Rotary District 1200; Community & Vocational

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Community & vocational

Update: March 2013 - Click here to view PDF Document

With the formation of a separate RIBI Vocational Service Committee, the District Team for 2013-14 is still searching for a Vocational Chairman/Officer to follow Ric Canham. For more information check out PDG Eric’s information on the RIBI website under Vocational Service – The Way Forward or speak to either Ric or myself Jane Redfearn.

Surviving Winter Campaign
This was initiated by the Somerset Community Foundation in 2010, inspired by a donor offering to donate the equivalent to his Winter Fuel Payment to help older people living on low incomes and facing hardship during the coldest months. Rotary can help local professionals identify possible recipients and by promoting public awareness – this year at least two D1200 clubs, Frome Selwood and Langport and Somerton have participated and they and the SCF website can provide more information. The SCF Chief Executive, Justin Sargent, would also be pleased to speak to Rotary Clubs. justin.sargent@somersetcf.org.uk and www.somersetcf.org.uk/surviving_winter_appeal

It’s Childsplay
Over £150,000 has been raised through It’s Childsplay Walks in early May held now in five Rotary Districts. The Taunton Vale team is looking at developing the brand through different events to benefit the Children’s Hospices and your Club can help to continue this project’s success, find out more from Richard Goring richardgoring@colourtone.co.uk or visit the It’s Childsplay website at www.itschildsplay.org

Memory Café
The Forget-me-not Memory Café opened at The Angel, Langport on 11th September, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Langport and Somerton. It is a community centre where people who experience memory problems and their carers can meet one another and enjoy a regular and supportive break on Tuesday afternoons. Activities include: puzzles, books and music, arts and crafts, "a stroll down memory lane" and singalongs, input from health professionals, Flexercise™, cream teas, parties and other events. For more information on how to set up a Memory Café, please contact: Rotarians Sherrie-jane or Wendy

Kids Out Wednesday 12th June 2013
As usual, Kids Out will be taking place at Crealy Park and Longleat in June - a fantastic way to provide a really good day out for disadvantaged children in our District. For more information please contact: for Crealy Park - Brian Cowling (Yeovil) or for Longleat - Peter Bennett (Frome Selwood).

Local Charity Showcase – no apologies for a second outing!

School in a Bag
The latest project set up through the locally based Piers Simon Appeal provides a simple solution to help poor, orphan, vulnerable and disaster-affected children throughout the world. Each School Bag is filled with stationery equipment and resources that will enable a child to write, draw, colour, calculate, express themselves and above all learn. There is also the opportunity to work with local schools on fundraising and maybe practical bag packing. www.schoolinabag.org and www.pierssimonappeal.org

Hope for Tomorrow
A local charity founded in 2003, this aims to alleviate some of the stresses and strains associated with receiving treatment for cancer. In 2007 the charity launched the world’s first Mobile Chemotherapy Unit in a unique partnership with the NHS. Owned and maintained by the charity and operated by highly trained NHS staff, these well-equipped units allow cancer patients to receive treatment in a restful environment closer to home, saving stressful long distance travel and minimising waiting times. Mobile Chemotherapy Units have the capacity to treat up to twenty patients a day. Currently four Mobile Chemotherapy Units and five nurses are operating in Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire with two more units planned in 2013. www.hopefortomorrow.org.uk

Update: May 2012 #2

Distict 1200 Assembly 12th May 2012

Community and Vocational 2012-2013 Presentation Notes - Click here to view PDF Document

Update: May 2012 - Click here for PDF Version

To: All Club Community and Vocational Chairmen

A sincere thank you for all your hard work to those Chairmen retiring from the post in July and welcome to those taking up the job and those continuing! The District Team is here to help or provide you with a speaker – please don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know about your projects and events.
Jane Redfearn, District Chairman

District Environment Officer needed
Rick Squires will be standing down from this District appointment in July. Can you recommend a Rotarian who cares deeply about the environment and associated matters?

Vocational service
Vocational service remained high profile at RIBI Assembly this year and from 2013-14 it is expected that Districts will again form separate Vocational Service Committees. The use of individual Rotarians’ professional experience is most obvious perhaps in establishing a good liaison with schools and businesses to set up Careers Fairs or Mock Interviews and also Life Education bus visits or Dictionaries4Life, to name but a few. Ric Canham is continuing as District Vocational Officer this year, please contact him for suggestions and advice on vocational service.

