District News 2011-2012

Please check for additional news items on the Circa 1200 News web-site also, thank-you.

 

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District Handover Lunch

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Chippenham Club win RIBI Community Vocational Cup

At the RIBI Conference in Dublin, District 1200's RC Chippenham collected the RIBI Vocational Centennial Award.  The award is given each year to recognise the club whose vocational activity has encouraged and fostered vocational ideals. This year it was presented to RC Chippenham for their project SNAP (St. Nicholas Appeal for a Pool). 

St. Nicholas is a special needs school in Chippenham whose pupils desperately need a hydrotherapy pool of their own. All of the pupils suffer from sever learning and physical difficulties.  Currently they spend ups to 3 hours travelling in a minibus to spend only a short time in a pool in Swindon.

SNAP, started in 2004/5, was the club's project to celebrate 100 years of Rotary. Over the past 7 year, Rotarians have used their vocational skills to plan, project manage and fundraise the £720,000 needed to complete the project this summer.

Key to the project was the club's aim to ensure the pool's sustainability so that the club could handover the pool to the school and not be involved in further fundraising for the running costs.  Rotarians' vocational experiences have resulted in running costs being reduced to a similar level as the current cost of specialist transportation and hire of the Swindon pool. The funds raised have paid for the construction of a new building, the pool itself plus the plant and equipment. Solar water heating and the pool thermal cover will keep the on-going running costs affordable.

The Club is due to hand-over the building to the school on the 24th June this year and the school will have a public opening ceremony in the autumn.  Part of the aim of the project was that the facility should be available to members of the local community in need of hydrotherapy out of school hours.

The picture shows Eric Sambell receiving the Community Vocational Cup from RIBI President Jim Moulson, on behalf of the Rotary Club of Chippenham.

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Wells pair on India trip

Sharon and Bob Haigh have now returned from Dehli having been volunteers at the Polio National Immunization Day. 

BBC Radio Somerset conducted an interview with Sharon and Bob before they went and that can be heard as part of a PDF document offered below.

N.B. PLEASE READ THIS: You will be shown a single page PDF document with a montage of Thanks for Life / End Polio Now images and on the tip of the Purple Pinkie there is a link to play the sound file of the interview.  

Just double click the link, say you want to open the file (if asked) and your audio player (usually Windows Media Player) will play the file: enjoy!

At the end of the presentation you will need to use the back button on your browser to return to this Homepage. 

Warning this file may take time to download. The Haigh's Interview

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District success in the Regional Youth Speaks Final

The Regional Finals for both the Intermediate and Senior levels for the whole of the South West took place in Andover on Saturday 19th March.

District Governor Stan and supporting parents and Rotarians had great hopes in the Intermediate level for the Sheldon School team from Chippenham trained by Rotarian Mike Perry.  Georgia Waller, Rosa Brentnall and Emma Langford gave an outstanding performance on "tuition fees" and were widely expected to win but unfortunately were placed second.  Georgia's grandfather, Rotarian Mike Waller, travelled all the way from Peterborough to support the team.

Competitors - Left: Kingsmead School, Wiveliscombe with DG Stan, & Right: Sheldon School, Chippenham

"We were robbed" said Stan!  However, he changed his tune when the team from Kingsmead School from Wiveliscombe won the Senior event in convincing style trained by veteran teacher Graham Middleton.  Nathan Lawrence, Katharine Bird and Jessica Foulkes investigated the increasing trend for kissing and hugging.  There was much hugging and kissing when they won.

Stan, Ruth and the supporters will now have to travel to Cranleigh School in Surrey on Sunday 1st May for the RIBI Final.

Graham Baskerville
Youth Speaks Team 

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Artist / Creative Person needed - Art in the Park

The Rotary Club of Chippenham are holding a family day on 9th July 2011. This is the fourth year and in the past a workshop marquee has been provided, which is free entry, and hosts various types of creative activities for children (and parents) to partake in. Unfortunately we are unable to pay fees required by the professionals to run the workshops, and are therefore looking for volunteers who would be willing to give up a day to help us to provide this extremely popular aspect of the event.
If you know of anyone who may be willing and able to assist us in this plea for help, I would be very pleased to hear from them.
Please contact me via the Club or email me direct using the email address in the District Directory.

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