Friendship Link Newsletter Issue 53, January 2017 LINK NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 53, January 2017 SIGBI Ann Hodgson SIA Rosemary Reid SISWP Theresa Lyford SI Yvonne Simpson SIE Maria Elisabetta

FRIENDSHIP LINK NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 53, January 2017

Issue 53, January 2017

And She Said...

Hello Friendship Links! A very Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you

all those who have sent me beautiful and encouraging mails, making me

feel very welcome-Renu am sharing your awesome greeting above. Thank

you Nisha for passing on the baton with superb instructions and

information package that came with personal training.

My first newsletter is more about the Malta Conference. A thousand

women created a great opportunity for creating friendships and friendship

links. Imagine the information and ideas exchanged and explored .

I decided to bring to your notice the different Federation Presidents under

Yvonne Simpson our SI President, on one page. When you are dealing with

different Federations it is nice to know their leaders.

I received some great inputs from Clubs, including a first time attendee

about their interaction in different ways with their FLs. One of them I

have called an E-Chat. Maybe you could forward some such e-chats to see

how you could communicate with your Clubs and stay in touch. Today we

have chat lines, WApp groups and E-Groups to have conversations. Send

me interesting ones.

I just had to share my visit with Clubs in Spain and I encourage those

travelling to do the same, even if they are not your friendship links. We are

here to build friendships too not just report on projects.

The last page is there to help you understand your part in communicating. I

hope you will improve your communication.

Friendship Link Newsletter

In Friendship and Soroptimism

Zarreen Babu

Please check out those who are looking for a

friendship link. I have given you my IDEAS let me

have YOURS.

Check out and please pay attention to the calendar

for JOINT PROJECTS on special days and

reporting. SIGBI NEWS has a page to showcase

them so please plan and report them.

CALENDAR

Jan 10th - Last day for FL

Joint Project Reports For

Sigbi News to me

FEB-MARCH – World Fair Trade

Fortnight

MARCH – Ovarian Cancer Month

7th March – World Book Day

8th March – Intl Women’s Day

22nd March – World Water Day

31st March –

•Last day to submit FL

Registration Report

•Last day for Fl Joint Project

Reports For May Sigbi News

to me

•Last day for general reports

on FL activity for FL

Newsletter to me

7th April – World Health Day

15th May – World day for the

family

MAY – SIGBI Membership

Month


SIGBI Ann Hodgson

SIA Rosemary Reid SISWP Theresa Lyford

SI Yvonne Simpson SIE Maria Elisabetta de Francisci

Above you can see Yvonne Simpson, the Soroptimist International President and the Outgoing

SIGBI President Margaret Emsley together with SISWP President Theresa Lyford Linking hands

showing how each of SI’s Federations, though separate are ‘linked’’, and you with your Friendship

Links make that link possible.

Below are the four leaders of our four Federations, linking their ideas and running their

Federations with the common theme and goals of Soroptimist International. Each of the

Federations though, have their own ways of dealing with activities and projects . You as a Club

help them understand how your Federation works, with its different cultures and methods of doing

projects when you interact with your friendship links of another Federation. I therefore encourage

you to have at least one Friendship Link in each Federation.

This way we can merge with each other and with other Federations and strive not to leave any

Club without a Friendship Link. Reach out to Clubs and spread the news of what you do locally,

globally.


The Conference at Malta and my first experience of what it was going to be like to be your next Friendship Link

Coordinator were incredible. As I listened to the speakers I kept wondering how I was going to ‘Engineer the Future’

and ‘Step up and Lead the Way’ to more and better Friendship Links. The two themes by our Outgoing and Incoming

Presidents respectively seem to form a link creating a continuity in the work that we are doing.

Creating Links at the Stand

Changing hands, greeting each other and

10 years after she had a one time lesson in Warli art my dear friend Beryl Bartter greets me at Malta Conference with a very personalized Warlicard. Very touched, thank you


SI Malta outdid themselves welcoming us. And we partook in their city celebrations of honouring their special day

for the soldiers who have laid down their lives for the country. At a conference you have the best opportunity to get

to know the host Club. Most of the members are around and they are only too happy to share with you all about

their city, in this case their country and also all about their projects. What better way to form a friendship link.

Stands are very informative and talking with the different people at exhibits often leads to friendships resulting in a

link with their Club. Here I would specially like to thank Sina Bugela, the exhibition coordinator ,for the space and

table provided for us in the exhibition hall.

SI MALTA

Making

friends at

other tables

and seeking

friends at

ours...

And they said....

SI IKEYA NIGERIA Olaitan Otulans at [email protected] like to meet SI Bournemouth for the STEM PROGRAM+2348023354337

MANY SUCH MESSAGES, ALONG WITH MEETING POINTS WITH CLUBS, FOR LUNCH AND TEA WERE EXCHANGED!

