International Women’s Day Breakfast

The Griffith Soroptimists will host an International Women’s Day Breakfast on Wednesday, March 8 at the Bagtown.

This year’s speakers are former local ladies Lucy and Hilary Geddes.

President of Griffith Soroptimists International, Libby Trembath said they strayed from tradition this year and approached the two former locals who have both gone on to do amazing things, smashing stereotypes along the way.

“Usually, we go through an events person, but this year we approached Lucy and Hilary Geddes,” Ms Trembath said.

“When I’ve been wandering around talking with people, they’ve all said, “I’m so glad they’re local.”

Lucy Geddes is a renowned humanitarian lawyer who has recently written a book titled 50 Human Rights Cases That Changed Australia published by Hamish McLaughlan.

She has worked on issues relating to access to justice for over a decade in NSW, Victoria, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands.

Lucy currently leads the Public Interest Advocacy’s Asylum Seeker Rights Project and is a teaching fellow at the University of New South Wales.

Griffith’s music community will fondly remember Hilary Geddes who is a guitarist, improviser and composer.

Hilary is also the bandleader of the Hilary Geddes Quartet, works as an in-demand guitarist in the Australian jazz and improvised music scenes, and the lead guitarist in the all-woman rock band, The Buoys.

Another departure from tradition is that both speakers asked that their speaker fees be donated directly to Griffith Women’s Refuge.

Ms Trembath said speaker fees paid in the past have been between $8000 and $10,000.

Not only that, but Lucy’s publisher will donate $5 per copy of Lucy’s book sold to the Griffith Soroptimists International.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is Embrace Equity and both speakers will get 40 minutes to present around that theme.

Ms Trembath was excited to welcome representatives from each of the local schools to this year’s event as well.

“We’ll have a whole table of young leaders there,” she said.

“We want to do a lot more work with the young women in town, getting their ideas and tapping into their vision for living in a regional city.

“We want them to tap into our education scholarships.

“They’re our future leaders.”

Ms Trembath said that Soroptimists was more than their Bunnings barbecues.

“Soroptimists International has a voice at the United Nations,” she said.

She also wanted to thank all of their sponsors, including their two major sponsors for this year.

“Beyond Bank is our presenting sponsor,” Ms Trembath said.

“They have been on board for a number of years.

“They are very in tune with women in the workplace.

“Our community partner is Griffith City Council.”

• Topics:

• Women
• Food
• Events