While writing this letter, I have been just over half a year in the role of one of the Vice Presidents of SIE. What a kick start!
Once I entered the Board, Mentoring was assigned as my main accountability. I have been a member of the SIE Mentoring Task Force since its formation in 2017 and therefore, have a passion not only for the topic as such (Mentoring can become a game-changer to stop the decline in the membership numbers!) but also the committed members of the Task Force. For the last two and a half years, this team has dedicated its energy and brainpower to understand how we should describe Soroptimist Mentoring, what the benefits of mentoring could be not only for the younger mentees but the Soroptimist mentors, and how we could initiate mentoring programs on both union and club level across our Federation. The great news is that many of the unions have appointed a Mentoring Coordinator to be the “hands and feet” on the country level and a speaking partner to the Task Force. Without this group of motivated ladies, it would be a mission impossible to reach our targets and establish Mentoring as a permanent way of working in SIE. I’d like to thank you all for your contributions and hope you are able to maintain the contacts to the clubs despite the current challenges to meet physically! The Mentoring Task Force is currently working on a Mentoring Training program and all the coordinators will be invited to join to learn more about SIE Mentoring and to share experiences and best practices. We expect the participants to leave the training not only with more knowledge and skills about how to implement a mentoring program but also with such a new level of inspiration that during the second half of this Biennium, a completely new level of mentoring activities can be reported!
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Our president Anna Wszelaczyńska encourages the SIE Board members not only to focus on our own areas of responsibility but to reach out to the other members, collaborate and cooperate, in order to have a more holistic approach. We have the same challenge as many other voluntary organizations with a declining number of members and therefore, we in the Board are encouraged and requested to rethink. Could we change the current way of working and link our different projects and programs closer together? For example, could we create a “package offering” for young women, such as a week on a Soroptimist Leadership Academy combined with 12 months of SIE Mentoring? This way, these women would have a relationship with our organization for an extended period during which she would become more familiar with the strengths of Soroptimist International. I am therefore working with many of the colleagues in the SIE Board, discussing ways to have more scholarship grantees, Leadership Academy participants or mentees to join us!