The SIA 40th Biennial Convention was held on July 16-19, 2008 at Taipei International Convention Center and Grand Hyatt, Taipei, Taiwan. The theme of this convention was “Sharing Good Fortune,” which encouraged members to be thankful for what they have and to pass their good fortune on to women in need.
Alison Levine served as keynote speaker. Team captain for the first American Women’s Mount Everest expedition, Alison shared lessons she learned while climbing the world’s highest peaks. Many of Alison’s experiences on the mountain became tenets she now follows at work, such as daring to move backwards in order to go forward, and making sure fear does not dictate decisions. She also shared the power of partnering, portraying a positive attitude as a leader, and asking questions in order to achieve goals. Hear an excerpt from her talk >>
Some Encouraging Statistics:
This past year, 773 clubs participated in the Violet Richardson Award, and gave nearly $300,000 to girls and $130,000 in donations to the girls’ volunteer organizations, totaling $430,000.
Making a Difference for Women Award recognizes women who are working to improve the lives of women and girls. This year’s recipient, Anne Ream of Chicago, Illinois, was also in attendance to accept the finalist award — a $5,000 donation to The Voices and Faces Project, the organization Anne founded in 2003. Its mission is to give a voice and face to rape survivors, offering a sense of solidarity and possibility to those who have lived through abuse, while raising awareness of how this human rights and public health issue impacts victims, families and communities.
New SIA 2008/09 Board of Directors
Soroptimist is doing such important work, and to be recognized by your organization is indeed humbling,” Anne said. “It is good to be in the company of an international community of women who believe that we can, and must, work collectively to make the world a more fair, just, and safe place for women and girls.”
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Special Thanks
Shirley McCoy attended on our behalf this year and there were 1700 members at the convention and 778 of them had attended convention for the first time. Shirley wrote us to say “Taipei was very busy with sooooo many people and motor scooters everywhere. It was an experience of a life time.”
Shirley also very kindly bought each of our club member the new SIA pin with our the new logo. We are very grateful for her generosity!