Don’t miss the opportunity!
Virtually every Community, Vocational and Environmental project provides the chance for Rotary membership and publicity dividends but .... are some of us just too embarrassed to put up banners and roundels in event venues or even on posters, provide Rotary fliers or include Rotary and its aims and objectives in our event programmes? There have been several events over the last two years where I would have been hard put to know that Rotary had facilitated them!

Be aware of opportunities for “joined up” Rotary across Service Committees, other Clubs and Districts - Youth Competitions are often Youth and Vocational as is Kids Out, packing waterboxes with Chelwood Bridge is both International and Vocational use of Rotarians’ time, Devon and Cornwall’s REPoD (Rotarians easing problems of Dementia) can help you set up a Memory Cafe.

The Community Payback Scheme
Community Payback is essentially the replacement for Community Service. Courts are given the power to sentence offenders of certain crimes to undertake between 40 and 300 hours of Community Payback. This work is unpaid and demanding work that is aimed at giving something to local communities and forcing offenders to repay the community for the wrong they have done. By visiting the website of your local Probation Service, you can nominate or vote for a local project that you wish to see benefit from unpaid labour. You can determine the type of work that is undertaken by offenders within your community and the typical types of project include graffiti removal, street clean ups, rubbish removal, gardening and repair projects, and even recycling projects. Take a look at www.communitypayback.com.

Excitement of Science
There is a possibility of a one day event at the Royal Institution, London Wednesday 11th July. For more details see the Opportunities to Serve information sheet Excitement of Science. To express an interest in participation please contact Rtn Dr Mike Shaw, m.m.shaw@ljmu.ac.uk or support@excitementofscience.org

Charity Showcase
Two charities supporting the disabled were showcased at RIBI Assembly and Conference: Canine Partners offers the chance for real independence and is also working alongside Help 4 Heroes with ex-service personnel, while WheelPower with its foundations at Stoke Mandeville Hospital provides better wheelchairs where needed, as well as specialised chairs for sportsmen and women.

The Canine Partners (www.caninepartners.co.uk)mission is to assist people with disabilities to enjoy a greater independence and a better quality of life and, where possible, to help them into education and employment, through the provision of specially trained dogs for the disabled, whose well-being is a key consideration. Canine Partners is also working with Help4Heroes to provide dogs for ex-service personnel.

Playing sport is a relatively simple thing to do. You just need a pair of trainers, a tracksuit, and depending on what you want to do maybe a racquet and a ball. Unfortunately it’s not always that easy for someone with a disability. Before a disabled person can even start thinking about which sport to play, where to play it or even what to wear, they need to overcome their biggest barrier and find a suitable sports wheelchair.

Rotary is working with WheelPower (www.wheelpower.org.uk) on the Wheel Appeal which is aiming to raise £6,000,000 to provide over 2,000 disabled people with a new sports wheelchair, training and coaching that will enable them to participate in sport and enjoy competitive, including paralympian level, and recreational sport. The Wheel Appeal will either fund a 'standard' manual sports wheelchair or provide a grant towards a 'bespoke' sports wheelchair. Unfortunately the Wheel Appeal cannot provide funds towards power wheelchairs.

As a District, I hope we will continue to support the brilliant Kids Out day at Crealy Park and Longleat each June – June 13th this year.

The charity also provides support in other ways. The statistics around domestic violence and especially the involvement of children are shocking and disturbing. For children living with domestic violence, home is a place of fear and terror rather than the safe and secure place it should be. Thankfully, each year more than 20,000 children escape the abusive situation, usually with their mothers, and make their way to women’s refuges across the country. After a period of around 6-12 months most of these families move on to their new home, but moving into a strange community can be particularly tough for children, who have usually left home with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing.

KidsOut can help these children by delivering to these children a box of brand new toys, age and gender specific. Each Toy Box is filled with games to play, books to read, a teddy to cuddle which they can call their own. Each Toy Box gives children a sense of normality, making the world seem a kinder place where someone cares. It helps them settle in and make new friends, as they can invite other children home to play with their toys. For more information: www.kidsout.org.uk

Jane Redfearn - janeredfearn@hotmail.com - 01458 252813
Rick Canham - rick.canham@btinternet.com - 01934 733954

Update: February 2012

Rotary Spring Clean 2012

Please click hereto download the latest Toolbox information document for this event

Update: December 2011

To: All Club Community and Vocational Chairmen,

Are you getting too many Rotary emails? If so let me know - but make it constructive - what you want and what you don't! From the CommVoc perspective, I do try to be selective and only send/forward useful information! This close to Christmas, if you don't have time to read everything then just scan the topics immediately below. Have a Wonderful Christmas and New Year; each of us in a small way can help to make a difference for those in our communities who may not be so lucky. Thank you for everything you do in District 1200.

