Soroptimist International Bath and District

Clubs fron the South West regiona converged on Weston-super-Mare, and walked from the station through the town handing out ‘love me, love me not’ bookmarks and holding placards to mark the first day of 16 days of Activism of elimination of violence against women.

We ended up at Grove Hill park where orange and multicoloured ribbons were tied onto the railings and the event was joined by the local MP , Mayor and relevant organisations committed to stopping violence against women including men and children. We wore orange to symbolize the global ‘Orange the world’

We were very happy to invite Ursula from the charity Voices. It’s a charity that helps victims of domesstic violence and they do a lot of work in the margins to help these vulnerable people. We raised £70 by just selling a quiz, an easy way to raise funds with hopefully more quizzes to be sold in the future for this worthwhile cause.

We were very happy to welcome our newest member to our club at our latest supper meeting. We hope that Julie will be very happy to be part of a club that really wants to make a difference for women and girls locally, nationally and globally. President Jenny inducted Julie into the club and gave her a badge.

Past member Beryl Morgan left a legacy of £1,000 to our club after she passed away. We thought it fitting to donate the money to the Department of Midwives at the RUH as Beryl had been a Midwife and District Nurse and was connected with the RUH much of her nursing career. The money will pay for 2 online courses teaching 15 midwives on each course.

We had an informative talk from the owner of ‘Refillable’ in Bath who spoke about zero waste and how we can reduce everything that we come across. It sounds like an amazing shop which we are looking forward to visiting very soon and hoping to make a difference for our future.

Club members and volunteers from the charity ‘Bath Welcomes Refugees’ held a bucket collection at Prior Park Garden Centre and raised £256. 79.

Members from the club came together to litter pick along the canal in Bath to highlight how much waste is left all around wherever we go. Litter should be put away in bins and the appropriate articles recycled. We picked up many plastic items, cans and paper which could so easily be recycled. We need to get away from single use plastic

We were able to visit the workshop where the wizzybugs are made by the charity Designability which is a Bath based charity helping young children in particular from ages 0 -5 years move around on their own in these ingenious fun electric wheelchairs. We raised £871.19 for the charity at our quiz night earlier in the year.