All About Ilfracombe Rotary

Ilfracombe Rotary Video Clip

Our club is a proud part of Rotary International and even prouder to be part of this community. We are in the unique position of being rooted within our own community for the past 97 years.

Ilfracombe Rotary Club offer opportunities for all our members — and those interested in making a difference — to get involved. We learn about the issues facing our community through our meetings, social events, and volunteer projects. While doing all these we are able to form lifelong friendships and business connections.

We do realise that, nowadays some of us want to commit to organisations, and the vital projects they support, but our busy schedules can make it hard to attend local meetings but that should not stop us from benefitting from joining Rotary.

Locally, our experience in community work and volunteering allows us to help organisations such as local businesses, charities, universities, schools, hospitals, youth groups and event planners in supporting a wide range of projects.  

Ø  Our well known annual StarTrek, raised almost £1m running the event 27 times. Over the years major benefactors of those funds have been Children’s Hospice South West, North Devon Hospice and many other benefactors displayed around the room.    

Ø  We are proud to say that we are probably the only Rotary Club that manages a Grade 1 listed building. We are custodians of St Nicholas Chapel on Lantern Hill which help us to raise about £6,000 per year. These fund local groups and causes as can be seen on the attached posters.

Ø  Our annual pop-up Charity Shop in the town is always well supported and in past years has raised over £5,000 annually. We have no overheads with the shop which is staffed by us with the help of our Friends and volunteers and all our goods are donated.

Ø  Through a local Charity Amigos, based in Barnstaple, we support the education of children in Uganda. Some of us have, in the past, visited Uganda to see the projects we support.

Ø  Each year we introduce our Rotary Youth Competitions to all the schools in our area and have had amazing success with the students’ entries at District and National level.

Ø   We support a junior Rotary Club called Interact at the Academy for students aged 12 – 18 years.

Ø  We’ve also helped to equip Delta, a youth drop-in space in Ilfracombe where children can meet and socialise after school.

Ø  The Calvert Trust provides accessible activity holidays for youngsters with all disabilities. We continue to support them in their needs.

Ø  We also support the food banks, we clean up the local beaches, fundraise for local hospices, and support youth groups in sport.

Ø  Recently, our Rotarians have been planting and maintaining boats, barrows and planters around the harbour and wild flower seed planting in various areas around the town. The poppies on the verges of the road between Ilfracombe and Mullacott for Remembrance Day were definitely a show stopper.

We meet weekly at lunch or in the evening. Apart from the business that we do, we have FUN!!  

When we are approached with any idea or request, we work in small groups or committees within Club which enable us to cover a wide range of voluntary work at any given time.

Our Committees are:

Membership and Vocational

Community and Social

International & Foundation

Youth Services

Media & Publicity

“Friends of Rotary” Rotary is more flexible than ever before. With a variety of ways to get involved with us, there is bound to be an opportunity to suit you, your lifestyle and your commitments.

In the current global crisis situation, where Rotary is being dependent upon by local governments and health authorities for managing supplies, supporting vaccine rollouts and tackling hunger.

The biggest challenge we as Rotary Clubs, face is the threat to our free movement, our fundraising, and motivating ourselves for on-the-ground action.

But we do and have risen to the challenge!!