July
4th – Gold Hill Festival
After 16 months of lockdown Shaftesbury Rotary Club wanted to give something back to the community. Gold Hill Fair was relaunched as Gold Hill Festival. Under Covid guidelines, the community had the opportunity to experience near normality again.
The weather was a big concern with an unsettled day forecast, but the public were not deterred. They still turned up and were entertained by live bands on stage, Morris Dancers with their traditional dance routines, two steam engines and a life-sized caravan made of Lego.
The site had the look of a festival site with stall holders and caterers spread around the perimeter of the site, giving them a view of the stage, where local bands were given the rare chance of playing together. There were several Morris Dance groups creating the atmosphere of an English Country Fair.
By all accounts the traders and caterers had a very successful day and again enjoyed the opportunity of an outside event. Despite the odd shower the sun did come out on occasion and overall, it was a very successful day.
Shaftesbury Rotary Club would like to thank the main sponsors Western Marquees, together with Rutters Solicitor who paid for the banners and Signrite for providing some free signage. They would also like to thank the Berwick St. John Steam Fair for supplying the steam engines to the event and Blackmore Vale Leisure for bringing the Lego Caravan.
The Club would also like to thank all the volunteers who gave up their time helping, including Shaftesbury Lions Club who manned one of the gates.
This event would not have been able to have taken place, in this format without the support of Shaftesbury Town Council, who have been behind Shaftesbury Rotary Club and provided a grant towards the event.
12th – Zoom Meeting
We met again by Zoom. We had of course hoped that this would have been a face-to-face meeting, back in our usual venue but of course we have to wait a little longer yet.
However, it gave us great pleasure to be able to congratulate David Britton, our Gold Hill Festival chair, on a very successful event. We will have made a small profit to be distributed to various charities, most of which will be local. It was also pleasing to have received almost universally good feedback on the event, from the public and from traders too. This was despite the rain!
Many thanks as always for the public who supported us, to Dan and his music team, Sam and his dancers, our many helpers including the Lions, the Arts Centre for putting on an event on the Saturday and to Shaftesbury Town Council for their support with a Community Grant and the use of Barton Hill.
This was the first meeting under the leadership of our new President, Tim Cook. It was gratifying to be able to look forward to a full programme for the next year, including running school youth competitions and our autumn golf tournament. We also have a social event of our own in two weeks after the relaxation of the Covid rules.
On that note our next full meeting on July 26th should be back at our usual venue in the Fleur restaurant
25th – First Social Event since Opening Up
With lockdown restrictions now fully eased, it was such a relief to be able to meet up as a group together with their partners. On Sunday 25th July at midday Richard and Dawn Shean very kindly offered up their beautiful home for such an occasion, providing victuals to more than satisfy member’s appetites.
The forecast was not good, but what is an English Summer without rain! Luckily though somebody up there was looking after us and it remained dry for the whole afternoon. It was a perfect Garden Party enjoyed by all, which also included a tour of their stunning eco house and gardens with amazing views. Sadly, only eleven members together with their partners attended.
Great party thank you Dawn and Richard, it was what we needed after such a long time. Thank you, Bernard, for organizing the event.
26th – Back to La Fleur de Lys
On the 26th July members were overjoyed, that finally they could forget Zoom and return to a more sociable setting of meeting in person back at La Fleur de Lys. Other than observing some Covid rules, it was like old times, we were treated to an excellent meal by David Shepherd, together with very slick service. The last ‘in person’ meeting took place in March 2019 with Win Harvey President, since that time we have seen Steve Uden take over the role and hold fortnightly meetings on Zoom. Now after 16 months we are finally Zoomed out and back meeting in person with Tim Cook now President. Thank you, Steve for persevering with Zoom.
Hopefully we can continue, with our principle of ‘Service above Self’ in the Fellowship of our friends and fellow club members, which could not quite be replicated on Zoom.
Thank you, David and Mary for letting us return to experiencing your excellent hospitality.
For the Love of Books
Following on from last months look at the Prince Phillip article in the Rotary magazine, we found another very interesting piece discussing the Rotary Books4Home project which has now supplied 70,000 books to children, many of whom previously had no books to read at home. The full article can be found here For the love of books – Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland (rotarygbi.org)
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