Our lovely new club banner

.. and we are all pleased to see it!

Off on a coach we go

and a very comfy one too

Pass those sweets

Starting to get ready for the show

Nearly time

... honest ...

Presenting a cheque to WaterAid

Soroptimists around the region catching up at lunchtime

Perusing the FairTrade gifts stall

An example FairTrade product from Nepal

Supporting Women

Raffle prizes before the draw

Garstang member Joan H was one of the lucky winners

Social media workshop - laptops and tablets are on fire!

24 February – the final club activity of the month was a hands-on Social Media workshop. This took everyone through from scratch, covering the basics of getting an account registered and settings configured, through to following others and sending the first tweets. Everyone went home having accomplished the objectives, and hopefully suitably enthused for getting stuck in! Further sessions are now being planned to give more practise and to get going on Facebook too.

20 February – ten members from Garstang Soroptimists made the journey to Lancaster for the latest meeting of the Northwest England and the Isle of Man Region. As ever, this was an interesting and informative day (although not the warmest – we need to work out what to do with the heating in the meeting room!). There was an excellent talk from Sue Biggs – Federation Vice President- in the morning and a presentation on the work of FairTrade in the afternoon. Regional President Margaret also made a presentation to WaterAid of the monies raised by various means throughout the Region… if I could only remember what the final figure was! [Actually almost £3,000.] At the end of the day, a raffle was drawn for a variety of prizes, with funds raised going to the International President’s “Educate to Lead: Nepal” appeal. Garstang had one member among the winners – well done Joan H!

11 February - Fifteen club members and guests gathered at The Crofters at lunchtime for an extremely welcome pre-show lunch of soup and sandwiches before boarding a very comfortable coach for the journey to Blackpool’s Winter Gardens for the matinee performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The show was excellent and everyone agreed that it was a brilliant outing, all organised beautifully for us as usual by Nicola.

Before leaving The Crofters, we were also pleased to receive delivery of something we have been awaiting for quite a while – a new pop-up banner sporting the Membership images and messages. This matches the posters and leaflets which we have been distributing over the last couple of months, and will be a major feature for some of planned activities. Muriel wins the award for having the knack of getting it safely erected!

10 February – the second Business Meeting of the year was another busy one. A donation to another worthy cause was agreed, and ideas discussed for future events such as International Women’s Day, Membership Month (more to come on this one in the next bulletin), the sensory cushion being crafted for submission for the Rosebowl Trophy, and the planned Bric-a-Brac stall in April. A reminder was given about emptying the ‘Send a Cow’ collection boxes so that a payment can be sent before the end of the club year and an update on the amount recently sent off to WaterAid – this was £588, which with the government promise to match will be effectively doubled to £1,176.

Final plans were made for the club outing to see Joseph the following day, and arrangements put in place for a ‘Hands-on Social Media’ session later in the month.

We also had a visitor Louise, who we hope we made to feel very welcome!