Cheltenham North News

Cheltenham North News

             This is a selection of our activities over the past twelve months

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April 2024 New Members for Cheltenham North 

Cheltenham North is very pleased to welcome two new members to our Rotary Club Di and Steven Mills.

April 2024 Cheltenham Wine Festival

Cheltenham North organised another successful Wine Festival that was held at the Fitness Centre of Cheltenham Ladies College.

Pictures taken at the event will be available soon.

Proceeds from the event will go to Rotary Charities

April 2024 School in a Bag

Rosanne Cole has received a certificate from SIAB thanking the club for our donation of £1453.00 which funded 78 schoolbags to go Nepal. These will be delivered in April/May and it was determined that 38 bags will go to Shree Kalika and the remaining 40 to a nearby school called Shree Laligurans. The bag numbers are 158964 to 159041 and you can track these bags at www.schoolinabag,org

March 2024 Cheltenham Races 

Cheltenham North supported Cheltenham Races again this year as Volunteers..

Cheltenham North supported the opening of the Cornerstone Community Garden by the Rotary Club Cheltenham Future at Cornerstone Centre, Whaddon by Edward Gillespie, Lord Lt. of Gloucestershire.

Cornerstone Jubilee Garden Sue Jenkins Cheltenham North Rotarian

Sue gave the vote of thanks at the Official Opening of the Garden on Friday 8th March 2024. 

My name is Sue Jenkins and I am a landscape architect and have been a member of Rotary for many years. Rotary is a group of people who use their varied skills to improve both their local community and the lives of people around the world. When Vicar James joined the new Rotary club, called Cheltenham Future, he was interested in building a community garden to support their Cornerstone Community Centre. 

The new club had no money, but set about selling Mistletoe and collecting at a Cheltenham Town football game. Fortunately, I am used to working with communities who have a good idea, no money, but really want to make it happen. 

In June 2022 it was the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, and an opportunity to celebrate Her Majesty’s long reign with a Jubilee Garden. The then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, was keen to create a Green Canopy of trees across the country as part of the celebration, and we were fortunate to find 4 sponsors for these 4 trees. 

Together with obtaining various grants from Enovert, CBC Jubilee Grant, GCC Build Back Better and Rotary District Environment grant, we have been able to raise sufficient funds to make this community Garden reality.

 It is particularly fitting that today is the International Womens Day, because this garden is in memory of a very special woman, namely the late Queen Elizabeth. 

Appropriately, our distinguished guest, Edward Gillespie was appointed as Gloucestershire’s Lord Lieutenant by the late Queen and is now the King’s representative. So on behalf of the Cheltenham Future Rotary Club, I want to give a big thanks to Edward for agreeing, in his capacity as Royal Representative, to officially open this Cornerstone Jubilee Garden, and thank everyone else who used their various skills and helped to make it happen. 

February 2024 Snowdrops at Colesbourne 

Cheltenham North Rotarians, Partners and Friends have provided the Refreshments and raised nearly £3000 for Rotary Charities at Colesbourne Park during the Snowdrops viewing season over the weekend of 3/4 February.

All the pictures taken at the event can be viewed in the Featured Page on the Home Page of this website.

January 2024 A New member for Cheltenham North

At the Club meeting on the 15th January the members were pleased to welcome Duncan Ivory as a member of Cheltenham North Rotary Club

January 2024 New Seating Facilities for Sandford Parks

A donation of £800 has been made to Sandford Parks for the provision of additional seating facilities.

December 45th Annual Carol Concert

A very successful Concert was held at the Ladies College Princess Hall Cheltenham with over £4600 being raised for Rotary Charities

See Featured Page on the Home Page of this Website for Pictures of the event.  

The event featured, Compere Mark Cummings, the Gloucestershire Youth Jazz Orchestra, Cranham Handbell Ringers, the choirs from Leckhampton Primary School.

December Hamper Scamper Christmas Hampers

Cheltenham North Members have again supported the Christmas Hamper Scamper campaign to provide Hampers for needy families over the Christmas period.

December 2023 Christmas Dinner at the Queens Hotel.

58 Cheltenham North Members and their Guests enjoyed a Christmas Dinner at the Quieens Hotel. Entertainment, A Winter Serenade, was provided by Maria Jagusz, Alice Nelson and Jessica May.

November 2023 Cheltenham Fireworks

A group of Cheltenham North members volunteered to assist as marshalls at the Fireworks display held at the Cheltenham Racecourse.

October 2023 Support for End Polio Now

DG Anne Bartholomew presented RCCN with a Certificate from Rotary Foundation in appreciation for the financial support the club had given to “End Polio Now”

Members from Cheltenham North are supporting the Community Garden project being implemented by Cheltenham Future Rotary Club. See Pictures

October 24th 2023 To Celebrate End Polio Day

October 2023 Opening of New Building at Star Centre Ullenwood

In recogonition of the support received from Cheltenham North Rotary Club the following invitation was received by our Club President. 

