What is Rotary?
We are a small group of friends who are committed to helping other by enjoying ourselves. It helps if you are outgoing, prepared to get stuck in, perhaps go abseiling, run a music festival or dress up in clowns suit to raise money, but it’s not essential. What is essential however, is a sense of fun, a purpose and a commitment to our local community. We have a busy social, fundraising and community action program and you are invited to joins us at any of our events if you too would like to get to know more about us. Rotary has a stuffy image and it isn’t “Cool” to be in a Service Club, the truth is, it couldn’t be further from the truth. What you will find is a wide range of talented people from every walk of life, who get together a few nights a month to have drink, share some jokes, and help others.
Each month we try to have a social event, Virtual F1 racing, Clay Pigeon Shooting, and farmyard barbecues have all featured in our calendar, but this is balanced with some fundraising and more importantly raising our awareness of community issues by listening to the experts.
We invite professionals from all disciplines to come a talk to us and through listening to Airline Pilots, Care workers, Marketing executives, Young students and a plethora of others we learn more about our world and what we can do to make an impact. Every year we have a few major fundraising events, but this is not prescriptive, if you want to do something different you will find others who will come along and help.
Whilst Shaftesbury is part of a worldwide organisation and guided by policy and procedure, we are autonomous in our everyday activities. We choose when and where to meet, how we run our club and who we decide to support by involvement or finance. As part of Rotary International there is a structure which we work within and report to when necessary, Shaftesbury Rotary is part of a local grouping which includes Blandford, Gillingham, Sturminster, Wimborne, Ferndown, Swanage/Purbeck and Wareham.
This group will often work together, competing in sports and socialising.There is a communication path from individual clubs or groups to our ‘District 1110‘ who in turn deal directly with Rotary International Great Britain & Ireland (RIBI) who have the overall responsibilities for all UK Rotary Clubs. Finally, RIBI responds to Rotary International (RI) in the USA.