Dear CIWOT Ladies🌸,
It's been a hectic few months since the new Board were voted in at the AGM
in June and what a turnout that was! Thank you to everyone who joined us
for the joint end of season/AGM. It was a lovely evening.
It has been so lovely to see the numbers of attendees slowly increasing at
our CIWOT events since the start of 2023, culminating in the event on
Tuesday 7th November for the Erasmus+ project - Empowerment -
Empowering Women in the workplace, with 30 attendees and many staying afterwards for a chat in the bar.
Unfortunately this does not mean that COVID has gone away and boy
did I find out just how bad it can be in the past 2 weeks, for me this was
my first experience of having COVID and I am told that the symptoms are
not as bad if you have it more that once, to be honest having had it this first time I do not wish to experience it again! But hey ho life does move on and so do we and CIWOT.
The number of events we have had since the start of the season has be amazing and the variety of events is staggering and can only be attributed to our wonderful Personal Growth and Friendship Coordinators who both work wonderfully well together in liaising with members and outside speakers to make these events interesting, thought-provoking and fun to attend. A huge thank you to Chrisitne Keeble Watson and Lihong Wang for their tireless work in creating these events.
The other board members have not been idle either! Irene Sabbagha has taken on the liassing aspect with Cyprus Stop Trafficking as well as keeping us up to date with any Government information that may affect our organisation, Irene has done this tirelessly for the past 14 years regardless of her own personal circumstances. She has also taken on the organising of the Table Top volunteers for St Barnabas, this event helps to raise funds and awareness for Cyprus Stop Trafficking and at the event on the 5th November the team raised 100.00 euros. A team of six volunteers working together at this event sharing the setting up and putting away. A huge 'Thank You' to Irene and her wonderful team of volunteers! If you wish to be a part of our volunteering team please let Irene know (or any board member and we will pass your information onto Irene)
Hana has been recovering from a back injury but it hasn't stopped her setting
up our new Accounting system Quick books, which she and Catalina have linked to our website so any payments made through the website will automatically
be recorded on QB.
Catalina and Arwa have been working non-stop on updating our Membership area of the website and all your information that we require when you join. Catalina has been instrumental in teaching us not so tech savvy Board Members how to post our events on the website, and then create and share them across social media.
We would still love a tech savvy member to come forward and help coordinate/monitor our social media, this can take about an hour a day
if you have an hour to spare? If you would like to be a part of our
Social Media team please let myself or Catalina know and we can have
a meet up and a chat about what is required.
Our Book Club continues to meet once a month on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at the Mall in Limassol, if you are interested in books and would like to
be a part of this club please let us know and we will pass on your information
to Mette Wood who runs this club, like all CIWOT events, Clubs - you don't
have to attend every meeting and if you submit a book for discussion that
would be fantastic too!
The Business Club is run by Carine with help from the rest of the board and the subjects that can be covered under the title "Business Club" is immense, all CIWOT Members automatically become a Member of the Business Club and are encouraged to join the Business Club Facebook page which is linked to our Members only Facebook group, this is just one of the perks of being a CIWOT Member. If you have a business you can then join our CIWOT Business Club directory and once a month we will do a "Spotlight" on different Members who have businesses.
This is a great way for us 'non business' members to see what our other members who have businesses are doing and how we can benefit from their knowledge and expertise. So make sure you are a member of the Business Club group as well as the Members only group.
Kusam our Secretary has been bringing us all up to date on how to use Google Drive/google documents and keeping us on our toes admin wise. Thank you to Kusam and keep it up, I am sure we all still have a lot to learn!
Our wonderful team of volunteers for the Karaiskakio Foundation have also been hard at work collecting swab samples for the Bone Marrow (stem cell) registry. They are also working closely with volunteers from the Karaiskakio foundation at the various events around Limassol. A huge 'Thank You' to Rosina Eftychiou, Stella Stylianou, Christine Keeble Watson, Donna Pirou, Vicki Hannon, Rene Wright and Claire Pillar - if you would like to know more about this and volunteer to help please let myself or Christine know and we will pass your details onto Stella and Rosina. Training is given and hopefully after the new year a visit to the Foundations head office in Nicosia will be arranged.
This has been quite a long blog, probably because it's my first as President again, but it won't be the last and I would be remiss not to mention the wonderful events still to come! Coffee in the mountains, a Beach catch up, Business Club, Book Club, Pumpkin party, Bone marrow swab collection this coming Saturday at Kyriakou bookshop in Limassol, the Heritage Christmas Fete, the Mind Body and Spirit exhibition, and the Christmas Party!
I am sure there will be more for us to enjoy before Christmas! so keep an eye out on the Website for Upcoming Events and register online to secure your place, as we found with the Erasmus+ event we had to create a waiting list!
From my calming view of the mountains from my new 'office area' (the living room) in my new home, I will sign off and wish you all a wonderful weekend to come and an exciting week ahead! Mine will be in the UK visiting my son George and my Mum and family down south.
Linda Jowett-Rich
President
Cyprus International Women of Today
Telephone 99878257
Email ciwotlimassol@gmail.com
Email richlinda72@gmail.com
