President Karin Wilson 2022 - 23

I joined Rotary in 2014 introduced to Rotary by Roland Hailwood who I knew through Clitheroe Chamber of Trade, he invited me to a lunchtime meeting, I was made so welcome, I enjoyed the company and stories from many of the members who were a few years my senior I am sure they wont mind me saying, I joined and haven’t looked back.

I joined Rotary at a time when I was reducing my time in Clitheroe because we were going through the adoption process to adopt our now daughter she was 14 weeks old when she finally came to live with us and I would need to work from home, I run a very busy Accountancy Practice and arranged my working week around being able to still attend Rotary at lunchtime on a Thursday and to service my Ribble Valley Clients…. Oh did you not know I live on the dark side of Hill, the sun does seem to shine more on this side. I do love where I live in Pendle but I am always happy to come over the hill into Clitheroe.

We are finally getting back to some normality after the world was thrown into a whirlwind of lockdown, my hope for our club is to build on what we do well and move into tomorrow with engagement for all, tell the world what we do, because we do it so well.

We have lived up to the challenge to grow more do more and we have worked extremely hard as volunteers across the community with many of our projects including the support we gave for the vaccination process, Community Gardens, Tree Planting, our market stall collecting and recycling items to raise funds for both local and international charities, Clitheroe Bonfire, World Health Day promoting Stroke Awareness, Santa Sleigh, Clitheroes’ response to our Ukraine appeal was phenomenal and many more.

Rotary enables you to reach out to those in need our projects both locally and nationally support education, Champion women and children, support the environment, grows local economies, provides clean water in communities where needed, fights diseases such as polio trying to eradicate it and promotes peace. When you join Rotary, you become part of a large family of volunteers all with a similar mindset wanting to help, but it offers so much more, it offers friendship, support when you are in need, enables and facilitates you to try things you would never think you can achieve.

Now we can come together, it’s time to move forward, I would love some new projects to come on board for us to deliver and I am excited to facilitate building our youth team to help deliver some projects specifically for our young people. My hope is we can come together to create an environment where everyone is comfortable and can be part of Rotary even if they cannot attend a lunchtime meeting, not everyone is retired or has the luxury to organise their work around attending our meetings but that’s ok. We plan to have lots of other ways for people to get involved.

Most of all to find a way to not only thank our hundreds of volunteers over the last two years but for them to continue to be involved with the club. To be family friendly for example, my daughter is now 7 and I could do much more within Rotary if I could involve her. I hope you can see from me that Rotary is not “full of old men in shirts” we are much more diverse and yes Rotary does come with some pomp and ceremony, but you know what it doesn’t matter if that’s not your cup of tea we are a diverse bunch and there is something for everyone in my view, we change from within.

 “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” Peter Drucker

If you would like to know more, volunteer, ask for help or just say hello- please get in touch clitheroerotarypresident@gmail.com- we would love to hear from you. Details of forthcoming events and get togethers with be on our website Clitheroe Rotary.