Welcome to the website of the Rotary Club of Cleckheaton & District
SPEN WAY HERITAGE TRAIL
A guide to the above walks around Spen Valley was first published by the Cleckheaton and District Rotary Club as a Millennium Project and now 10 years on, interest in the guide is again strong.
Past President Paul Merrick reported at the meeting last Wednesday that he has had to supply more copies of the guide to the Cleckheaton Library as they have sold out their stock. The £2.00 guide shows ordinance survey maps of the actual trail from the start point in Primrose Lane, Littletown along its route up to Liversedge and then across to Hartshead Church and along to Scholes. From here the trail heads back towards the M62 before turning North West towards Oakenshaw, up though Chatts Wood and then either back via the Valley Path from Drub down the valley behind the Town Hall and Mann Dam to your start point or, up through East Bierley and back through Birkenshaw and Gomersal.
The guide gives thumbnail sketches of 50 places of interest around the area from the ancient name Lyverseggee and the old Hartshead Church, Gomersal Methodist Chapel and the more modern Spenborough swimming pool. At over 20 miles nobody is likely to complete the whole trail which is marked with the trail emblem in one trip and so the maps allow one to start and finish as required. The club has been asked to organise walks around the trail and will consider doing this in the next few months but copies may be obtained either from the library or any member.
New Member
Also at the meeting last Wednesday President Keith Halford was pleased to welcome Mrs Susan Isley into membership and the picture attached shows the President Keith with Susan who is an Administration Manager with IPSL and a former member of Crossgates Rotaract Club.
Male Voice Choir Concert
In collaboration with St John’s Church the Cleckheaton and District Rotary Club will hold a concert on May 8th at 7.30pm in the Church featuring the "New Mill Male Voice Choir", otherwise known as "The Men In Green Jackets"
This choir is based at New Mill, near Holmfirth and over the last 20 years has grown to be an international performing unit with a wide repertoire. Led by their Musical Director Elizabeth Hambleton and accompanied by Anne Levitt the 50 voice Choir will perform a wide variety of choral music.
Tickets for the concert are £7, children under 16 £4 and will be available from St John’s Church, any Rotary Club or Inner Wheel member or from Robert Openshaw, Jewellers and the Purple Fashion Company in Cleckheaton
Busy Time for the Club
Following our Thanks for Life Display the busy time continues for us at Cleckheaton Rotary club.
Firstly the Inner 9 Schools Technology Tournament took place as planned on the 2nd March at the Frontier Club in Batley when the teams were asked to build a flashing beacon that included an advertising hoarding for a charity of their choice from materials supplied on the day. The complexity varied by asking the Basic teams just to make the light flash, the Intermediate teams had make it flash 10 times and the Advanced beacon should flash at one second intervals. A total of 28 teams took part from 12 schools throughout the Inner 9 area.
The winners were Birkdale High School at Basic Level and Woodkirk High School at both Intermediate and Advanced level. The trophies were presented by the Deputy Mayor of Kirklees Councillor Andrew Palfreyman and the winning Advanced grade entry will go forward to the District Final to be judged against all the other final winners from throughout the Yorkshire District 1040. Picture shows Councillor Palfreyman presenting the trophies to the Birkdale team
We then held an "Open Meeting" on March 3rd when various guests were entertained and at which we presented cheques to The Forget me Trust, McMillan Cancer Support and Breast Cancer Haven. The funds for the first two of these awards were raised at our Charter Dinner last November (21st) and for the Haven at a Candle Party held in conjunction with Cleckheaton Inner Wheel, also in November. The picture shows (l to r) Gina Fielding of the Forget me Not Trust, President Keith Halford and Charlotte Stern of McMillan Cancer Support. A further open meeting will be held on the 14th April to which personal invitations are being issued.
Thanks for Life Week
To celebrate Thanks for LIfe week the club manned a display from the 20th to the 27th February in the Central Arcade in Cleckheaton which, along with the End Polio Now campaign also featured the club's other charitable activities from the Young Invenors Awards at Whitcliffe Mount School to the Vision Aid Overseas and Tools for Self Reliance collections.
In the Vision Aid we have no passed the 64,000 pairs figure and have a target of 66,666 during Presiden Keith Halford's year in office and this was helped by the addition of sveral bags of spectacles handed in folloing our full page feature about the display in the Spenborough Guardian on February 19th.
The display was visited on Wednesday by DG Elect Roger Percival who also met Roatarian Pam Scales, just back from the Polio+ visit to India and wearing the Purple Pinky T shirt in the attached picture with Roger, President Keith and Malcolm Bentley on the right of the picture
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Tools For Self Reliance
We continue to be given lots of tools for us to pass on the Pennine Camphill Trust at their workshop in Wakefield for refurbishing in the Tools for Self Reliance project. This was the "President’s Charity" when Anthony Hick was in office in 2007/8 and we have continued to collect tools as the people of Spen Valley are very good at clearing out their garages and workshops for us. Many of these tools were collected when we held the "Stroke Awareness" day at Tesco earlier this year and as result of appeals at the Birkenshaw Gala and Little Gomersal Spring Fair.
The Camphill people clean, sharpen and generally bring the tools into usable condition before they are packaged up and sent out to tradesmen in Africa so that they can earn a living and support their families. For more info go to www.tfsr.org and www.pennine.org.uk
RYLA Candidate reports to the Club
At our meeting on the 16th September we were given a lively report by Georgina Fletcher who was our Rotary Young Leadership Award (RYLA) winner for this year. Georgina spent the first week of August at Hebden Hey and explained to the club members the activities of week when around 32 - 16/18 year olds from around Yorkshire are given training in team work and leadership. All strangers to each other at the start of the week the participants are split into small groups and encouraged to work as teams on various tasks so that by the end of the week strong friendships are formed which many people find are long lasting. Georgina, a Young Leader in the Guide Movement, thanked the club for the opportunity and feels that it has had a life changing effect on her development.
