A Blustery Day at the Rotary Mundaring’s Sunday Markets
Mundaring Community Financial Services Ltd provides a market stall at the Rotary Club of Mundaring’s Mundaring Sunday Market on the second Sunday of each month for not for profit community groups connected with the Bendigo Bank. A Marquee was provided free and we were [...]

KALAMUNDA ZIG ZAG COMMUNITY ARTS FESTIVAL
SUMMARY REPORT FOR Soroptimist International of Helena
Location – Stirk Park, Kalamunda Road
Sunday 30th October 2011 10.00 – 8. 00pm
Soroptimist International of Helena were asked by Lyn Harris and Gail Campbell (from the Shire of Kalamunda) to assist again this year with the Zig Zag Festival in Stirk Park with the [...]

At our October dinner meeting we watched a DVD of street dramas from Kolkata in India. Our club had been eagerly awaiting this DVD as we had donated funds to our Friendship Link SI Kolkata to assist in the making of these plays.

The street plays were on the topics of the trafficking of young girls and child labour. There were two separate story lines. The first was where a father sent his child off to another town to work as they were so poor it was a burden on the family to keep them at home.

The second was where a father married his young daughter off to an older man that he had never met for a sum of money.

The actors attracted large crowds on the street and encouraged them to be involved by asking them questions such as “is this the right decision”.

The plays concluded with both children being rescued and the parents being advised that it is illegal to send their children off.

It was great to finally see the plays that went for approximately 20 minutes. Two members from our club had been working tiwht SI Kolkata and SI South Kolkata to prepare these presentations to educate the public on the issues surrounding these topics.

I always have a bit of a problem when I’m asked for an article about a large meeting such as the Federation Conference or the Commission on the Status of Women – what  do I talk about, what to leave out? I had the same dilemma when considering the 19th Soroptimist International Convention in Montreal.
So [...]

Our guest speaker for our September dinner meeting was Deborah McArdle from The Smith Family.

The Smith Family is a children’s charity helping disadvantaged Australian children to get the most out of their education, so they can create better futures for themselves.

Deborah shared with us information about the scholarships they provide, mentoring assistance and the range of ages that are helped through their various programs from 6 months through their whole schooling term.

We were amazed to find out how much assistance they provide just in the Midland area.

We were delighted to induct new member – Sandy Hayward – to our club at our September business meeting. Sandy has been attending meetings for a few months and has helped out at several events.

Sandy has been a member of Soroptimist International in the past with SI Townsville and was a charter member of SI The Goldfields.

After her induction, Sandy told us how being a Soroptimist helps provide some balance in her life and allows her an opportunity to help women and girls.
We look forward to getting to know Sandy better as our newest club member.

The photo is of the SI Helena President Rosalie Gordon and Kalamunda Youth Swing Band member Chiquita Wood – winner of the SI of Helena Scholarship.

Thank you to everyone who attended our Annual Quiz Night at the Lesmurdie Club. We had over 80 people join in the fun with raffles, heads and tails, slide the bottle and a silent auction as some of the highlights of the night.

There was some excitement at the end of the night when there was a tie for third place. After 2 tie breaker questions the third place team was selected.

This year the funds raised will go towards the Soroptimist International of the South West Pacific Federation Project – Birthing in the Pacific – as well as to our ongoing projects.

Our dinner meeting this month was a little different with the venue changing at the last minute to The Rose and Crown in Guildford due to a black out in the Midland area.

After dinner, we went down to the cellar to hear from our guest speakers SI Cambridge member Pamela Fruin who is also an ambassador for RENEW and Michelle Hogan who is the director of Our Secret Bhutan.

RENEW stands for Respect, Educate, Nuture and Empower Women and is the only NGO in Bhutan that supports disadvantaged women and girls. RENEW was established in 2004 by Her Majesty Queen Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuck, the Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Its vision is “to empower disadvantaged girls and women in Bhutan and integrate them back into their own communities as independent, socially and economically productive members of the society.”