Jane Redfearn - District Chairman

Children in Need

I would appreciate your views on Children in Need and the "publicity" that we received. Should Rotary be formally aligned with Children in Need for the purpose of publicity? Only 100 Clubs throughout RIBI informed RIBI of what they had raised. I only know of two D1200 Clubs who notified RIBI of their fundraising; I am sure many Clubs continued to support CiN as they always have and RIBI was not notified. Well done to you all. A comment overheard passed on to me was: "so we had very little publicity, does that mean that our needy children don't deserve support?"

HELP - Rotary Spring Clean 2012

Rotary Spring Clean is officially starting on 12 March 2012, the start of Climate Week and ends on Earth Day, 22 April 2012, but Clubs and Districts are encouraged to carry out their own initiatives at any appropriate time. Very little seems to be coming out of the RIBI Community Service RG to motivate and inspire us to get involved. I am sure there are opportunities where we can help make a difference, or get Rotary in the face of the public. But how?

Workable Ideas WANTED, for example:

Would your Club be interested in getting involved with a clean up before/during/after the passage of the Olympic Torch through District 1200?
Has your Club any plans?

CommVoc Seminars need not be boring!

Would you welcome a District Seminar with local and external speakers and, if so, would you prefer a weekend daytime or an evening?

District Environment Officer needed!

After three years sterling work, Rick Squires will be standing down from this District appointment in July. Can you recommend a Rotarian who cares deeply about the environment and associated matters?

RI and RIBI Awards - deadline 31st December 2011

Every year Clubs are invited to nominate Club projects for RIBI awards through their District CommVoc Chairs. The following Awards are available from RIBI and RI and can be downloaded from: http://www.ribi.org/scripts/documents.php?document_id=1753

Community Service Cup (page 12 of the above document) Awarded by RIBI to annually recognise a Club which has established a project or scheme in its Community for the benefit of that community. The award will recognise a new innovation or existing project with a pedigree of success. Entries to be received no later than 31st December.

Vocational Services Cup (page 12) Awarded by RIBI to annually recognise a Club whose vocational activity has encouraged and fostered: high ethical standards in business and professions; and/or the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and or the use of vocational skills to benefit the community. The award will recognise a new innovation or existing project with a pedigree of success. Entries to be received no later than 31st December.

Rodney Huggins Environmental Awards (page 11) Awarded by RIBI to annually recognise Clubs who have promoted and recognised environmental awareness projects within their communities. established a project or scheme in its Community for the benefit of that community. Entries to be received no later than 31st January.

Significant Achievement Award (page 6) Awarded by RI to a Club that addresses a significant problem or need in the local community. Entries to be received well before 15th March.

Vocational Service Leadership Award (page 9 - but not as described in the document). Awarded by RI. Candidates must have exhibited significant support of vocational service by fulfilling each of the following criteria: Exemplifying integrity and high ethical standards in their vocation and in Rotary; Using their vocational talents to serve the community; Personally undertaking at least one of a number of defined vocational activities. Applications to be submitted by DG by 30 December. More details from RIBI Vocational Services Ken Robertshaw.

Free Trees

The Woodland Trust is giving away trees for community planting in Jubilee Year. Packs of 420 or 105 free trees for planting in March 2012 can be applied for at: www.woodlandtrust.org.uk by 3rd February 2012. After that there is still another window of opportunity for planting in November next year for which the closing date will be the 5th October. These dates could be brought forward if there is a high demand.

What landscape legacy will you leave? In 1937, thousands of trees were planted by Rotarians and communities in the UK to mark the coronation of George VI. Click on: www.jubileewoods.org.uk and click on: "Search The Royal Record" to see who planted trees in your community 74 years ago.

Heads Up - Dates for 2012

Earth Hour - join a billion others and turn your lights off for an hour on 31 March
Stroke Awareness Day - 28 April or whenever appropriate for your Club
Eden Jubilee Big Lunch - 3 June possibly the largest community event in the World
Jubilee extended Bank Holiday weekend - Saturday 2 June to Tuesday 5 June