More about our Club

Taking its name from the River Thames that flows alongside our historic town Marlow Thames Rotary was founded in 1997 and currently has in excess of 30 members both male and female embracing a wide age range.

Activities

We meet on Wednesday evenings and usually enjoy a two course meal followed by a varied programme of activities.  Meetings may include an invited speaker, a discussion on a topic of interest or a fellowship activity. It is always worth checking before you visit us as meals need to be ordered in advance and we occasionally change our venue.

In addition to the regular club meetings there is a varied programme of social and fund-raising events for members and their families to take part in. These have included collecting at Heathrow Airport for Children in Need, visits to places of interest, attending a rehearsal for Trooping the Colour and a members BBQ.

Fundraising

Of course we would not be part of Rotary without the work that we do in the local community, nationally and internationally and we are proud to have supported many individuals and organisations.

Our main fundraising events each year are the Marlow Tastes event and the Santa's Fun Run in December.

Welcome

We always welcome visitors to our Club so please come along and join us. Whether you are a guest of Rotary or a fellow Rotarian from another club you will always be made most welcome. We look forward to meeting you and If you would like more information please contact us.

My kind of Town

Marlow, voted to be within the top ten places to live, has always been known as a fashionable riverside resort and has attracted many famous people to the area. Well known writers who lived here have included Thomas Love Peacock, Jerome K. Jerome, T.S. Eliot and Mary Shelley who wrote her gothic masterpiece Frankenstein.  There has been an iconic bridge since the reign of King Edward III and the current suspension is twinned with the bridge in Budapest.

Next to the bridge is All Saints Church which has been part of Marlow since the 11th century. The present building was constructed in the Victorian Era, as the spire of the previous Norman church collapsed in 1831.

Marlow Bottom has become the home of quintuple Olympic gold medallist rower Steve Redgrave, Britain's only athlete to have won gold medals at five consecutive Olympics. Higginson Park features a bronze statue of Sir Steven looking across the river towards the location of the finishing line of the Marlow Town Regatta.  Naomi Riches lives in Marlow and has a gold post box on the High Street as a commemoration for winning gold in the London 2012 Paralympics for adaptive rowing.

Robert Thorogood's murder mystery novel and TV series The Marlow Murder Club is located in our town.  The Thames Valley around Marlow is rich in archaeology.  There were Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements just to the west of the town and Iron Age hill forts at Danesfield and Medmenham, Roman villas have been found at Hambleden, Mill End and Hurley. 

Perhaps a good insight is to consider that Mary Shelley completed Frankenstein and worried about the living conditions of the town’s poor lacemakers.  T. S. Eliot lived in West Street, teaching unhappily at Wycombe’s Royal Grammar School while suffering a problematic love-life at home.  Jerome K. Jerome wrote Three Men in a Boat, partly in the Two Brewers in St Peter Street.  

The coming of the railway in the 1870s accelerated the town’s change from failing commercial hub to the thriving recreation and commuter centre we see today. The town is renowned for its unique choice of fine restaurants as well as its proximity to the beautiful Chilterns.

Malcolm Parr
Marlow Thames Rotary