On Sunday, March 8th, a group of local women and men walked together on a route around the park all wearing a splash of purple to mark IWD. The group included local soroptimists (who organised it), club members, guests from our community partners such as @ElmbridgeCAN, and 4 of our sisters from #SIWoking. Carlye also brought a group which included a Syrian settled family, along with friends from her allotment.
Prior to the event, we distributed posters locally and ran a 14 day social media campaign featuring our Painshill Park walk, along with daily IWD posts.
We wanted to celebrate and raise awareness of IWD and our SI clubs in our local community. Painshill was a fantastic venue and we had lots of opportunity to connect with members of the public. Our group of 20 chatted to visitors as we walked round the park. We all wore purple to celebrate IWD and carried a purple IWD/SI Weybridge flag to attract attention . Thanks to Brenda for organising the flag. As you can see from the photos, it made a big difference to our visibility. We have already have a follow up from a sparkling woman who is interested in speaking at a club meeting about her ‘women in wine’ and ‘wellbeing’ initiatives. We also captured email addresses and gave out club business cards so we may have more enquiries in due course.
A shout out to Painshill’s Community & Education Development Manager, who helped facilitate our visit. Hayley and @Painshill are keen to develop a relationship with local groups and they kindly offered us concessionary rates for the day. We were also given use of a meeting room where we could all gather comfortably after the walk for a well earned cup of tea. We are now planning a meeting with #Painshill to discuss educational projects and more relationship building as a result of our visit.
Thanks to all those who shared a few moments with us on the day along the way!
A very successful event to celebrate IWD all round. Soroptimists hope we can build on it to create an even bigger splash next year.