background, having retired at the end of 2021 – has always been people facing and during the last 25 years I have worked in roles where I have supported disadvantaged people, whether that be in education/employment or within social housing where the emphasis was in particular on supporting families and women.

Over my two-year term as president, it is one of my aims to increase our exposure, raise awareness and showcase as much of our activities and achievements as possible.  We shouldn’t be the ‘world’s best kept secret’.  We should be proud of who we are and what we do, whether that is at a local, national or international level…And we need to shout if from the roof tops! Hopefully we have gone some way to meeting this objective and I think through our numerous activities, which you will see when looking around our website, we can be proud to have got our name out there – both as a Club and Soroptimist International (SI), as an organisation.

I am still relatively new to SI, having been a Soroptimist for just over 5 years. When I look back at everything I have been involved with and the friendship and experience gained, I cannot be anything but proud of what we achieve. I would recommend to any woman to become part of the Soroptimist world and indeed, I have been honoured to be president of SI St Austell and District from 2022 to 2024.”

Serving for 2 years President Jill has chosen three Charities for the Club to support and our fundraising events will reflect this, whilst we maintain support for many other organisations, ‘hands on’ or through advocacy. We strive to raise our profile in the community.

• Cornwall Hospice Care
• Inspiring Women Network – Truro
• Freedom Kit Bags – Tackling period poverty in Nepal

We will also be sponsoring a 10 year old girl, Priyanka, through the El Shaddai Charitable Trust in Goa.

We are actively involved in encouraging girls into STEM careers with our Andrew Flint Bursary and we are sponsoring teams of local primary school girls in the First Lego League Challenge in partnership with Cornwall Council.