Page 24 - BPW-UK ANNUAL REVIEW 2022-2023_Neat

AREA REPORTS

This year has once again been a fairly quiet one as far as organizing and holding events in per-
son is concerned.

It has been pleasing to see many of our BPW LASE members participating in the excellent Zoom
events/meetings organised by BPW UK. These include the AGM and the Wednesday talks. Two
of our members who live outside of the UK, Judith Crowe in France and Monique Lee in Califor-
nia, have both been regular attendees and we have enjoyed seeing them both.

Our member Marina Leal-Freitas attended the BPW European Congress in Iceland and we en-
joyed reading her report.

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

I am pleased to say that we will be re-starting 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
Billericay and worked tirelessly to make it the success it is today. Molly Perry held every of-
fice in the club and following her term as President she became Vice Chairman of Eastern Divi-
sion. 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. ▪

Ann Wiseall
BPW London Anglia South East (LASE)

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