Members - Portsmouth

Portsmouth DIOCESAN BRANCH - Formed 1917

President: Miss Theresa Devlin
Vice President: Mrs Rosemary Farrow
Secretary: Mrs Elizabeth Etienne
Treasurer: Mrs Jeannette Collins
Branch Chaplain: Rev. John Dunne

The first Section was formed in 1917 in Portsmouth Cathedral parish.
There are now 15 Sections: Farnborough (Hants), Fleet, Gosport, Hayling Island, Jersey (East), Jersey (West), Lymington, Portsmouth, Reading, Ryde (Isle of Wight) and also includes the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey.
Portsmouth Branch – Diocesan based - stretches from the south of Oxford to the Isle of Wight), Southampton, Southbourne, Totland Bay (Isle of Wight), Wantage, and Winchester. Branch meetings are held as far apart as Wantage, Farnborough, Hayling Island and Southbourne Section in Bournemouth.

Portsmouth Section hosts our Annual General Meeting in May with our Bishop Crispian Hollis usually celebrating Mass for us in Portsmouth Cathedral. We have a ‘Business Meeting’ in July held at Winchester, geographically the mainland centre of our Branch.

The Branch has 314 members and 12 Direct members. Section members are involved in a wide range of activities, working within their parishes as Eucharistic Ministers, Readers, and organising parish First Holy Communion classes. They work with the SVP, Justice and Peace, Fairtrade, Life, Relief and Refugees, and visit the sick and housebound. Members also help support refuges for victims of Domestic Violence, and hospices, including Naomi House Children’s Hospice near Winchester and The Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham.

A CWL member donated £28,000 in her will to Emmaus House, a hostel started by the CWL in Aldershot for the homeless. Our Branch has strong ecumenical links and most Sections help to organise and/or take part in both Christian Unity Week and The Women’s World Day of Prayer.

Members attend and work with Churches Together at such events as Lenten groups, Good Friday public processions that include Stations of the Cross, Alpha Course, Mothers Union gatherings and a City Centre Chaplaincy.
Grateful for the inspiration of our Founder Margaret Fletcher and under the patronage of St Margaret Clitherow we face the future with our hearts on fire and our heads held high!

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