Richmond Community - Richmond & Dales Soroptimist Club

The Richmond and Dales Soroptimist Club was established in 1957. The Club is one of many hundreds of Soroptimist clubs worldwide whose members work through service projects to advance the status of women and girls to achieve their individual and collective potential, to realize aspirations and to have an equal voice in creating strong and peaceful communities.

The Club members are women from across Richmondshire from different professions and backgrounds with that common aim.

An early, local success

The Richmondshire Local History Museum was founded in 1974 by the Richmond and Dales Soroptimists and was opened in 1978 by its Patron, the Marquis of Zetland. The museum has recently won a significant Heritage Lottery Award for further development. Several Club members are involved in various aspects of the museum’s management and activities.

Museum website: www.richmondshiremuseum.org.uk

Fundraising

Richmond & Dales Soroptimist Club RACE FOR LIFE June 2011
Members after taking part in the 5km run in Darlington to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Richmond & Dales Soroptimist Club RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT DOMESTIC ABUSE July 2011
Soroptimist stall in Richmond Market Place on Market Day

Fundraising events are carried out for a variety of projects and charitable causes, locally and wider afield. Recent projects include:

Tanzania: to train two nurses in Kilimatinde village hospital and to provide the hospital with solar panels for its electricity supply.

Zimbabwe: to help improve living conditions and life opportunities for women who currently live and work under difficult and oppressive circumstances.

The Gambia: support for Rug Aid, a charity based in Reeth that teaches blind people to make and sell rugs to support themselves.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Richmondshire: support for local domestic abuse services and running a quarterly ‘awareness-raising’ programme in the Richmond area.

Richmond: finance for our local girls’ football team to provide appropriate football strip.

We are proud of what we achieve through our service projects and have recently won an award within the Yorkshire Region for one concerned with its work raising funds and creating awareness of Women in Need, the charity started by Leah Pattison from Teesdale, which helps ill, destitute and homeless women in the Nagpur region of India.

We are also proud of the friendship, support and the enjoyment of sharing each others’ company within our own Club and with members of other Clubs with whom we have Friendship Links as well as the opportunity we have to visit other cities and countries.

If you feel you have the energy, skills and commitment that you could use to benefit other women throughout the world please contact our membership officers on: 01325-377291 or 01748-824240.

Richmond and Dales Soroptimist Club - Visit our web site