Swindon Soroptimists have raised £497 for the work of the NSPCC in Swindon.  The cheque was handed over to Anna Keir who came to talk to the Club about Swindon NSPCC on 27th March.

Each year on Human Rights Day the SI President launches an appeal that serves the Soroptimist mission of educating, empowering and enabling women and girls. This year’s Appeal is for Birthing in the Pacific, reducing maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea. Swindon Soroptimists raised money for this appeal at our Christmas Dinner – a total of £136.35 was collected which will help to provide training and equipment for health professionals and volunteer birth attendants, in Papua New Guinea.

Members of SI Swindon and their partners were joined by the Regional President, Shirley Alexander, and guests from Bristol, Weston-Super-Mare,Taunton, Cheltenham and Cirencester Clubs at their President’s Lunch on 14 Oct. The theme for the lunch was ‘friendships, old & new’. The event provided a wonderful opportunity for SI Swindon members to get to know each other better, and develop links with colleagues from other clubs.

On 6th October SI Swindon held a supper party to celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child.The profit from the supper tickets and raffle were in support of SI Barnstaple’s “Knickers for Knowledge” project. The event raised £175 for the project which aims to improve girls’ access to education in Africa. Our donation will provide sanitary necessities and knickers to enable girls to attend school during their monthly periods.

SI Swindon has been raising money for WaterAid’s “The Big Dig” project (http://www.thebigdig.org/) which is bringing clean water and sanitation to Bokola and Kaniche in rural Malawi. Jackie Webb and Lydia Cardew from the club handed over a cheque for £435.44 to Charlotte Flew, from Water Aid, at the SIGBI Belfast 2012 Conference. .  

We collected items to put in 20 backpacks which will be distributed by the charity Mary’s Meals.  (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdWvWVMdSkw) We packed our backpacks after the AGM on 25th April 2012 with pens, pencils, notebooks ruler,eraser,sharpener,pencil case,geometry set,dress,t-shirt, flip-flops,soap, towel,toothbrush and toothpaste,a ball, hand knitted small bag. spoon and other things. They will now be sent to Mary’s Meals warehouse and from there will be shipped with thousands of others to Malawi.  The schoolgirls have only a plastic bag to keep their things dry in the rainy season and have very few personal possessions.  We hope we have made a difference for 20 of such girls.

2011 May  11 Business Meeting 14 Regional Meeting 21 Jan’s plant sale 22 Cirencester Lunch 25 Dinner Meeting speaker Jan Roy June   5  World Environment Day 8  Business Meeting 11 Breakfast Club (Enid Ruth Valerie) 18 Cirencester Safari Supper 19 Twigs open day 11-4 22 Dinner meeting  speaker: Wendy Plaice re membership changes 25  Torquay 70th Lunch July  13  Business Meeting 16  Garden Party 17  Sponsored walk at Coate Water in aid of Diabetes UK 23  Breakfast Club (Jan & Ludi) 27 Dinner Meeting speaker Jackie Mosedale August 6  Outing to Tyntesfield September 10  Regional AGM at Buckfast Abbey 14 Business meeting 28 Dinner meeting speaker teacher from Churchfields (comprehensive school) October 7-9 Barnstaple Club’s 60th  Celebration Weekend 12 Business meeting 26 Dinner meeting speaker Frank Mullane (Advocacy after fatal domestic abuse) 27-29 Federation Conference Brighton November  5  Fireworks and Party at Gillian Read’s 9

This year Tuesday 8th March 2011 is the Centenary of International Women’s Day.  The Swindon Club is organising a  ‘Join us on the Bridge’ event.  We will be on the footbridge over Princes Street in central Swindon (near The Wyvern Theatre).  We will be joining with thousands of women worldwide to celebrate the day and to draw attention to the inequalities that still exist particularly in Third World Countries.  We want to show our solidarity with women throughout the world. So many women are living in poverty and with constant threat of abuse and lack of healthcare. We want to build bridges of peace between nations and within nations. We are intending to look at the history and porpose of International Women’s Day. We will read out poems written by women on women’s issues.  All are welcome to join with us at 1pm on the

The collection at the Co-op in Old Town Swindon raised a total of £207 for the women and children made homeless by the floods in Pakistan.  Some of the Swindon shoppers were very generous and interested in who we are and why we were collecting.  We had a display of photographs and information about the devastation to the lives of the women and children in Pakistan and the work being done by Soroptimists through UNICEF to help them.

Eight members working in shifts will be collecting money from shoppers at the Co-op in Old Town on Saturday 29th January.  We are collecting for Soroptimist partner working in Pakistan, UNICEF.  We will have a display board with photos and information about the floods and the work being done to help the women and children who have been made homeless. Check back after the event to see photos and the amount raised.