SI Bournemouth please contact SI Cameroon to partner in STEM

Did you respond?....

MY FRIENSHIP LINKS HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO MY GREETINGS IN 2 YEARS. DO CONNECT-PAT TEAGUES OF SI TORQUAY [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Connecting with Friendship Links and Making New ones...

SIPME with SI Barbados

SI Dundee w SIPME PresidentAnd with bags by SIPME

Zohra of Club Tunis Across FederationsSIE connects with her SIGBI Fr. Link

My Club SI Kodaikanal FL SI Colombo, finally meeting up

Leslie Clarke of SI Nantwich and District, UK requesting a link with SI Kodaikanal, India

A momento given from Trinidad and Tobago

Martha Pufong of Si Yaounde, Cameroon takes a message from Angela Christopher of SI Fylde to their friendship link SI Kumba in Cameroon

Clubs requesting Links

•SI St. Augustine (Trinidad) Please write to

[email protected]

•SI Dhaka (Bangladesh) would appreciate a link

within their region

•SI Onitsha Niger (Nigeria) need a link. Please

contact Adaku Aniebue at

[email protected] (+2348033196205)

• SI San Fernando (Trinidad) wants a

friend. Please contact Rowena

•SI Calcutta (India) would appreciate new

friendship links with them.

Any Club Interested?

•SI Torquay would appreciate a new link.

Please contact Pat Teague at

[email protected]





1946 and our close Friendship link with SI Trondheim

SI Hoylake & West Kirby’s friendship link with SI Trondhiem, was formed when the 2 founder members of each Club met each other whilst serving with SSAFA during the War and kept in touch with each other for many years. Possibly the idea of Soroptimism was thought of, as both Clubs were formed in 1946.Our Founder Member Mary Wilson (her 1st married name) was the Owner of the Marigold Café, West Kirby where the inaugural meeting of our Club was held. Jean Woods (our long service member) visited SI Trondhiem with fellow sister Jean Shaw (now deceased) by invitation in 1992 and ironically to get their views on becoming a Member of the EU, which Norway was contemplating joining, but never did! They did meet their Founder Member too!None of our members was free to fly over to Trondheim to join in their regional conference and their 70thcelebratory dinner – and coincidently, SI Trondheim’s event was so close to ours no one from their Club could attend - so, to celebrate our Clubs becoming Seventy we sent a commemorative plate. We all signed the plate and some of our members helped with the design of the plate.

E-CHIT CHAT BETWEEN FR LINKS

Helen of SI DunfermlineRema of SI BangaloreI have enjoyed looking at your facebook updates. The fun run for Cancer looked as though it was a great success. Good that you got TV coverage for it. How much money did you raise.

* we raised alnost over INR 300,000*

We are having a Friendship link night at our Club on November 24th.We will give a five minute presentation on each of link Clubs. We are linked with 6 Clubs.If at all possible we would like a 1 minute video clip of greetings from your Club members, or if you don't have a general meeting before then may be you could do one. I presume that somebody in your Club has a smart phone and could do a video and either email it to us or Whatsapp it. My telephone number is +4470520568.

As it would be dificult to arrange a Club meeting very soon, I will send you a video clip.

There are some good photos of some of your projects on your face book so I will use some of them. However if you could tell me a little more about the theatre arts project and the effect that is having. Also can you give me more details on your fistful of Nutrition project. How many schools have you reached - both of the rich schools who are donating the rice and the poorer ones who are receiving it.

Will send you a separate mail on this.

We had a good time at our Friendship Link Club evening. Every body thoroughly enjoyed your greetings video clip. It came across very well. We took photos and a short video which I will send once I get them from the lady who took them.

A commemorative plate and a video exchange! What an idea!


SI CALCUTTA catching up with their FLs

As a Past President of SI Calcutta, India and the secretary ofthe National Association of Soroptimist International (NASI)of India, I had the opportunity of attending the SIGBI MaltaConference with my daughter Ayushi. There we met andinteracted with Soroptimists from different parts of theworld, which was indeed a very rewarding experience.

One of the highlights of the conference was our interactionwith our Friendship Link Clubs. SI Calcutta has sevenFriendship Links and we have regular correspondence withthem.

Three Clubs are from SIGBI, namely, SI Bangor, SITunbridge Wells and SI East London. At the Conference,we met Joan Smith from SI Bangor (who is also a PastPresident of SIGBI) and were lucky to have a veryinteresting and informative conversation with her overcoffee. She told us about several of her experiences asSIGBI Federation President and we also exchanged Clubbrochures and gifts. We also had the chance of meetingPresident Lorna and Secretary Ann from SI Tunbridge Wellsand President Alison Charles from SI East London.

