February 20th, 2010
The Bollywood dance lesson created a fantastic atmosphere
Organised in just 8 weeks, the Bollywood Night fundraising event was a magnificent success! We wanted to do something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ladies Circle International and the current LCI development project was based in India, building toilet blocks in schools to enable girls to continue their education past puberty. Project SARIs needed £750 to build one toilet block, including materials, labour, mains drainage and water supply, to ensure it was viable for the long term.
The film “Slumdog Millionaire” had just been released, so it was a very topical project to support and if you have seen the film, the reality of toilets in poor parts India is made only to clear! So we decided to give it a try, booked a Tyttenhanger village hall and sweet-talked local award-winning restaurant Chili Raj to provide delicious food at cost price. We arranged for a DJ, twisted the arm of a prospective to give us a dance lesson and found a therapist to give Indian Head Massages. The UK project manager of SARIs happened to live in Bushey, so she was able to come along and tell everyone a bit more about the project. The obligatory raffle was also in place, and nearly 20 local companies donate some excellent prizes.
It was a lot of hard work to get this all together in such a short amount of time and everyone really pulled together as a team to make it work. Thanks go to everyone who helped, especially Marianne, Caroline, Gee, Anthea, Claire and Sharon. And not forgetting Jay Sammon and friend for DJ-ing and setting up such a great sounds system! The atmosphere was fantastic as over 60 tickets were sold, which was just the right number for the size of the venue. After eating the wonderful curry followed by home made chocolate brownies, the raffle prizes were drawn and the music got started. The “Bollywood Sisters” performed a couple of dances then showed us some of the moves. Everyone joined in and when our DJ played the theme from “Slumdog” the dancefloor went wild!
Altogether it was an amazing evening, not only because we made over £900 for Project SARIs, but because the event was attended by husbands, partners, friends, other Circlers from Radlett and Bushey plus a few members of Round Table, Tangent and 41 Club. We really felt we had put ourselves on the map, not only literally (we now have a toilet block somewhere in India with our name on it!) but also this event signified that St Albans Circle had successfully pulled together and we were now working as a great team, the future seemed secure and the buzz of success prevaded through all our other activities for the rest of the Circle year.
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February 20th, 2010
Circlers and guests looking fantastic in traditonal outfits
The food is here but where are all the guests? Nervous anticipation!
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February 20th, 2010
Project SARIS – Sanitation at Rural Indian Schools
Aim: To build 100 toilet blocks at Indian schools enabling girls to remain in education
Ladies Circle International Service Project 2007-2009
Sanitation at Rural Indian Schools (SARIS), an initiative by Ladies Circle International, is a unique attempt to promote female literacy in India by providing girls with toilet facilities at school. A lot of girls stop going to school when they reach puberty. They go home to go to the toilet and do not return for the rest of the day or they avoid going to the toilet all day and become ill. In order to enable girls to continue their education past puberty, Ladies Circle India is facilitating the building of toilet blocks in 100 schools throughout India, with the help of money raised in the UK and other parts of the world.
Each toilet block costs £750 to build and so far eleven have been built and another twenty five have been identified. The first one was built at Uttarpara Girls High School near Kolkata (Calcutta). This is a unique project because all money raised is sent directly to India, where Ladies Circle India manage the project on a voluntary basis, therefore no funds are lost to administration – every penny goes directly into bricks, mortar and labour. All materials and labour are sourced locally in India.
Ladies Circle was founded in the UK in 1932 as a sister organisation to Round Table. Circles gradually formed all over the world, joining together in 1959 to form Ladies Circle International and continuing to grow every year since. In the UK there are now over 250 clubs who join together to form The National Association of Ladies Circles in Great Britain and Ireland, NALC. As we celebrate 50 Years of Ladies Circle International it is wonderful to have the opportunity to work with like-minded ladies in India. All monies raised for Project SARIS by Circles in the UK are sent to NALC where two volunteer project managers work closely with Ladies Circle India to assess applications for toilet blocks to ensure they are located at schools where they can be of most benefit.
