Our target for the concert on 1st June was to raise £1000 for North East Support and Grow. Did we achieve this? Yes! We raised the incredible amount of £2,460 – more than double our target. Thank you again to the choirs and members for making this such a memorable evening, and to all those in the audience who supported us so generously.  

Oh what a night, 1st June 2024. After many months of planning, our concert to raise funds for this year’s club charity, Support and Grow North East, took place in St George’s church, Cullercoats. In this magnificent setting, two local choirs, Compass Acapella and Tyneside Acapella enchanted the audience with a range of songs, from golden oldies to the contemporary.  Thank you to everyone who supported the event and for your generosity in buying raffle tickets and at the bar. Huge thanks must go to our members who organised the evening; it takes a lot of hard work to make such an event run so smoothly. The choirs were magnificent; enjoy a little of the music in the videos below.  

Club members were delighted to welcome young footballer Phoebe Dixon to our club celebration event on 11th May. We supported Phoebe to play in a football tournament in Dallas Texas and she came to our event to tell us about the amazing time she had A very special young lady and a really talented footballer.

We’re delighted that one of the groups benefitting from the club’s hygiene bag project is the charity Depaul, which provides a wide range of services for homeless young people. Cynthia Bartley recently represented the club at the celebrations to mark Depaul’s 30th anniversary of helping homeless young people in North Tyneside and she presented Area Director Simone Newman with hygiene bags for the young women currently being supported. Find our more about Depaul’s work at https://www.depaul.org.uk/news/30-years-of-depaul-uk/    

As we start the new Soroptimist year, we send our very best wishes to one of our long standing members, Mary Ayre.  Mary has been a Soroptimist since 1985 but has decided the time has come to step down and our members are united in thanking her for her valuable contribution to the club. As Mary  said in a message to us at our April meeting, she has made many good friends through being a Soroptimist; she may not be a member of the club any more but that friendship will endure. We’ve recently welcomed new members to the club, Helen and Veronica most recently, and Camille last year. As so many organisations are closing, including Soroptimist clubs, it’s great that we’re thriving with over 30 members.    

Congratulations to our Prosperity Group who have raised £5,800 through successful bids for grants to create hygiene bags. The hygiene bags provide essential items to women and girls in crisis. The need to create the bags came from discussion with partners and to date, 115 have been distributed to local groups and organisations who then pass on them on to those in need. Our partners in the project include Harbour, Support and Grow North East, Meadow Well Connected, Depaul and several local primary schools. Prosperity group works hard to buy the items, make up the bags and deliver them to partners and it’s a great example of we can tap into external funding to put the principles of Soroptimist International into practice.                            

Two of our members, Cynthia and Shirley, marked International Women’s Day in March 2024 by attending Smart Confidence, an event organised by Smart Works. The event explored the theme of confidence, looking at what it means, how it can help women and where it can be found. Our club has supported Smart Works on several occasions and this was a great opportunity for Cynthia and Shirley to network with like-minded people seeking to support women to gain employment and financial independence, including from left to right below, Becky Langley, manager of Newcastle United Women’s Football Club, Hannah Coffey from Smart Works and John McCabe, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce.   Find out more about Smart Works at https://newcastle.smartworks.org.uk/                

Our Christmas gifts for the children in Harbour’s refuge and in the community have been delivered by Santa’s elves. This year, 21 children will receive a parcel containing books, gifts or games, pyjamas and a selection box. Thanks to members Anne and Sue who helped Santa Claus with the shopping; his workshop is so busy at this time of year. However, you can always count on Soroptimists to help out when needed. Thanks also to all our members and their friends and families who also donated items for the children. As Lesley Gibson,  the Chief Executive of Harbour, reminds us, domestic abuse recognises no boundaries and the individuals and families with whom Harbour works are going through a very difficult time in their lives. It means a lot to our members to support women and children at Christmas and throughout the year.      

We held our last meeting of the year on Monday 11th December and as is our tradition, we shared a meal together and enjoyed some festive fun and friendship. As usual, our members produced the most amazing food. We also remember the organisations we support, especially Harbour.  As part of our Christmas meeting, we make up gift bags for women with whom Harbour works in the community and we use some of the funds we have raised to give gifts to the women and children who will be living in Harbour’s refuge over Christmas. This year, we also raised more funds for Support and Grow from a mini Christmas market and a raffle. Coming right at the end of the 16 days of activism against gender based violence, we think about the women for whom Christmas might be a difficult time and pledge to turn

Earlier this year, our club voted to adopt Support and Grow North East as our club charity for 2023-24. Support and Grow is charity which is rooted in local communities and provides a range of services across North Tyneside, Northumberland and Newcastle. Find out more about what they do at www.supportandgrownortheast.com/ A group of members visited Support and Grow on 15th November to get to know each other and we had a wonderful morning with Louise and her colleagues. They made us very welcome and we learnt a lot about the work Support and Grow does across the region. We heard some powerful stories about how the charity’s services have helped individuals and communities. I think it’s safe to say we were all inspired by what we heard and look forward to working with the team to support their work in whatever way we can.