The Northern Newsletter

On Friday the 8th of March 2024, we celebrated International Women’s Day. A necessary event that highlights and memorialises the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This captivating event allowed recognition and honour for those who have contributed to society, it also allowed us to reflect upon those who sometimes are unfortunately overshadowed and therefore deserve significantly more appreciation. Those who attended were greeted by three individuals who had completely different experiences and interesting stories to share. These speakers were: Carolyn Mayling, Chérie Taylor Battiste and Katrina Hodge.

The first speaker to share her story was, Carolyn Mayling who is the founder of Rosie’s Rainbow Fund. Rosie’s Rainbow Fund are a charity who use music and other forms of therapy sessions at John Radcliffe Children’s Hospital in Oxford, Royal Berks Hospital in Reading and Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. Established after Carolyn’s daughter Rosie, who was bright, creative and theatrical person regretfully became ill in December 2002 and eventually diagnosed with vasculitis, sadly passed away on May 14th 2003. However, Rosie’s legacy lives on after her expression to raise money to help children undergoing lengthy hospital stays. Her family were able to not only make that a reality but could also provide forms of therapy for tens of thousands of seriously ill, life-limited, disabled and special-needs children, as well as their parents, siblings and other family members. We wish future success for this incredible organisation of caring and charitable people.

The second speaker was the famous poet and actor Chérie Taylor Battiste who was able to share multiple poems she had written herself regarding personal experiences from her novel Lioness. Most notably was the astonishingly powerful and expressive poem about the Japanese art of Kintsugi, this is when broken objects, usually ceramics are pieced back-together with gold lacquer. This poem perfectly symbolised emotion and the imperfections of beauty and truth. I would highly recommend purchasing a copy of Lioness by Chérie to discover even more captivating poems.

The final guest speaker for this event was former soldier and beauty pageant winner Katrina Hodge. Katrina’s exceedingly inspiring and motivational story begins when she enrolled within the army and was sent to Iraq, despite being challenged and told she wouldn’t be able to do it. Yet, after serving for a number of years and even earning a commendation for her bravery while wrestling two rifles from a prisoner following a road traffic accident. After she would then enter Miss England without any expectations of winning it, but she would be crowned on the 7th of November 2009. Most notably as Miss England, she would persuade the organisers to remove the bikini round from the competition. In an attempt to change people’s views of beauty pageants from being just about looks to surrounding more of the contestant’s personality. In 2011, Katrina would release her very own novel called Combat to Catwalk which detailed her experiences and impressive journey.

I would like to thank all of those who attended the event and showed their appreciation for the organisers and guest speakers. I would also personally like to thank each guest speaker for accepting to share their personal stories, helping to educate us on their own achievements.