Citylife in Rugeley and Cannock Chase September 2020

Cannock
Soroptimists
By Trish Mellor
.........................
Cannock Soroptimists joined their friendship link club in
Melbourne, Australia this week… by Zoom!
Soroptimist International Cannock and Melbourne
branches usually keep in touch with each other by email,
sending messages and sharing newsletters, but his week they
all attended the same meeting via Zoom. It was 9.30am here
in the UK and 6.30pm in Australia - and how marvellous it was to put
faces to some of the names!
Nine Cannock members joined the meeting and listened to speaker,
Josephine Beer, who works for the department of Health and Human
Services in Victoria. She described how, at the start of the worldwide
pandemic, she had been given the task to lead the work of handling the
situation regarding all those returning to Victoria from overseas. The
'returners' had to be taken from either the airport or seaport to a hotel
where they were quarantined for 14 days. Josephine set up a team of
120 people who contacted everyone in the hotels on day three of their
quarantine and again on day nine, working to a specially prepared
agenda. All of the team were all trained to question appropriately, to
employ empathy, and to be able to recognise any mental health issues. In
the early days (March and April) they were making 1,000 phone calls
every day and making follow up referrals from 20% of those calls.
Celebrating Art
and Nature
Digitally
.........................
This August Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is celebrating art and
nature with a special digital WildArt Exhibition on the 26th
August 2020.
The artwork will be displayed on its Wildchild Festival blog and will
be taking over the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust family activities Facebook
page for the day with exciting insights into the artwork.
All of the work exhibited has been created through collaborations
with artists and young people in Staffordshire.
Collaborations include:
-Giant sculptures by Rob Turner, inspired by drawings that children
have sent in from the call out on Facebook.
-Festival flags by Gwenllian Spink, designed with a Beaver group in
Newscastle-under-Lyme -‘Once upon a time…’ a story walk created by
Members of SI Cannock attend SI Melbourne meeting on Zoom
Sally Cole, also a Soroptimist, then told of the arduous journey she
and her husband had to get home to Australia when they found
themselves stranded in Lima, Peru, as borders closed suddenly and the
pandemic spread around the world. They were forced to quarantine as
their travel arrangements were constantly cancelled and guidance
changed. Finally, after five and a half weeks in enforced lockdown, they
arrived home via a series of circuitous and very expensive flights, with
little food and water, to reach Melbourne on a military aircraft. To say
they were glad to get home is an understatement!
This meeting brought the message home very clearly that the
situation we are all going through is the same the world over.
Find out more at www.sigbi.org/cannock-and-district, or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/SICannock.
Louise Bland with
soundbites sent in by
families
in
Staffordshire.
-Digital Artwork
created by a group of
young artists and
environmentalists that
have been meeting
virtually through
lockdown with artist
Niki Colclough.
This exhibition has
been made possible
with funding from the
Arts Council England.
Katie Shipley, People Engagement Manager said: “The Arts Council
England funding is for our next Wildchild Festival that was due to be
held on the 26th August 2020 and now sadly cannot go ahead.
“We hope that families can still enjoy the artwork they have helped
us to create during this alternative exhibition.
“The festival has been postponed until next year where all of the
artwork will be on display in real life!”
Take a trip to the family activities Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/swtactivities or the Wildchild Festival Blog at
www.staffs-wildlife.org.uk/WildChildFestivalblog on the 26th
August to see the artwork.
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