PRESIDENT'S BLOG - APRIL

I am writing this on 3 April ’25 – the opening day of our annual Beer Festival. After months of careful planning and a week of setting up, we woke this morning to the news that our Festival Marquee has, once again, been vandalised overnight despite the presence of on-site security with dogs. The damage was unimaginable, not to mention frustrating and upsetting for those who have put in so much hard work to make this event possible; an event that is popular within our community, well supported by our community, raising funds to benefit many parts of our community. My sincere thanks go to Ian Parr, the members of the Beer Festival Planning Team, and others who put aside personal feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment, and turned out this morning to carry out extensive repairs – to the marquee, the beer lines, the electrical cabling and more - to make sure that we’re ready to open for our valued supporters later today. Our efforts will not be thwarted by the perpetrators of this mindless act of vandalism who clearly wish us ill and failure; such is the resolve of Rotarians who, through fundraising and service, seek merely to help others, both practically and financially.

Since my last article, we’ve had the second North West heat of the Youth Speaks competition.  Although our home team from Hope Academy performed extremely well on the day they didn’t make it through to the District Final. Our congratulations, though, go to the team from Bridgewater High School – sponsored by Rotary in Worsley – that went on to win! Well Done Bridgewater.

We’ve also had the District final of the Young Chef competition, where Annabelle – the winner of our local heat representing Byrchall High School, Ashton-in-Makerfield – finished as second runner-up. Congratulations Annabelle!

Our Curry Night on 5 March was very successful and raised £501 for our International Project at Newclare Primary School in South Africa. This, combined with the proceeds of our Christmas Raffle and a very generous independent donation, has now been sent to the school by international transfer and phase 2 of the work has started – to extend the library to become a functional Learning Resource Centre, using otherwise redundant space in the school. I am very much looking forward to visiting the school to see the progress and to talk with staff about what happens next.

Most exciting of all is the news that one of our local primary schools has approached us about the possibility of setting up a ‘Rotakids’ group within the school; this is an excellent opportunity for young children to experience humanitarian projects first hand, and to learn about the needs of others, both in their own community and throughout the world. We look forward to working with them to make this happen.

We are also working with the Headteacher and pupils of Wargrave C of E Primary School, and with the Feed The Hungry (FTH) charity on a project called ‘The Million Meal Miracle’. FTH aims to pack and ship one million dried meals to hunger-stricken areas of Africa. Our children will benefit from an educational session on global hunger and Social responsibility; then work as a team to pack the dried food ready for transportation. More about these projects as they unfold.

Would you like to know more about these and other exciting projects that we’re involved with? Please email us at secretary.nlewrotary@gmail.com and we’ll certainly get back to you.