I cherish the memories of our meetings and fellowship withthe aforesaid members of our Link Clubs. We exchangedideas and learnt a lot regarding projects and otherSoroptimist activities.

We realized the importance of having Friendship Links withSoroptimist Clubs of other countries. It definitely helps incarrying forward the ideals of Soroptimism. It bringstogether women from across the world, who are workingfor the same cause and creates very strong bonds offriendship.Achina Kundu

At Cardiff plan ahead and meet up with your links! An opportunity for a personal touch!


Visit to SI Bombay Chembur 15 November 2016 Jill Lane

Chembur is a district a 40 minute drive north of the centre of Bombay. Members of SI Bombay

Chembur are all educationists teaching at the Mahatma Education Society, which has 48 different

educational establishments across Bombay. The Club was started in 1995 and chartered in 1997 and

meets at Chembur.

Founder President Daphne, President Celina Joy, Secretary/Vice President Yvette Lee, and about ten

other members gave David and I a warm welcome. Yvette gave a presentation on the Programme

Action work of the Club. She included a short video about female infanticide, which is a problem in

India.

Jill showed some maps and pictures to describe Plymouth, and then talked about SI Plymouth and

District and some of the Programme Action work done over recent years. A photo of the 1931 insignia

brought a gasp of admiration, and great interest was shown in the ‘He Loves Me/Loves Me Not

bookmarks. Jill then presented some books about Plymouth and some photos of SI Plymouth

activities.

SI Chembur sent SI Plymouth a bag celebrating 40 years of Soroptimism in India which contained the

SI Bombay Chembur Report for 2014-2016, a prospectus for the Mahatma Education Society and a

copy of EduNation – book written by Dr K M Vasudevan Pillai the founder of the Society. Lata

Krishnan invited me to her induction as President of NASI India, where there are 14 Clubs but sadly I

would be travelling home that day.

After refreshments everyone went outside to pose for photos and we were escorted back to the street to

ensure our taxi driver was still waiting for us.

Have you visited a Soroptimist on your travels? Please let me know.


With President Monica and her team

With Nan Marie

I had the most warm welcome by the members of SI

Madrid. I was invited to their meeting but Nan Marie,

their new member and a mezzo-soprano at the opera

could not make it so she came and met me the day

before just to say hi and share ...

On the day of the meeting, Ulla was waiting for me at

the bus stop and took me first to her museum like home

where her husband made me the perfect ‘Indian tea’.

Nuria picked me up and Ursula opened up her home with delicious Spanish

sweets. Another awesome home overlooking Barcelona, I was mesmerised.

Both Nuria and Ursula used to belong to SI Barcelona but unfortunately it

had to close down. So four members of SI Barcelona joined up with SI

Sitges-Vilanova which is 40km from Barcelona.

But they are active and meet in different locations coming up to Barcelona

for some meetings. Their concern was the same as quite a few Clubs. AGE!

They felt they needed the youth and were open to ideas on how to get the

Clubs moving and not shutting down as theirs had.

They had similar issues about women and it was good to talk about the

similarities and differences in the Spanish and Indian governments.

An interesting evening was had mixed with personal and professional

conversation and then a walk back to the cable car that took me down the

hill I was on.

At the meeting we shared information about our Clubs, our

countries plus our cultures. Claire, their secretary, had

taken pains to learn all about the Indian flag and what the

colours meant and even presented me with three Spanish

fans in the flag colours. Monica, their president was the

sweetest and very bubbly person. Having temporarily lost

her speech, she was all action and pencil to communicate.

Nothing deters her ability to run the Club smoothly with

her very efficient team. Friendship was established and I

hope you will look in on SI Madrid as a prospective link.

Barcelona

Have you discussed with your Links issues if links are from different countries or

advocacy if from the same?


•Plan joint activities on special days

•Plan fund raiser for the Meru Project and/request other Federation FLs to donate

•Have One FL Coordinator for your Club and/ or one person to communicate per FL

•Make pen pals

•Share expertise between your Clubs and cultural differences

•SKYPE\WApp

•Share Club newsletters

•Greet each other for charter days and the day your link was formed

•Plan friendship grants

CONTACT ME

Email: [email protected]: +91-9894117621SKYPE: ZarreenpostMail: Arayesh, Prakashpuram

Kodaikanal 624104INDIA

ALL CLUBS NEED TO PLEASE FILL OUT NEW REGISTRATION FORMS AND SEND THEM IN BY

MARCH 31st. IT IS REQUIRED


Documents

Friendship Link Newsletter Issue 53, January 2017 LINK NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 53, January 2017 SIGBI Ann Hodgson SIA Rosemary Reid SISWP Theresa Lyford SI Yvonne Simpson SIE Maria Elisabetta