Odette Jacobs – President
Odette loves tea and cake and complains of being exhausted due to having two busy kids while attempting to become a multi-hyphenate by having three jobs. Ultimately though has no one else blame when she doesn’t have enough time for sewing or to get a dog.
Beccy Harnett – Vice President
Beccy works in eLearning managing an online learning site. In her spare time, she enjoys walking and being out and about in nature. She loves learning new skills crafting (mostly badly!) and reading so the Sotonettes is a perfect fit.
Georgina Board – Vice President
Georgina is a retired nurse who enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and meeting friends for coffee or lunch. She likes reading, holidays and supports her husband socialising and training Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
Michelle Sullivan -Secretary
Michelle likes crafting, Christmas and Formula 1, especially if she can combine them (Christmas crafting while watching a race!). She works as a business analyst in the NHS and looks forward to the time when working doesn’t get in the way of all the leisure activities she’s sure she could fill her time with.
Hannah Morgan
Hannah enjoys trying lots of new things without being especially good at any of them! This is one of the reasons she enjoys the Sotonettes, there is always something new to learn and try! She works for a local community interest company and in a school while being a mum, and has a background as a youth worker.
Penny Hollowell – Book Club Lead
Penny spent her career in education in this country and abroad. She moved to Southampton fairly recently and has enjoyed getting to know all that the local area had to offer. She enjoys travelling and cycling and still teaches young children when holidays and family commitments allow.
Jen Thomson
Jen enjoys reading and crafting small knitting projects when she has some spare time away from DIY and more commonly, working as an air traffic controller (it pays for all the new things she seems to need). Before looking after the planes in the sky, Jen was a PhD student in Chemistry at the University of St Andrews.
Jennifer Dittrich
Jennifer is a keen reader, theatre lover and ultimate Craig David fan (he is a local lad, after all!). She works in HR for a well-known telecoms company in London. When she’s not commuting she spends time with her husband and young daughter and loves everything the WI has to offer having first joined Streatham WI in South West London when she was just 23 (the youngest member at the time).
Katie Yeates
Past Sotonettes Presidents:
2021-24 Sue Crump
2017-21 Jen Thomson
2014-17 Katrina Kemp
2013-14 Hannah Farmer
2012-13 Emma Jefferies
The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) lets each WI have individual control of some rules and regulations that govern the operation of a WI. At our 2022 Annual Meeting, our members voted to keep this decision for the Sotonettes WI:
“An individual may hold one of the four officer roles (President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer) for no longer than three years. After this time, the individual should relinquish this position. This decision does not prohibit the individual from standing for a different office or acting as a general committee member if they wish to continue on the Sotonettes WI committee.”