January

Jan 25, 2016 by Shaftesbury Rotary

Locks Heath banner being held by Tim Peake in the International Space Station

Whilst Rotary International can be proud of being established in over 200 countries with 35,000 clubs and 1.2 million members and all of these clubs doing their best to market their club so it is quite a coup to display your rotary club banner in space.

January 16th

A great start to the social calendar when Rotarians with wives and partners visited David and Elaine’s house for supper. The evening had an additional bonus to the lovely food and ambiance by raising a most welcome sum of £130 for the charity account.

Meeting, January 25th

This was the first meeting of the year with a speaker, and back at the Fleur de Lys restaurant. Ray Humphries and Derek Beer came on behalf of the Shaftesbury and District Carers or Hope charity group which works locally in Shaftesbury providing support to people with mental illness or learning difficulties.

Local NHS services were withdrawn a number of years ago. The group includes “Hope 2 Bake”, “Hope 2 Cycle” and also “Hope 2 Grow” which provides gardening services. There had been a “Hope 2 Furnish” division but this didn’t quite work out in practice. The charity is very successful in providing support to a needy group of individuals. The creative and practical work involved builds confidence and increases self-esteem and has also proved very successful as a route back to employment. Unfortunately a lottery grant is coming to an end and the directors of the charity are having to look at how they can financially restructure in order to continue to run successfully. They would welcome any help or support.

In discussion after the talk there was a feeling that we would like to work with them in our intended Father’s Day cycling event.

You can read more about the charity on the below link:

http://www.shaftesburycarers.org/projects.html