Charter date - 25th October 1957

History of our Club and the Organisation

Soroptimist International History

Soroptimist International was founded in 1921, when eighty women formed the first Soroptimist club in Oakland, California. Since then, membership has grown to nearly 95,000 women across the world. This makes us the world's largest classified service organisation for women.

Soroptimist International Structure

Each Soroptimist International club is based in a geographical area, such as Reading, Wokingham & Bracknell, and club members meet locally on a regular basis. The clubs are grouped into Regions in the U.K. and National Associations in some other countries, and grouped further into the four Federations.  

These Federations are Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI), the Americas, Europe, and the South West Pacific.  We are a part of SIGBI.

Reading, Wokingham & Bracknell Club

Reading & District club was founded in October 1957 when 22 women, who held positions of responsibility in a variety of professions, came together to give service to the local community.  The Bracknell & Wokingham club joined together with Reading & District in 1994 and the combined club has 38 members to date from as far a field as Twyford, Tadley and Henley as well as Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell.

For our 50th anniversary we celebrated with a Golden Jubilee Luncheon. We are a 'catagorised' organisation which helps to ensure that we have a good mix of occupations which stimulate interesting discussions at meetings.  At present we have vacancies for women who work in Accountancy, Media & Publicity, Medicine and Education.  If you are interested in knowing more, please ring 0118 942 9665 or send an e-mail via our contacts page.

Our club is one of 14 clubs in London Chilterns Region .  Our club has supplied three Regional Presidents and two Regional Secretaries.

Our members are involved with many other local committees.  Some examples are:

• School Governors

• The British Community Trust Peru

• Churchwardens

• Macmillan Cancer Relief Berkshire Appeal

• Justices of the Peace

• Citizens Advice Bureau

• United Nations Association

• Berkshire Community Foundation

•    including Give a Child a Chance

• Home-Start Reading

• National Trust

• Meals on Wheels

• Local Strategic Partnership, Bracknell

• Wokingham Volunteer Bureau

• Churches in Reading Women's Centre

Friendship Links 

Most Clubs are linked with other clubs, mostly in other countries, to correspond and sometimes to work on projects together.  Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell club is linked to eight.  In the past we have been linked to Bulawayo club, Reading club in Pennsylvania, and a club in the Cameroon.   We are now linked with: