Life in February has been quiet, with clubs beginning to meet face to face again. I attended a second zoom meeting with Kay Richmond SIGBI Programme Director and other officers this time the focus report forms were discussed. We were given a useful tool to help work out which of the 5P’s a project belongs to and this will be circulated across the region. We also had opportunity to look at what makes a good report or not and this seminar has been offered to the Region, we just need to agree a date. Jennie and Pam held their first zoom meeting with Programme Action club officers and we discussed the previous webinar on the quadrennial project and I have fed those discussions back to Kay.
On Saturday I attended the Presidential meeting with Cathy Cottridge, and we spent a lot of time discussing Membership and the future of the organisation. The message was clear SiGBI needs to recruit more younger members to survive, in the UK average membership age is 72 years, in the Caribbean it is 55.
We can recruit, but the younger members don’t stay! Are they put off by rigid club rituals and formality, are we doing the right sort of projects that attract and keep them ?.
We need a better more public profile (anyone still involved in marketing and Media that is willing to join a working group). One option being looked at is to possibly employ a PR person like other organisations do ? We need less mixed messages and consistent straplines and branding.
Should we focus on one area like Education for example.!
We discussed the difficulties with the website (I didn’t realise that it has 17000 pages behind it !!) and SIGBI are streamlining all systems and Cathy said that she would organise another refresher session on maintaining our websites.
We also shared good ideas on best practice awards and other ways to get ourselves seen. Lots to think about. Please have discussions at your clubs and bring us your ideas.
One area I think we need to look at is whether we should develop a Virtual E club in Yorkshire. Please come forward if you would be interested in joining a planning/ feasibility group to look at this.
It’s also not too late to plant your trees or arrange for them for November, they will count we are at 90,000, and are your trees on the map?
The invitations are coming in for visits and I will be pretty busy around International Women’s Day at various clubs across Yorkshire.
On IWD Selby are hopefully zooming with their friendship link clubs in Frankenthal, Germany and Dnipro, Ukraine. We are in touch regularly with our Dnipro sister soroptimists and are dismayed, angry and very worried about the escalating situation and with what Russia are doing. SI and this week SIGBI are putting out a statement about what is going on. Nataliya Nechukhayeva is posting regular updates from Dnipro on her face book page.
It feels really helpless sitting here watching it all unfold; however, I have seen this today. Focus4Hope, which is based in Brighouse has started a collection to send aid to Ukraine, Poland and Romania. https://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/people/how-you-can-help-people-from-ukraine-halifax-and-brighouse-collections-launched-3588706 They are looking for clothes for babies and children, nappies, baby wipes, baby milk, clothes for men and women, footwear, hygiene products and non-perishable food (such as tinned food, pasta, rice, UHT milk). Items can be dropped in the charity’s donation bin in Tesco in Brighouse or at its centre, hub4hope, at 106 Briggate, Brighouse, HD6 1EL
Are your towns and cities holding rallies or making collections? If so, please share the information with other clubs.
Judith has now sent you all the flyer and booking information for the Domestic Abuse Conference on the 21.5.22 and thank you to all the club presidents who have responded to Linda and I about the Presidents lunch, we are visiting a venue tomorrow so we should be able to firm up arrangements by the end of the week. Don’t forget to book your Place at Jonas weekend in July.
I am still watching the progress of the Zarach petition which now stands at 17,395 and Bex is still getting lots of media and news story attention. We will have the Zed Ted books available at the RCM and have a plan to give her the donated money soon after the RCM. To get it to debate 100,000, signatures are needed, so please keep sharing and ask friends and relatives to do the same.
The final session in the webinars organised by SI for CSW66 is at https://www.soroptimistinternational.org/si-voices-webinars-session-3-csw66/.
The side sessions ‘in’ the UN are available to book on https://teamup.com/ksjgjdxx23dqs947md.
I am really looking forward to attending some of the events at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Here is the link – last chance to register. Bloggers are needed ??
Don’t forget to watch the Latest short film “Love Reaches Everywhere”, about Mary’s Meals, sometime before our meeting so that Fran can answer any questions you’d like to raise. It’s just about 30 minutes long.
Don’t forget your items for the Yorkshire Website for Sue and Liz.
It seems that a lot of Soroptimists have caught Covid fairly recently and I hope you are getting better and making a good recovery, or continue to remain well.
Please enjoy International Women’s Day March 8th and spread the word The theme for 2022 is #BreaktheBias. The campaign asks you to cross your arms in solidarity to call out gender bias, discrimination and stereotyping. Together, we can forge women’s equality.
That’s all for this month, so take care and keep safe. See you all at the RCM
President Lindsay