The Rotary Club of Aylsham is a group of people who meet weekly to have fun whilst helping communities both here and abroad.  We have a great variety of social events throughout the year and work hard to both raise money and contribute to the local, national and international community. Great friendships grow from working and socialising together.

For more information please click HERE  Call 01603 279701 or 01263 585020

Greg Peck is the Club President for 2022/2023.

July 1st marks the beginning of new Rotary year and is the time when we elect a new President for the Rotary Club of Aylsham. 

Aylsham Rotary Club is a small, but very friendly club which is very commited to the local community and manages to achieve a huge amount through the hard work and community spirit of all its members. With the generousity of the people of Aylsham and district, we manage to raise a lot of money each year to support local, national and international good causes. Most importantly, we are a COMMUNITY club and our ethos over the years has moved more and more to working with the community to improve, support and sustain the excellent work done with people across all age groups.

President Greg writes:

"It is an honour and a priviledge to be appointed President of The Rotary Club of Aylsham in a year when we celebrate our 70th anniversary. Over that time the Club has been an integral part of the Aylsham community. Its members have tirelessly supported many community projects, which have helped many local people, as well as supporting relief projects overseas.

The last last two years have been difficult and our programme of events and fund raising was seriously impacted. However, I must pay tribute to my predecessor, our Immediate Past President John Lock, who guided us through this difficult period. We mananged to continue our club meetings online and we maintained most of our popular community projects. Santa's sleigh was still able to visit the children of Aylsham, and Aylsham High School's Public speaking competition continued. During the pandemic our Laptop Appeal achieved national recognition, it was an examplar and copied by others across the country. The project was led by Mike Downes who was recognised by The Queen in the most recent honours list for his work in Education over many years, with the award of the BEM.

In the coming year, our charitable projects will continue and will be added to. For example, we have recently supported Ukrainian refugees by sending money to Rotary International who distributes money through local Rotary Clubs to facilitate and support refugees escaping the war.

 By working with Rotary Clubs around the world we can guarantee ALL money gets to those who need it. None of your contributions to Rotary are used to pay for overhead and staff costs. 

Rotary International has led a campaign to eradicate polio worldwide. This has been a hugely successful campaign and currently only two countries still have polio (Afghanistan and Pakistan). We need to complete the task and ensure that it doesn't reoccur anywhere. Our Club supports this initiative. 

Rotary also has a Shelter Box scheme which enables us to respond very quickly to disasters, wherever they occur in the world, by sending a box with shelter and other basic needs, immediately.

I want to make the theme of the coming year "Fun and Fellowship". Because whilst the public recognises our fund raising and charitable support, they are often unaware that Rotarians also have a lot of fun. Not only running charitable events, helping out at community events and having interesting speakers at our regular meetings, but also visits to places of interest, walks, quizzes etc. We like to include partners and friends at these events.

Like all voluntary organisations, we are seeing a decline in membership. If this is not addressed, there may not be a Rotary Club in Aylsham in the future. I hope that you would agree that this would be a loss to the community so why not consider becoming a Rotarian?

Rotary is open to everyone, whatever age, background, race or gender. If you like the sound of what we do, please contact me, our Membership Officer, Richard Latham, or any Rotarian and come along to one of our meetings or join one of our events. You will get a taste of Rotary without having to make any commitment."