Page 25 - BPW-UK ANNUAL REVIEW 2023-2024

AREA REPORTS

This year has once again been a fairly quiet one as far as organising and holding events
in person is concerned.
It has been pleasing to see many of our BPW LASE members participating in the excel-
lent Zoom events/meetings organised by BPW UK. These included the AGM and National Con-
ference in Belfast as well as the Wednesday talks. Two of our members who live outside of the
UK, Judith Crowe in France and Monique Lee in California, have both been regular attendees
and we have enjoyed seeing them both.

News from BPW Billericay:
Several members met for regular lunch meetings during 2022. We were joined by Dianne
Couch and Kathleen Wilson from Colchester.

I am pleased to report that we were able to resume our Molly Perry Award for girls from
our local schools going to university.

The MOLLY PERRY AWARD is unique to BPW Billericay and was founded on the death of a much
loved and respected member of the club in 1984. Molly was a founder member of BPW Biller-
icay and worked tirelessly to make it the success it is today. Molly Perry held every office in
the club and following her term as President she became Vice Chairman of Eastern Division.
Her international work took her to all parts of the world. She became very well known in the
international field and her passing has left a sense of deep loss world-wide.

On Molly’s death, her close relatives gave £1000 to BPW Billericay to set up a Trust Fund for
some good cause of the members own choosing. Knowing Molly’s involvement with the Public
Speaking Competition, the members decided to organise an award for local girls to encourage
them to enter a field of education for many years barred to them. The criterion for the award
is that candidates are accepted by a university to study medicine or allied subjects, an applied
science, or engineering. Besides which Miss Perry herself had engineering qualifications, and
her sister Nancy had been an extremely talented consultant gynaecologist at St Andrew’s Hos-
pital in Billericay.

The Trustees of this award are very grateful to Miss Perry’s family for the opportunity to
pay tribute to her annually.

We had a record number of nominations, indicating an increase in the number of girls
taking up the STEM subjects. We selected seven nominees to receive monetary awards and
their chosen subjects were Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, Marine Biology, Adult Nursing, and
Chemistry. Congratulations to them all.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members for your continuing support
and attendance at the national events. It is hoped to organise an Area event this year and I will
send out a request for dates, venues, and topics very soon so I look forward to hearing from
you.

Ann Wiseall, Area Co-ordinator

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