Recent Speakers
Since the summer recess the Club have had most interesting, well-illustrated and informative addresses, all of which have been well received.
At the Club meeting 09 September guest speaker Claire Smyth, Charity Development Officer for the charity Will to Give highlighted the work they do and the importance of will planning, especially if you have a charity you wish to support, as it really will have a significant impact. Established in 2011, she noted that they are a charity with a difference as they are a membership organisation with over 60 local and national charities as members. She pointed out they aim they aim to support successful Legacy Fundraising and encourage Future Kindness and the inclusion of a Charitable Gift in a will. They work alongside solicitors and financial planners and reach out to the general public through social media and various talks to organisations raising awareness of the importance of writing a will and of estate planning which is a big issue in NI as 68% of people do not have a will - a figure much higher than the rest of the UK. They also advise the implications of dying intestate. She revealed that they have noticed a significant change in types of charity donations in the last 7 years from 50% going to church and religious organisations to 38% now, with health and animal charities being supported instead.
Guest speaker Sue McPherson, fundraiser for the RSPB, explained to the Club meeting 16 September the work of the RSPB in NI, how they help endangered species and what people can do to help. She pointed out the RSPB is the largest nature conservation organisation in Europe with about 1.2 million members and over 12,000 volunteers. They have over 200 nature reserves, 10 of which are in NI, home to 80% of the rarest and endangered species. Their vision is: A shared world where wildlife, wild places and all people thrive and aim to advance the conservation of birds, other wildlife, and the natural world, by protecting and restoring habitats, saving species, sharing knowledge and connecting people to nature through habitat management (the bulk of their work for endangered species), species recovery, scientific research, policy lobbying, advocacy, international campaigns and education and engagement. She noted the RSPB focuses its work on 21 key priority species in NI and highlighted several ways people can help, such as: provide food and water particularly in the winter, grow nature friendly flowers which are good for pollinators and have bird baths, grow some of the 7 easy-to-grow plants, put up nesting boxes, in the garden leave dead herbaceous stems over the winter, have a wet area, varying lengths of grass and a variety of nectar-rich flowering plants as well as native and non-native trees.
On 23 September guest speakers QUB's Teresa Sloan and Professor Marian Traynor stressed the importance of philanthropic donations for QUB's research and the exciting development of inter-professional simulation (InterSim) for medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing and midwifery students. Teresa who is Head of Health Fundraising revealed the Queens Foundation was established in 1999 and is a registered charity which brings in philanthropic donations to support priority projects to invest in the future. As part of the Russell Group, Queens is a research-intensive university and has invested a lot in particularly health and engineering. She stressed the university is very progressive and dynamic and have recently invested a lot of money in 2 Belfast Region City Deal projects and that they are unusual in that 100% of all donations to Queen’s are received with no deduction for operational costs. She also highlighted Queen's significance in terms of the Northern Ireland economy, its ranking compared to other universities and the importance of their philanthropic donations noting that without them the InterSim 
Centre would not have opened. Professor Marian Traynor, Director of Queens KN Cheung SK Chin InterSim Centre, noted they have been doing simulations in Queens since the early 20's and the centre is named after the main donor that provided the funds to establish their building. They focus on inter-professional educational simulations for medical, nursing, pharmacy, midwifery and dentistry students together in one building as, when graduated, they will be working as part of a team and need to know how to be professional in that environment. They use mannequins, actors and, increasingly, actual people who have been patients for the role play and create 'room environments' for specific scenarios such as a hospital ward, a GP surgery, or a patient's home etc. but key is how they embrace the technology to assist this and they are very well equipped with the latest in cameras, technology and recordings etc.