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This bulletin starts on a sombre note. First, of course, are the shocking acts of terrorism that killed hundreds over the last weekend in Paris and Beirut. Our hearts go out to Zontians in France and Lebanon at this terrible time. I have written a message of condolence to the Presidents of the respective Clubs to let them know their London sisters stand with them.
Second, we were saddened to hear that in September 2015, Denise Marshall OBE, the erstwhile CEO and founder of Eaves, one of the charities our Club has supported for many years, died after a battle with stomach cancer.
Lastly, we were even sadder that a month after Denise’s death, the Chair of Eaves announced that the charity that Denise started was forced to close due to an unsustainable budget deficit caused by cuts to their funding.
Some of their services have transferred to other organisations such as NIA (http://www.niaendingviolence.org.uk/). However, Poppy, their programme for trafficked women has been discontinued, as well as their life skills programmes.
This has left us with a dilemma because Eaves had a nine-bed refuge, which our Club had started collecting and making Christmas hampers for. This was for the women who would have spent Christmas Day in Eaves’ refuge. Our Club will choose another refuge to send our hampers to, as an immediate issue for the Christmas project was already underway. However, our Club must decide which charity we will support long term, particularly with our toiletry collections and annual cash donation. We will discuss at Club meetings in due course.
Rehana Raja
President
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SafeHands for Mothers event - Tuesday, 24 November
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Nancy Durrell-McKenna, our member and also CEO of another charity our Club supports, SafeHands for Mothers, is hosting a free event, which is a film screening and panel discussion about female genital mutilation (FGM).
RSVP here http://bit.ly/1kzPhLJ
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Carols by Candlelight for Operation Smile - Wednesday, 9 December
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Ruth Dar has organised for our Club to attend Operation Smile’s Carols by Candlelight in the Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair. The tickets are £35, with £5 from each ticket sold as a fundraiser for our Club. The rest goes to Operation Smile, which is a charity that provides vital surgery to children in third world countries who are born with a cleft palate.
Email Ruth at ruthdar@aol.com by 20 November if you’d like to attend.
We plan to have dinner at the nearby restaurant Delfino’s afterwards, so please let Ruth know if you’d like to come to dinner also, so we can book a table.
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October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month
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Many thanks to the Zontians and guests who attended our October meeting. Unusually, but most welcome of course, was that the guests outnumbered the Zontians at this particular meeting! We were very happy to have our lovely guests come along and join us for a lively discussion about the Groningen District Conference. It was quite a great introduction to Zonta for those attending a meeting as a guest for the first time because we covered what Zonta is all about, for the literally uninitiated!
Everybody also got the memo to wear pink to the meeting in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as especially to Jodie Cole, the guest speaker at our March 2015 Lean In event who began her treatment that very day.
Sending all our best wishes to you Jodie.
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#powerofgirl Zonta Southbank
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Many thanks to our fellow Zontians from across the Thames for putting on this wonderful speakers’ event #powerofgirl on 22 October at Saatchi & Saatchi. The three speakers Elaine C. Cameron, Jade Easton and Annabel Kaye were absolutely delightful and inspiring. The issue of quotas got everyone talking, as did Annabel’s hilarious take on feminism and inequality. The issue of women’s health and partaking sport, and body image issues were discussed as well.
We had a great time mingling and were happy to see many young women there – future Zontians perhaps? We can hope!
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Our PR/Fundraising Chair Angela Yin would like to organise to see the Suffragette film within the next couple of weeks, before it leaves the cinema. It is still playing in Leicester Square and a few theatres around London.
Please email angelajeanyin@gmail.com if you are keen! We can get a pizza and a wine afterwards.
This is not a fundraiser per se, but a chance for Zontians and our Zonta Grapevine readers to socialise together.
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Watch the Suffragette trailer here!
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Reclaim the Night - Saturday, 28 November
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It is finally here! This is a march that takes place all over the world to assert women’s right to walk the streets at night without the fear of violence. Its purpose is also to dispel the myth that violence against women only takes place on dark streets, when in fact, women’s own homes are often not safe.
Assemble at Great College Street at 6:30pm and then we walk!
Let’s wear orange, brave the cold and do this! Please email Angela Yin at angelajeanyin@gmail.com if you plan to attend.
http://www.reclaimthenight.co.uk/
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Zonta Amelia Earhart Fellow dinner - Friday, 12 February 2016
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Our Club shall host a dinner for the five Amelia Earhart award fellows in February, who are currently studying or undertaking research in the UK. It will be an honour to hear about their progress and how Zonta helps women reach their potential in male-dominated industries. More information will be in the next bulletin, but do keep this date free for dinner with these accomplished women!
The Amelia Earhart Fellowship considers applications each year for women studying PhDs or professional doctorates in aerospace and engineering. Applications for 2016 closed last week.
Read more on the Zonta International website.
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Donate to our charity, Zonta London Fund online
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As always, feel free to donate to our Fund via our giving page https://www.givey.com/zontalondonfund or by text messaging, as per the picture!
These platforms automatically allow you to declare your Gift Aid status as a UK taxpayer, giving our Club the benefit.
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We would like to continue to develop our bulletin with our members and supporters in mind. If you have anything you would like to share with the Club, please do not hesitate to email contact@zontalondon.org.
We aim to publish on the last day of each month. If you wish to include something, please let us know as soon as possible to make sure it has the best possible chance of being included.
Please also follow us on social media!
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