Pamela shared photos from her trip to Bhutan last year when she delivered red beanies and scarves made by Soroptimists to nuns in Bhutan as part of the Red Beanie Thunder Dragon Project.

For the second year in a row, Soroptimist International of Helena manned the gates at the annual Mundaring Truffle Festival on the Saturday of the two day event.

We worked throughout the day in 3 separate shifts, braving the continual showers of rain interspersed with lovely bursts of sunshine.

We welcomed bus loads of tourists and families to the festival as we checked their tickets. The Shire of Mundaring has been very thankful for our volunteering efforts on the day.

It was an amazing weekend and such a good response from Clubs who attended. The Guests were amazing talking about their experiences touching all of our hearts.

We had nearly 100 people join us for our annual fashion parade in aid of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The day opened with local singer Isabella Marslen’s beautful voice welcoming people as the arrived.

Our 7 models presented clothes from Kimbos from Midland. There was a great assortment of outfits that guests were able to purchase after the show.

Jean Hutson from the Royal Flying Doctor Service gave a short talk about the work they do.

A 2 course lunch was enjoyed by all and there were many raffle prizes handed out.

Thank you to Kimbos Midland and Skinspiration Kalamunda for their support with our event.

We were thrilled to establish a new Friendship Link with Soroptimist International Plovdiv from Bulgaria. Our Plovdiv contact Dilyana Vitcheva has been corresponding with our member Naomi Allan and we received our certificate formalising the link on the day our our birthday party.
Soroptimist International Plovdiv is a very active club with some of their recent projects including:

• Providing 20 blankets to sick children at a Medical University
• Recontructing and renewing the Soroptimist VIP room at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Medical Univeristy
• Providing 4 fitness equipment for children with diabilities
• Reconstructed a fountain in the central park of Plovdiv to supply drinking water. This is only a part of their enormous project entitled “Water is LIfe” which is aiming to reconstruct 8 fountains for drinkable water in the city
• Friendship Links are a way for Soroptimist clubs to get to know other members in Soroptimist International from around the world and to build an appreciation and understanding of cultures very different from our own.

By exchanging communications and sharing information, clubs with Friendship Links have gained valuable information about the challenges facing women around the world. in many cases, these relationships have grown to support local Soroptimist projects that improve the lives of women and girls.

We are looking forward to getting to know our sisters from Plovdiv in the months ahead.

We celebrated our 27th birthday in style at the start of April with a Jewellery Party. Lucy Cotton from Soroptimist International Rockingham demonstrated the gorgeous Miglio Jewellery range.

We had 33 people join us at Hillview Golf Course for finger food, drinks and of course – birthday cake. It was a great evening of friendship and shopping!

Our President Rosalie Gordon attended the Landgate International Women’s Day breakfast where she met members of The Esther Foundation. At the breakfast, Rosalie donated a book “Glimmer of Hope” to The Esther Foundation for their residents to enjoy. She also got to meet Liz Davenport who was a keynote speaker on the day.

SI Helena with the support of SI Riverside, SI Geraldton and SI Karratha & Districts have been successful in our efforts to fund the first stage of our sustainable farming project in Timor. SI Joondalup having visited our project in 2010 informed us of a shipping container that would have some room for us to send much needed items to assist the farm and community.

David Roach from Catalpa International our partnering NGO in Timor provided us with a list of supplies that the farming project and community needed. At the last Region meeting details of the offer of space in the shipping container and a list of supplies was provided to delegates and proxies and our member Kim Kennedy spoke about how clubs could assist by collecting the items and delivering to her home until we were able to take them to the temporary storage container in Victoria Park.

There was a large variey of items delivered to Kim’s home including bags and bags of new warm clothes which included jackets, pants, long sleave T shirts, caps, rolls and rolls of beautiful material for sewing, wool, buttons, craft items, books, pencils, gardening tools and cooking utensils to name but a few. Once the call came through that the container was ready we jumped into action packaging, lableling and delivering everything in an afternoon, a big job on a hot day!