The club will be sponsoring another candidate in 2010 and are seeking names of suitable individuals from schools, the Scout and Guide movement and other organisations. Anyone interested should contact any member of the Cleckheaton Rotary Club.
Young Inventor Awards
Picture shows President David with award winners (L to R ) Adil Ali, Alex Werner, Vivek Sharma , Lewis Foster and Michael Wallhead and shows two of the products made by the students
On Friday the 24th July we judged the Young Inventors competition at Whitcliffe Mount School and the prizes were presented on Tuesday the 30th at the school. This is a scheme that the Club have been sponsoring for a about 15 years now and the prize winners in 2009 were as follows:
Graphics- Lewis Foster, Product Development - Vivek Sharma, Textiles - Alex Werner, 6th Form Product Development - Adil Ali, and an extra prize for Originallity in Design to Michael Wallhead, Food Technology - Alex Werner
Overall prize winners were : 1st Vivek Sharma, 2nd Adil Ali, 3rd Alex Werner
Prizes were sponsored by Cleckheaton Construction Ltd, T K Halford Lifting Gear Specialists. Mr Malcolm Bentley, Warehouse Systems Ltd and DPS Associates Ltd
Rotary Judges were Joanne Catlow, David Haley of Spen Bearings Ltd and myself and the club would like to thank the School for all their help and in particular Dai Thomas of the Technology Department for all his work
New President:
As from the 1st of July Mr Keith Halford took over the role of President from Mr David Sugden and is seen here being congratulated on his installation
In His remarks to our AGM President David commented on highlights in that we have raised over £4,000 for our charities during the year and continued to support Jubilee Outreach Yorkshire with collections of surplus medical supplies and equipment, Vision Aid Overseas where we have collected over 10,000 pairs of used spectacles in the past year taking our total past 60,500 pairs, and tools for Self Reliance which are sent for refurbishment by the Camphill Trust in Wakefield. Our emphasis on youth continued with running the Technology Tournament for local schools, sending a candidate on the Rotary Young Leadership Award Scheme and the Young Inventor awards mentioned above.
It has been an honour to lead this vibrant club and President David thanked the Officers, Committee Chairmen and members for their support throughout the year. The Club maintains its membership and has many younger members coming through and in handing on the Presidency to Keith Halford who has, in fact, been President of the club on a previous occasion we are sure of excellent leadership in the coming year. That previous term was in the year 1999/2000 but unfortunately Keith’s year was curtailed at that time due to ill health and so he takes office for a second time. Mr Halford is Managing Director of T K Halford Lifting Gear Specialists in Heckmondwike. President Elect for 2009/10 is Mr John Knowles of Liversedge and Vice President Mr Bill Stevenson of Birkenshaw
Jubilee Outreach Yorkshire
At the club meeting on the 10th June we had the pleasure of a visit from Dr Kathy Tedd of Jubilee Outreach Yorkshire or JOY as they prefer to be known. This is a relief organisation based in Shipley that we have supported through Past President Paul Merrick, Chairman of our International Committee for some years. Their work is with orphaned and disabled children in Rumania and we assist with medical equipment that we can occasionally source and some finance.
At the meeting President David handed a cheque to Dr Tedd to help with their funding but we had also arranged to present her with a Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of the work she has done for the last 20 years through her organisation. This recognition, although prompted by Cleckheaton Club is made by Rotary International District 1040 and was presented at our meeting by Past District Governor, Ken Robertshaw.
Attached is a picture of Ken and Kathy with the award
Christmas Dinner:
The Club held its annual Christmas Dinner at the Cleckheaton Golf Club on Wednesday evening (17th) and were joined by member’s partners, members of Inner Wheel and Rotaract and various guests with almost 60 sitting down to dinner.
One of the guest was immediate Past President Anthony Hick who returned from Rugely for the evening in order to make a presentation to two representatives of the Pennine Camphill Community from Wakefield. This body was the Presidential charity in 2007/8 and Mr Hick presented a cheque from the Club for £1700 to Austin McIntyre, a Trustee of the Community. The school run by the Community in Wakefield refurbishes tools for the "Tools for Self Reliance" scheme that is one of the on-going recycling projects being run by the club. Under this scheme tradesmen’s tools are collected by the Rotary club and handed to Camphill where, in a workshop run by Bob Wood who was also present at the dinner, the tools are prepared for sending to villages in Africa where people can then use them to earn a proper living for their families. In thanking the Club for their support Mr McIntyre and Mr Wood explained that the money and tools went together to allow students at the Community to take an active and useful part in providing ways for people in Africa to work their way out of poverty whilst they themselves learn skills repairing the tools
Also at the dinner the President of the club, Mr David Sugden presented a Certificate of Commendation to Cleckheaton Rotaract President Gillian Dempsey recognising the work done by the very small number of Rotaract members for both the local community and international projects. Rotaract have presented cheques to the Forget-me-Not Trust last year and are supporting the Laura Crane Foundation this year. A total of over £2500 has been raised by the Rotaract members in the last two years. The club of 18 to 30 year old young professionals was commended by Martin Coates, the RIBI Extension officer for this work and had asked President David to make the presentation on his behalf
Pictures show PP Anthony Hick with Mr Austin McIntyre on his right and Mr Bob Wood and President David Sugden with Cleckheaton Rotaract President Gillian Dempsey
The Christmas Address to the club was delivered by Mr Beverly T Hardy, a lay preacher from Aldersgate Methodist church in Low Moor and grace was said by the Rev. Maggie McLean of St Luke’s Church
