Soroptimist International of Winchester held the annual coffee morning at Rick Stein, Winchester on 20 May. It was an information morning and members of the club attended along with guests and visitors. We were also joined by Sharon Worth of the Menopause Café in Winchester and members of Trinity Services.
Thanks go to Hendrik of Rick Stein for arranging this and Mayor Achwal of Winchester for attending and endorsing the Civic presence. We were privileged to have Sue Dorrington attending, former 
Women’s World Cup rugby player, who also endorses our projects with our strapline ‘Standing up for Women and Girls’. The club now sponsors the U18s girls rugby in Winchester.
Members were able to talk about our work and support of local charities, Trinity Women’s Services and the Women’s Refuge. We are hols our annual picnic in June for the women and their families in the Refuge. Following on from this we will be in Abbey Gardens again for the Hat Fair on 5 July.
Mayor Achwal was impressed with our international work as this is part of his heritage too and we were delighted to receive these kind words, members…‘put-in huge efforts to organise and run the Soroptimist International Winchester and District club. Your voluntary work is the glue which keeps our society together and was reflected in the work you have done in Kenya. It was a pleasure to meet Sue Dorrington. Persons like Sue are the inspiration for lots of young girls as is demonstrated in the huge increase in number of girls playing soccer at Meadowside in Whiteley. It was lovely to see a large group of members who attended yesterday’s meet.’
Winchester City Council is also a supporter in our Orange campaign which raises awareness of Domestic Abuse and we sit with them and Trinity on the Safety Partnership in the city. We will be discussing visual interpretations of the Orange campaign with them later in the year.
Soroptimist International is a global women’s organisation and members will be holding orange events all over the world. The organisation has consultative status at the United Nations and supports many of the international events relating to UN Women and special days. The work that members do in their clubs both locally and internationally, is reported to the UN which uses the data to help form a picture of world situations where resources are required.
If you are interested in finding out more or considering membership, please contact winchestersoroptimists@gmail.com