We were delighted that we were, once again, able to hold our AGM Day at St Thomas’ in-person.
2pm Chapel Service
The Speaker was the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally.
The Service was recorded and is available on The Nightingale Fellowship website. It was not live streamed this year.
(Please note the collection was for the Chapel at St Thomas’ and only cash or cheques accepted).
3pm Annual General Meeting
The Speaker this year was Sophie Hacker who designed The Calling Window installed at Romsey Abbey.
Sophie had copies of her book illustrating this artwork available to purchase at teatime and was happy to sign these. They cost £10 each. There were also cards of the window available too. These were £2 each and lovely mementoes to keep or send to absent friends.
4pm Tea
Yes – Afternoon Tea was back!
Tea is a benefit for Members of The Nightingale Fellowship and was served in Shepherd Hall, so we could all catch up with each other after such a long time.
Anyone who is not a Member was required to pay £5 each (cash only accepted).
The Nightingale Fellowship Journal 2024
We are now looking forward to receiving any relevant articles of interest you may care to write for the new 2024 Nightingale Fellowship Journal.
Whether it be about an event you have attended, announcing a future Set Reunion or something else, we would like to hear from you!
Guidelines for submissions are given on page 106 of the Annual 2023 Journal but you can of course contact us for more information and help by email:
The Nightingale Fellowship AGM 2022 14 May 2022 at 2pm
The Nightingale Fellowship AGM was held for all members to access online.
The 94th commemoration service of the Nightingale Fellowship and was live streamed on Saturday 14th May 2022, being held in the St Thomas’ Hospital Chapel with invited guests only, due to restricted numbers in the Chapel.
The Service was led by The Reverend Canon Mia Hilborn, Head of Spiritual Care, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital, with the Address being given by The Reverend Canon Patricia Hillas, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
A recording of the Service is available for you to view – please go to the Members log-in page on The Nightingale Fellowship website.
Summer Picnic
Nurses from the Nightingale Fellowship met at Embley on Friday 13th August to commemorate the 111th anniversary of the death of Florence Nightingale. After laying flowers at Miss Nightingale’s grave at St Margaret’s Church in East Wellow the group spent time in the Manor House and grounds of Embley Park, the childhood home of Florence Nightingale. Afterwards they visited Romsey Abbey to view the new Nightingale Window and attend a short thanksgiving service acknowledging the work of nurses around the world and all those who have been affected by the Covid Pandemic.
Nightingale Nurses attending the Summer Picnic at Embley Park
NIGHTINGALE FELLOWSHIP HONOURS DAME EILEEN SILLS ON HER RETIREMENT
Dame Eileen Sills, recently retired Chief Nurse at Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), was presented with a framed Nightingale Badge on Monday 24th August via a Zoom meeting with several of the Nightingale Fellowship Trustees and past Council members. This is a rare award which was given to thank Eileen for her 15 years of support to the Fellowship and championing excellence in nursing care during her time at GSTT.
Following the call, Eileen responded as follows:
‘To everybody in the Nightingale Fellowship I can’t thank you enough for the lovely surprise that I received. I was very touched that you had wanted to honour me in this way especially as I have always wanted to be a Nightingale! I have had a fabulous 15 years at the Trust, it hasn’t always been easy but it has been a privilege to lead the profession and to have nursing held in such high esteem. The relationship we have developed with the Nightingale Fellowship has been precious and without your support the Nightingale Nurse Award and Academy would not have seen the light of day. I think between us we have managed to place nursing and midwifery in its rightful place. I didn’t want to retire, but I have had to accept that my health and my family have to come first. I had been so looking forward to the 2020 celebrations, but I am sure we will have ample opportunity to celebrate in 2021, as we see the Nightingale Garden open in the summer of next year.
I want to end by saying thank you to you all. With very best wishes, keep safe and I look forward to catching up at the AGM in 2021’.
Eileen
25.08.20
Zoom photographs taken by the President
Dame Eileen in her garden
The framed Nightingale Fellowship badge
BROOKWOOD CEMETERY
The Nightingale project for a plot at Brookwood Cemetery is now complete and Hilary Brian has given the following update to share with you:
‘The Cemetery is under new management and there is now a beautiful entrance building with a full-time receptionist. There is now a legible (!) map which I am including here in case anyone would like to visit. Julie Davies and Joan Le Vasseur worked very hard over the years to establish the plot’s boundary and who is buried there and Pauleene Hammett galvanised her gardening team to dignify the site. Thank you to all those people and also to all of those of you who so kindly donated money to enable us to purchase the picket fencing and identify the plot with the board. I have emailed the management to thank them as the plot is being very nicely maintained – there are no fallen branches, the bushes have been pruned where they are near to graves and, clearly, it is regularly strimmed. I drove around the whole Cemetery and didn’t see another plot bounded and identified as neatly as ours. Our ‘sisters’ are truly resting in peace’.
Help for the Nurses in Lebanon
An Appeal is launched to help support the nurses in Lebanon who have been affected by the current crisis there. Some of these nurses, who have had their homes destroyed and have been injured, are trying to return to work but cannot leave their damaged homes unsecured. If you feel you would like to donate, you can do this via the following routes:
gofundme: https://gf.me/u/yuzmu6
International Council of Nurses: Geraldine Limborg at [email protected]
The Fellowship is delighted to accept and honour the work undertaken by the villagers of Dethick, Lea, Lea Bridge and Holloway in Derbyshire, to celebrate their famous resident whose family home was Lea Hurst. A local retired nurse – Mary White – has brought the project together in record time and this was blessed and is displayed at St Thomas’ Hospital, with cards and prints being sold in support of The Florence Nightingale Museum and Lea Village School.
The Florence Nightingale Museum St Thomas’ Hospital 2 Lambeth Palace Rd. London SE1 7EW.
The Florence Nightingale Museum, which is housed in the St Thomas’ Hospital, is devoted to Florence Nightingale, covering her Victorian childhood, her life in the Crimean and her life as an ardent campaigner for health reform.
It is a wonderful place to take your family and learn of her exceptional work. In the Museum, visitors learn more about the legacy of Florence Nightingale and her impact on nursing today. Highlights in the collection of the Museum include the writing slate she used as a child, her pet owl Athena and Nightingale’s important medicine chest.
Should you be in the area of St Thomas’ Hospital it is well worth a visit.
Members of The Company of Nurses are enjoying a full programme of events on line and in person. Many Nightingale Fellowship members already belong and enjoy meeting with nurses who trained across the country. For more information go to www.thecompanyofnurses.co.uk
The Party Invitations to celebrate the 200th Birthday of Florence Nightingale on or around May 2020 which so many of you were to host or attend were sadly either postponed or cancelled. We are hoping that at some later date a few tea parties may take place and will be posting any information if it received.
Nightingales across the world have been encouraged to have virtual tea parties to replace the planned gatherings and when these take place across the internet we hope to post the photographs on the Fellowship website for you to enjoy.
This will take place in January or early February 2024 at Sydney Hospital
To register your interest please contact the Nightingale Fellowship office by email at [email protected]. Your title subject should be marked Lucy Osburn Nightingale badge and please include your full email address and telephone number (with area code). This will automatically be passed on to the coordinator who will then contact you nearer the time by email with your invitation.
