#2 of 30 Women of Excellence to celebrate 30 Years of Women in Rotary
Nominated by Greg Wilkinson, text edited by John Borst
Diment began her journey with Rotary as a Public Relations consultant with Rotary in Britain and Ireland (RIBI) in 1996. In 2004 she joined the Rotary Club of Windsor St. George and was its President in 2008.
In that same year, she left RIBI to establish an independent award-winning public relations consultancy.
Client experience ranges from FTSE 100 companies to start-ups across print, broadcast and online media. Judith has wide-ranging experience of event management at all levels including international conferences, business to business conferences, exhibitions and business excellence awards. It is these talents that eventually brought her notice as a star Rotarian.
In 2012-13 as District 1090 Governor, she made 365 club visits, and the District raised over £1.25 million for local, national and international projects.
Diment’s most important legacy, however, has been her work as an advocate for polio eradication for more than 20 years. She is currently the Coordinator of the Rotary International Polio Eradication Advocacy Task Force, a UK National Advocacy Adviser for Polio and a member of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee (IPPC). Judith Chairs the IPPC Grants Sub-Committee which recommends grants to WHO and Unicef up to $150million annually.
It was in 2008, however, that Rotary began to notice her when she organised a fundraising dinner at Windsor Castle and raised £45,000. She followed this up by organising a projection of End Polio Now onto the House of Commons that same year. The story went viral, and the End Polio Now was adopted by Rotary International as the global branding for the programme.
Since 2013, she has Represented Rotary International at the World Health Assembly and the WHO Executive Board meetings. In 2015 she also became Rotary’s representative at the meetings of the Commonwealth Health Ministers Conferences, and Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings.
She has organised many polio advocacy and media events at Houses of Parliament, European Parliament and Chatham House. Judith is Rotary International’s Representative to the Commonwealth, a member of the Commonwealth@70 Committee, Board Member of the Rotary Action Group Against Slavery and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health.
Twenty-sixteen was a year of change for Judith as she transferred to the Rotary Club of Maidenhead Thames and was elected a Councillor for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Being elected was not, however, a sudden leap into politics as she had been a Campaign Aide to Rt Hon Theresa May MP in 2010 and 2015 during the UK Parliamentary elections.
During 2016 Diment also spoke at a Rotary Convention Plenary session in Seoul and attended the NID in Delhi, India plus did a five-day advocacy visit to Pakistan including a meeting with the President of Pakistan and the women health workers in FATA Khyber Pakhtun province.
Is it any wonder then that in 2016 she also received the Rotary Service Above Self Award from President Ravi Ravindran.
During 2017 Judith attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings in London. She also spoke at the launch of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health in London and was appointed to its International Board of Advisers.
In 2017 Diment also launched the Commonwealth Women’s Mentoring Scheme pilot and on March 13th, of this year will be announcing the launch of a similar scheme to 19 African Commonwealth countries.
Diment says she joined Rotary “To give back to my local community and use my professional skills to help others and to meet like-minded people to have fun.” Looking back on her life in Rotary one can only conclude that for her "local community” must mean the World community. Rotary has certainly been the beneficiary of her skills and will continue to do so. And fun to Judith must mean working some phenomenal hours.
For a woman who began life in a Welsh farming family with four brothers and two sisters; was married to her late husband Tony for 43 years, has a son Robert and large extended family, and sings in the Marlow Community Choir, loves theatre, opera, ballet, sports such as skiing, sailing, golf, tennis and yoga and enjoys cooking and fine dining, Judith is certainly a “Woman of Excellence” whom we should all celebrate as Rotary celebrates 30 years of Woman in Rotary.