Whilst Ladies Circle is a large organisation in the UK, it does not hold registered charity status and therefore does not have a registered charity number. However we are able to work closely with our counterparts in India and being an International Organisation we are able to distribute the funds directly between the organisations with no administration costs. The bank transfer costs are paid by our membership fees rather than out of the funds raised. Every penny raised goes into construction.
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February 20th, 2010
Nearly everyone attended the AGM
The AGM meant a big deal to all of us. It meant that St Albans Circle was off to a great start and all the effort put in initially had started to pay dividends. It was great to think that in a year, St Albans had become the second biggest club in the Area, with a total of 18 lovely members! (Well, strictly speaking the 18th member was inducted the following week at the Area AGM, but it still fell within the Circle year.) It was a great feeling to think that we had such a successful club and to look round at all the lovely people and new friends we had made.
Thankfully, there were volunteers for all positions on the council for the following year and these were all voted in unanimously. The only position left to fill was Vice Chair, but that could wait for 6 months. Marianne kindly agreed to continue as Chair. After having given a speech at the Chairman’s Night, Marianne was in full speech mode and inspired the club to go on to do bigger and better things in the coming year. Presents of Green & Black’s chocolate were given to all the council for their hard work in getting the club through the first year and a special present went to Caroline for all her help and support throughout the year. individual contribution to the group during the year or their unique memorable moments!
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February 20th, 2010
Leaving our mark at Loch Fyne!
Our 2008-2009 Chairman – Marianne Jordan – AGM speech
Well my fellow Circlers, I would never have believed it, if you told me this time last year, that I would now be standing in front of a room of 16 people – never, never, never. But let me tell you, I am so proud to be standing here surrounded by a group of such wonderful people. It has been an amazing journey in over the past year, since the thought first came into my head that is was time to start a new circle in St Albans. I am so grateful to Caroline and Janet for agreeing to take on this venture with me, giving me the courage to take on being chairman of a brand new club and to everyone who has helped along the way.
Thank you to all of you for just turning up and becoming members, but especially those who have been active on Council, you have put a lot of hard work in over the course of the year. It has sometimes been hard to know what to do or how high to aim, but you have all been wonderful in coming up with ideas and putting your all into everything we have tried. Thank you to everyone who helped on the Bollywood night and an extra special thank you to goes to Caroline, Sharon, Claire, Anthea and Gee. Please accept a very small gift from me as a token of my appreciation. Yes, it had to be chocolate, as this was our recurring theme of the year!
I would like to give an extra special thanks to Caroline, who has been a real trouper putting up with me all this time, constantly emailing and phoning you, for your calming influence when I come with yet another crazy idea, as well as all the work you have done with the website and keeping tabs on members in the early days, taking an active part of everything we have done, as well as taking on the very responsible treasurer position and for generally being a really lovely person. I hardly knew you this time last year, but I am so pleased to have had this opportunity to get to know you and to work so closely with you. And can I say – it’s great to have you as a friend. Thank you so much for all your support and this club really wouldn’t be as successful as it is without you. Please accept this beautiful plant as a token of my gratitude.
Why did I think it was time for St Albans to have a Circle of their own? For those of you who don’t know, Janet, Caroline and myself were all members of Harpenden Circle who, by the way, are the largest club in the country with over 40 members. Their biggest event is their Christmas Gift Fair, which makes a huge amount of money for charity, but after the third year of doing it, I felt it was time to move on. In March last year, I was driving to Harpenden, thinking this is going to be my last Circle meeting, when I realised that actually there are some things you can only get from being in an organisation such as Circle.
