Welcome

Welcome to our website, we hope that you find it informative and interesting.

As part of the world’s largest classified service organisation for women in management and the professions we would like to share with you more about our club in Morpeth.

We are actively involved in the local community and participate in national and international project work. We also enjoy a wide range of social activities and being a member is a great way to meet like minded people.

From our president:

Our Club was founded 63 years ago and our present day membership is 33. We are a diverse, lively and active group of women who use our skills and talents to try make a difference to the lives of others both locally and in areas of the world where women and girls have a more difficult time than most of us ever will.

Soroptimists the world over are working locally and globally to improve the status and well-being of women and their families. My theme for this year is “Amazing Women”. During my year as President, the club will hear from a wide range of guest speakers all of whom are amazing in their own right and have interesting experiences, facts and knowledge of women who have helped to transform the lives of others.

“My club presidential year leads up to the one hundred year anniversary of the death of the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison. Morpeth are marking the year and celebrating her life in a very special way, both in World Women’s Day in March and in June 2013. Her life has given me a great focus for my year as we look at other women who have left their mark in history.

My first speaker will be Marion Anderson , a local historian and City of Newcastle Guide, who will talk to us about Gertrude Bell , a local born well educated and well-travelled women from the early 1900`s. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She travelled throughout Asia and helped set the state of modern day Iraq. She worked for the King`s secret service as a spy whilst having trained as an Archaeologist in the days when such an education for women was rare.

In July we will be having a guest open evening fund raising event at Kirkley Hall which will raise money for the charity “Teardrop”. I have to support chosen this charity in my presidential year as it is local and based in Wansbeck Hospital to support mothers and families who suffer the trauma and distress of miscarriage, still birth or neonatal death.

The club will also be supporting breast cancer awareness week in October when we will be supporting our sister club in Whitley Bay who are helping to organise a ‘Pink Gala Concert ‘at Whitley Bay Playhouse with help from the theatre company “Day 8 Productions”.

Programme Action is the lifeblood of our club. Look at some of the project we have been involved in. This year we plan to continue our practical support to charities such as Barnabas Safe and Sound for young adults, Domestic Violence charities such as Cease 24, international charities to support the training of midwives in The Gambia and money to provide sewing machines in a rural part of Kenya to encourage the women to learn and earn. There are many injustices in our world and we try to lobby to raise awareness of these. There is so much to try and change and improve in our world that sometimes it seems we cannot make any difference at all, but to quote my speaker from January on my programme…

Snowflakes are the most fragile things, and just look what they can do when they stick together!
(Vista M Kelly)

If, like me, you want to make a difference to your community and to the world, together with like-minded women, why not get in touch?

We meet twice a month, on the second Tuesday of each month for our Business Meeting where we discuss and agree the projects we wish to be involved in, locally, nationally and internationally and a speaker meeting on the fourth Tuesday. Our speakers will encourage and inspire to us to take a more active part in the world we live in.

Our web site provides lots of information about our club and the type of activities as Soroptimists we get involved in and the causes we support and lobby about. I would like to personally encourage more women to find out about us and think about joining the club. We have a great programme for the year and all the details and dates and speakers are on our web site. It is easy to get in touch with us, and we always give a warm welcome to friends and guests.”

Susan Guilain