President’s message
President Kathleen (right) with President elect, daughter Gwen.
Welcome to SI Burnley
Firstly, I wuld like to thank all the members of S.I. Burnley for giving me this opportunity to be the club president. It is indeed an honour and a privilege in this our 68th year.
When I joined S.I. Burnley in 2007 I was very impressed with the warm welcome I received and the efforts that club members were making to improve the lot of those less fortunate than us both at home and abroad. Now I have the opportunity to show my appreciation.
I promise the members that I will do my very best to be worthy of the trust they have placed in me and to uphold the standard set by my very worthy forerunners in maintaining the aims and objectives of Soroptimism
We are reverting to holding our meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. The first Tuesday will be a Speaker meeting and the third Tuesday will be the business meeting. Please see our Diary page for details.
I want to support the national charity Riding for the Disabled during my year of office and arranged for volunteers from our local branch to come to my President’s Welcome to speak to the clubmembers. With the support of my club sisters, I would like to make RDA my special project - along with the Contact Centre which does such necessary and worthwhile work with families.
We shall of course continue to support what have become our traditional but very important projects. Pendleside Hospice, Emmaus, the Burnley Women’s refuge and Fair Trade issues.
Our clubmember Marlies Oloyede will sadly be taking her husband Ajax’s ashes to his birthplace in Nigeria and will also be taking the funds raised during President Pauline’s year of office for S.I. Osogbo projects and St Paul’s primary school. We will need to discuss the future of these charities on Marlies return as it is very unlikely that Marlies will be able to continue her visits to Nigeria.
During my year of office, I would like to address the issue of recruitment of new club members and hope we can involve Radio Lancashire in promoting Soroptimism without, of course, compromising our present recruitment criteria.
I have already received lots of support and encouragement from a number of members. I really appreciate this and I know that without a great deal of support from my fellow members I will achieve nothing.
I have some ideas for social events but am looking to the membership for fund raising events and programme action initiatives.
Lastly but not least I would like to think that we will enjoy a year of fun and friendship in our club - what ever our activities.