Welcome to the Chelmsford Phoenix Website

About Chelmsford Phoenix

The Rotary Club of Chelmsford Phoenix is one of several Rotary clubs in Chelmsford. It is a fairly informal club which welcomes both men and women as Rotary members from all backgrounds and all age groups. The mixed demographics of the members makes it an ideal portal to Rotary membership for older members of Rotaract or indeed people who have never previously had any involvement with Rotary before.

Chelmsford Phoenix was established and granted its charter on 23rd July 2009. The club is a twilight club which meets on a Thursday evening 6.30 for 7.00pm. Most weeks we meet at The Hive café in Oaklands Park. The current cost of the meal is £15.00 per week for an excellent 2 course meal with tea and coffee. Alcoholic and soft drinks can be purchased at the counter. Food does need to be pre-booked so if you want to come along please let us know via the contact page. The venue for meetings when we are not able to use The Hive varies so please check for latest details which can always be found on this website.

Join Us

Being a member of Rotary can be very rewarding. You can get involved in community projects which make a real difference to people in Chelmsford. There are the opportunities to serve the people of Essex and to help with initiatives nationally or internationally. The larger projects can involve Rotarians from other parts of the Essex, the UK or from other countries around the world.

Rotary is not only about serving and helping, it is also about having fun and making friends within the club. You do not have to wait to be invited to join Rotary, if you have read this far then consider yourself invited. All our meetings are open so if you are interested in finding out more why not come along to see what we do. Please feel free to get in touch either via this link or by emailing the President via .

Charities

Rotary Foundation

Rotary also has its own charity - The Rotary Foundation - which throughout the world, funds improvements in health, supports education and helps to alleviate poverty. One of the main projects spearheaded by Rotary Foundation is the eradication of Polio through its support of a global vaccination programme. From a staggering 125 polio endemic countries in 1988, Rotary's efforts have reduced this to just 3 in 2015. Eradication of polio from Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan would rid the world of this crippling disease forever. More information is here. 

President's Charity 2023-24

PHOENIX CHILDREN'S WARD

The President's Charity for 2023-24 is the Phoenix Children's Ward at Broomfield Hospital.  The ward has an eight bedded Assessment Unit, co-located within Phoenix ward which is a 24 hour facility for the assessment and treatment of children who require urgent paediatric care. Children are referred here for medical/surgical reasons and for the following specialities Ear Nose and Throat, Plastic Surgery, Orthopaedic and Maxilla Facial surgery.  

Porridge and Pens

Porridge and Pens works with 300 disadvantaged children and young adults at the Brightlingsea Free School, Mampongteng, Kumasi, Ghana. They provide access to free education, safe shelter and school meals so young people can create a bright future, free from poverty. Porridge and Pens believes every child in Ghana should have an equal chance to achieve their full potential. Their work is delivered through their two long standing projects; Girl Power and The Brightlingsea Academy, which make measurable differences to 650 lives each day. 

Other Charities

In addition to Foundation there are also all the international causes such as Mary's Meals and Shelterbox which are being supported. We should not forget of course, Youth, Community, Vocational and Environmental projects nearer home.

Youth Projects

Primary Schools Choir Competition

After a break due to the Pandemic, the Primary Schools Choir Competition was back for 2023 with heats and the final in March. This year the competition was held at New Hall School, Chelmsford. The competition will be back for 2024 and details will be on this website later in 2023 or early in 2024

Other Youth Projects

The club is also supporting youth projects in the Chelmsford area including the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. For more details click here. 

The Rotary Family

Being part of Rotary is not just being part of a club, but being part of a family - with a district and a national side to it. There are four district meetings a year, normally held at Writtle College. There are also both district and national Rotary Conferences which are fabulous events. The District website can be found here.

Activities

Bellboat racing on the River Chelmer

A varied programme of events and activities is organized. Many events raise money for a range of charities but the aim also is for them to be fun!  There is also and extensive programme of social events. Full details can be found under the 'Programme' tab at the top of this page. 

About Rotary

Rotary describes itself as the world's first service organisation, as exemplified in the motto "Service above Self". In this context the word "service" has nothing to do with the armed forces, but refers to a non-profit organisation where members meet to perform charitable works, either by direct efforts or by raising money for other organisations. Rotarians are volunteers who give their time and talents to serve communities at home and overseas, men and women from business and the professions who share a common interest in helping others. A large part of Rotary is the fellowship and friendship which results from the shared enjoyment of business and social networking opportunities.

Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland (known as RIBI) has over 55,000 members in over 1850 clubs and is an integral part of Rotary International, which has about 1.2 million members world-wide in over 200 countries and geographical regions.

To contact us by e-mail; please click here. Details of all the Rotary clubs in Chelmsford can be found here. Click here to see a video all about Rotary in Britain and Ireland.