Club Chronicle

23 May 2024: Kids Inspire

Katharine Loveday made a return visit today to speak to us about Kids Inspire. She previously came in April 2022.

Kids Inspire supports children and young people with mental health problems and their families, providing one-to-one mentoring, therapies, support groups and activities. They have been going 17 years and Katharine has been involved for the last eight as a corporate fund-raiser. She asked us to put any company that might support them in contact with her.

They are well worth supporting. In the last year they have run 7,343 sessions of various types, supporting around 4,000 individuals. They have a range of personnel, including volunteer mentors. Without their help many families would face much more difficult futures because of the delays in obtaining assessments and help from local authorities.

So far they have restricted their services to Essex. However, their programmes have been so successful in helping children, young people and families that the Suffolk County Council has asked them to extend their operations to that county. President Francis, who lives in Suffolk, offered to put them in touch with Suffolk-based people who could help and suggested a Suffolk company that might be prepared to support them.

In the more formal part of this meeting we inducted Hilary Terzeon as our newest member. She was sponsored by former Chelmsford resident Michael Birch of the Rotary Club of Sudbury. Hilary has actually been attending our meetings for some time as a guest. This was the first meeting when we were able to get all the relevant people together. We are very pleased to welcome her formally as a member of our Club.

Spring Jumble Sale 2024

We held our annual Spring Jumble Sale on Saturday, 20 April 2024 - at the Danbury Village Hall as usual. Members attended in the morning to sort out the jumble into categories and set up the tables and the auction for the more valuable items. The photograph shows the hall when this work had been completed.

The jumble sale itself took place in the afternoon, manned by volunteers from our Club and from the Village Hall. The total sales came to £517.20, an excellent result. Our thanks to all who helped on the day setting-up, helping on the stalls and clearing up afterwards. It was a very successful day.

Rotary Young Musician District Final

The District 1240 Final of Rotary Young Musician was held at Brentwood Cathedral on Saturday, 2 March 2024. There were nine competitors sponsored by Clubs around the District, including three sponsored by us. Others in attendance included the Mayors of both Brentwood and Chelmsford, the District Governor and District Governor Elect (our own Anne Moriaty), many other Rotarians and others who had come to support competitors.

The performers’ standard was very high indeed. The adjudicators had a difficult task deciding on placings. The winning vocalist was Rose Buggle (sponsored by us and by the Rotary Club of Brentwood). The runner-up was Katherine O’Hanlan (also sponsored by us). Our instrumentalist was unplaced.

Writtle Christmas Tree Festival

We again entered a Christmas tree into the annual Christmas Tree Festival at All Saints Church, Writtle. This took place over the weekend of 2-3 December 2023.

We didn’t seek to impress with the beauty of our tree or the design that went into placing the decorations. Instead we used the opportunity to publicise our Club’s concern about the disposal of used blister packs from pills and tablets. We loaded the tree with decorations handmade from blister packs.

An accompanying display card explained why we had done so and the extent of the problem caused by the difficulty of recycling blister packs. (We had to close our own recycling project due to the increased cost.) It certainly created some interest. Hopefully it also made more people aware of the situation.