Bird’s eye view of the 2017 lunch
The Women of Scotland Lunch is an annual lunch set up to celebrate the great achievements of women in Scotland and the next lunch will be held on Friday 26 April 2019. The 2018 lunch was held on 27 April and the charity was Bloodwise, a blood cancer charity dedicated to funding research into all blood cancers including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, as well as offering information and support for blood cancer patients. The proceeds of the lunch will be used to fund a research project in Scotland.
The speakers at the 2018 lunch were Jackie Kay, Scotland’s Makar/poet laureate and novelist, STV Presenter Laura Boyd, who herself has suffered from leukaemia, and the real Calendar Girls – Angela Knowles, Tricia Stewart, Christine Clancy – whose story about producing a naked calendar to raise funds for leukaemia, inspired the popular film and stage production.
The Lunch was founded by May Hamp-Hamilton in 1958 and was set up to draw together a cross section of influential women in Scotland to celebrate their success in their many and varied endeavours. While fundraising is not the foremost purpose of the lunch it is a welcome side benefit.
As a main ethos of the lunch is to meet and mingle, your place will be chosen at random, unless you book a full table of 10 places.
The charity for 2017 was Alzheimer Scotland. Our charities are chosen in Autumn each year so if you would like to be considered then please email chair@wosl.co.uk
We raised an incredible £33,000 for Alzheimer Scotland so a huge thanks to all those who attended the lunch and donated and sponsored us. Its one of the biggest amounts we’ve ever raised.
The previous year, 2016, our chosen charity was Music in Hospitals Scotland and the lunch raised £23,000. They were so happy with this that they sent their musicians back to play for us during the reception for the lunch in 2017.
The 2017 committee