It is not just about going to a meeting twice a month, but making new friends who live locally and doing all those things you never get round to doing with your other friends, whether it be a fundraising event for your favourite charity or trying a new activity or going to a new restaurant. So rather than resigning, as I had intended to do, by the end of the night I had somehow become the founder member of a brand new club! Thankfully Caroline and Janet were happy to take this on as well, otherwise it would not have got off the ground and I would still be the only member! As I heard on the radio this morning: you cannot get this kind of success from a one-man team.
For me Circle is all about doing something you have never done before (although admittedly setting up a new club is rather extreme!) Trying new things keeps the brain active and keeps us younger for longer – so there you have it, Circle is good for you! In fact, when you research into happiness and happy aging, you will find that relationships, including friendships, family and community activities are the number one predictor of wellbeing! Other secrets of happy aging include regular activity (maybe pole dancing, belly dancing, table tennis) and eating well (although I am not sure whether fish and chips was exactly what Dr Weil had in mind when he wrote that!)
So, Chairman’s report: what have I been up to this year? I started off at the Area Annual Dinner at the Hitchin Priory, where I met the National President Lynda Wieland and a past St Albans Circler, Anthea Evans, who went on to be not only National but also International President! I was voted onto the Area Exec as the Area publicity officer, I attended 4 Area meetings and held the first ever Area publicity ideas-sharing night. I went to the Eastern Regional Lunch at the Belfy in Thame and finally went to the Inaugural Chairmen’s Night, held jointly with Round Table, 41 Club and Tangent. Not only did I wow the crowd with tales of our exploits, but us four brave Circlers who attended showed everyone how to move on the dance floor!
The club’s amazing achievements over the year – you will hear more about these from a few other people, but the biggest achievement I think is simply being here at all. So many clubs have closed down in the last few years and many more are teetering on the verge of extinction. We have shown that Circle is not a dying organisation, far from it, there is a huge demand for this type of club and it is very exciting for me and I’m sure all of you to know you are in on this from the start! I’m sure I might have mentioned, we are on course to win the National membership prize for largest percentage increase in members. That will really put us on the map and let everyone in Circle across the country know that we have arrived!
Everyone here tonight is a real delight to know, and I am so proud to be standing in front of such a great group of women. Together we can achieve some amazing things, so let us set our goals high for the coming year, keep those new members coming in, but most importantly, build on the relationships we are starting to make here, sharing ideas with each other and becoming an active part of our local community. We have the power to change lives – our own lives through our own personal development and others via the fundraising and community projects we do. We have a great group of people taking on new roles in council this year and I am really excited to be working with all of you to make St Albans Circle a fun and fantastic organisation!
I will leave you with this final thought: there is nothing better than a good friend…except a good friend with chocolate! Please raise your glasses to “Friendship and chocolate”
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February 20th, 2010
Marianne and Caroline meet former St Albans Circlers Andrea Evans (past National & International President) and Jocelyn Miles (past National Treasurer)
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February 20th, 2010
The inaugural event of the newly-formed St Albans Circle was a facepack and cocktail night, held in June 2008. The event was attended by over 16 women, with guests from Harpenden and Radlett Circles, the St Albans Tangent Chairman and friends and aquaintances of the three founder members: Marianne Jordan, Janet Coull Trisic and Caroline Sammon (all former Harpenden Circle members). The founder members worked long and hard to set up the club and make it a success. Plus thanks to the fantastic work by Caroline’s husband Jay, the beautiful website also went live that evening, providing a vital tool for potential members to find out about the club.
Great hilarity was had on the night sipping Cosmopolitans, Mojitos and Shirley Temples! The facepacks were donated by Lush Cosmetics (Watford Branch) and profits from tickets and donations went to the Children’s Heart Federation (over £50).
Little did we know that the success of this evening would be a sign of things to come. A total of five women who attended this event eventually became members (not including the three founder members). A report and photo made a half page spread in the local paper and this generated a couple of enquries. The ball had started rolling and St Albans Ladies Circle was on it’s way to becoming one of the fastest-growing Circles in the country!
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