A very, very big thank you to all those clubs who assisted, to SI Joondalup for thinking of our project when they knew the offer of space was available and to Peter Snell who liased with us and assisted in packaging the boxes into the container.

The container is listed as a Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS) Project which will provide tax receipts for cash donations into the project. Rotary will be planning several fundraisers this year to help keep the containers moving regularly. Note that the cost to send one container is aprox $8000.

For our Saturday of Service, 6 members and one grand daughter hosted an afternoon tea for aged care dementia residents at Cypress Gardens in Greenmount.

We supplied a lovely assortment of cakes, scones, slices, quiches and sandwiches and served tea and coffee to the residents.

The afternoon was spent chatting, playing games and listening to some old time music. We tried very hard to dance with the residents but they preferred to watch us!

This is the 5th year we have spent with the residents who enjoy the interaction with us.

The staff also appreciate us spending the time stimulating the residents with flash cards and conversation. We look forward to catching up with them again next year.

Some 26 Soroptimists from all federations and the international executive, made up the SI Delegation at the 55th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW55) at the United Nations in New York. Robyn Cain was honoured to be part of the delegation and proud to be present for the launch of the new Gender Equity Entity – UN Women. SI members combined with WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts) and other agencies – UN Women and YWCA to present forum style panels which were well attended and well received. Robyn attended several interesting sessions dealing with aspects of education relevant to the Pacific Region and it was pleasing to see Pacific Women presenting a stronger voice than in previous years. She was also fortunate to attend the international launch of the Australian National Plan to reduce violence against women and their children presented by the Minister for Women’s Interests, the Hon Kate Ellis.

Our March guest speaker was Faye Read from Soul Birth. She gave a very interesting talk on how her passion of empowering women to have a positive birthing experience.

Faye lives in Glen Forrest and is a midwife and childbirth educator. She commenced her career at King Edward Memorial Hospital before moving to Papua New Guinea where the birthing experience was quite different to what she was used to.

As a mother of 4 children, she is also able to draw on her own child birthing experiences to help other women.

Members enjoyed sharing their child birth experiences with each other and also finding out what alternatives are available to those about to go through this.

Our annual general meeting was held on Tuesday 1 February. Prior to the meeting we had the pleasure of inducting 2 new members – Jane Forrest and Elaine Soutter. It was a fantastic way to start 2011. Kim Kennedy finished her 2 year Presidency and handed the reigns over to Rosalie Gordon. All our new office bearers were also elected. Val Ludemann tabled a thank you to Kim for the wonderful way in which she has lead our club throughout her term as President. We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead with the prospect of inducting another new member in March

The poultry farm, as you can see it is nearing completion. The farm is currently stocked with locally sources hens, however, we have written to the customs department in Timor Leste, seeking to import a different variety of hen found in West Timor that is a more prolific layer of eggs and larger. The local hens will help the ladies start, and we can expand as their capacity increases. I will keep you posted with our progress. Also, as we are nearing the end of the first phase of the project, we will begin to prepare a small review of the current stage and provide records of all the expenditure. Additionally, the two gentlemen in the photo are local trades people who have assisted with some of the more technical aspects of the project. So all the project expenditure, outside certain material costs, has been injected back into the Eraulo community.

Our first meeting for 2011 was well attended with several visitors and potential members at our new meeting venue – The Eastern – in Midland. We heard first hand the difference that The Esther Foundation is making to the lives of young women. One of the course participants told us of her own situation. The transformation that had occurred in this confident 16 year old lady standing talking to a group of women, was nothing short of amazing. In just 2 short years she had gone from self harming, being put in psychiatric wards and being on constant suicide watch to being a leader at the foundation who is now applying for a job in the police force. Members also brought along donations for the Region call out to send up to those affected by the floods in Carnarvon.