Our AGM was as always, a wonderful event, and this year we also managed our customary meal beforehand. We took this opportunity to hold the welcoming/induction ceremonies for some of our new members which had have joined over the last 12 months. It’s always thrilling to formally welcome new members, hear a bit about them and then to light a candle of friendship for them.
We had all the usual official AGM requirements, hearing reports from the clubs’ officials and voting in our new leadership team for the coming year and of course, President Gail. The detailed report from our Programme Action Officers Jackie and Gail made for impressive reading - and if you want to see for yourself exactly how much we have achieved this year then the full Programme Action report is here.
Discussions took place around our charity for the new club year and the final choice was PIES - Partners in Education Swaziland.
Finally, we held our candle ceremony, which is a lovely tradition of the club, highlighting the work the officials do on behalf of the members and bringing the members together to acknowledge the hard work we do in the club and the organisation as a whole.
Membership is open to all women – the only qualification is that you need to believe in what we do! We welcome visitors to all meetings, and you are more than welcome to come and see us first before making any commitment.
Like all clubs or membership organisations, we need to charge a membership fee or subscription to cover running costs.
Each Soroptimist club pays a small annual fee to the Regional organisation (Northwest England and the Isle of Man), and a larger fee to our Federation (Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland – SIGBI). These help the central organisations to pay for meetings and other essential running costs, and they also cover the production of four magazines a year which you will receive in the post.
Each club then sets their own membership fee to reflect their own running costs, which can be different from club to club eg. some clubs need to pay more for the facilities used as a meeting room than others.
At Garstang Soroptimists, we try to keep the annual costs as low as possible but we do need to cover:
For the 2022 – 23 year, the amount to be paid for each member for the Regional and SIGBI levies is £49.86 and the additional amount to cover Garstang running costs is £41.14 – a total subscription of £91.00 per member for the year. This can be paid flexibly – eg. as a lump sum at the start of the year or in two instalments of £45.50. For the future, consideration is also being given to a potential monthly direct debit option in order to make it as easy as possible for all members.
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