"I am pleased to invite yourself and one guest to the formal opening of the Building a Brighter Future accommodation project, which includes Scott House, Bradbury House and the Ingram Discovery Rooms, on Wednesday 25 October 2023 at 2pm.

We are delighted that the new specialist accommodation is being opened by Jack Thorne and Rachel Mason, who are long standing supporters of National Star."

Through its fund raising activities the Rotary Club has provided £10800 for the furnishing of a number of rooms in the new building.

September 2023 Morocco Appeal 

Rotarians from Cheltenham North supported the Cheltenham and Cheltenham Future Clubs with a street collection in aid of the situation in both Morrocco with the supply of Shelterboxes. The monies raised £2209 is sufficient for three Shelterboxes. We are grateful for the support provided for this collection.

Message received from Shelterbox.

August 31st 2023 A New Meerting Venue for Cheltenham North

Our Club celebrated a new meeting venue, the Queens Hotel with an American Theme evening.

This evening included an American style Quiz and Game.. We also bid farewell to member Heath Wilson who is returning to the USA. 

August 2023 An Update by Nigel Gilhead

A mixed report - one loss and one win. That means we end the season with four wins, one loss.

Well done and thank you to: Tony P, Beth, Richard, John P, Tony H and Mike S.

Good social sessions after the latest games, at the Wall Sports Club where Gloucester meet weekly and then enjoying the fine evening outside the Greatfield. Following a last minute confirmation that Pershore were actually coming this was followed by a venue change to Brizen, brought on by the travellers stopping in Sandford Park for a few days (they have since departed).

August 2023 Presentation of Cheque to the Star Centre

Past President Janet Keenan of Cheltenham North Rotary Club presented a cheque for £10800 to the Star Centre at Ullenwood for the furnishing of four new rooms at the Star Centre. A Grant was received from our Rotary District towards this project.

August 2023 Boules an Update

Nigel Gilhead triumphantly announced that his team, Beth and John Phillip, Mike Stevens and Tony Pawley had won their three matches of Boules.

August 2023 Support for Sue Ryder

Member Tony Pawley announced that his efforts in the Sue Ryder bike ride raised £750, and once again he thanked member for their sponsorship.

August 2023 further support for Ukraine

Member of Cheltenham North Sally Whittle explained that she had been working with the Ukrainian family who stayed with Sue Jenkins, and although the wife spoke fluent english the husband did not so she had given 100 hours of free english lessons, which enabled him to communicate and obtain a job, Sally is now completing the project with 25hours at half price.

August 2023 An Update on Rowanfield School Reading ( See Picture of Certificate )

Rowanfield 2023 Gwynne Tucker- Brown

We, the Community and Youth Committee, volunteered to help to listen to the early readers at Rowanfield Junior School last Autumn. The group consist of 4 classes of 8-9 year olds of mixed ability and ethnic background. There are 15 different nationalities within the group!

There are 8 of us in our group and we try to attend regularly at least once a week. Janet has been our star, attending as often as has been possible so she has really got to know the children well.

It has been so rewarding to see the improvement in the children’s reading ability. They are so mixed in that ability, some are free readers reading such books as Harry Potter etc. whilst others struggle with the basic books.

Overseeing the scheme has been Sue Garcia whose love of reading and determination has been instrumental in the children’s progress. Sadly, she has now retired although she might return in the same capacity as our group!

Each class has a clip board with the names of the children listed, they are colour coded according to whether they are heard to read once a week, twice or every day. All we have to do is to tick the board and write a favourable comment in their record book. Our only role is to listen and gently assist.

I would thoroughly recommend this most enjoyable community service. I love listening to the children and getting to know them. We will be starting afresh in September with the new intake from the Infant School. So if anybody in the club would like to join our group please get in touch with me. The only requirement is a DBS which does take a little time to acquire.

August 2023 A day out for the Young Carers

Cheltenham North  Rotary Club funded a day out at the Nature in Art Centre and transport for some of the children.

On Aug. 2^nd Vivien met the 10 Young Carers in the Art Centre with their 2 Key Workers, the teacher and her assistant. 

The teacher had prepared tables for the Batik work, and showed us how to use a special pen to drip hot wax onto our frames with sheeting on to create a design, which was then colour washed.

After a break for a snack we began the next project  with wire.

These 2 different activities were very enjoyable and after lunch the group went outside to play among various sculptures and an activity area.

To end this Art Day we went to the house to see the various rooms filled with all types of art, sculptures of animals, bronze heads and many pictures of bird, fish, etc.

This was very much appreciated by the key workers at Gloucestershire Young Carers, who are now celebrating their 30 years of working with such groups in Gloucestershire.  

Vivien Barr

July 2023 National Star Comedy, Curry and Quiz Night Fundraiser, July 13th Support By Rotarians

Recently Janet, Maureen, Anne Wilson and I volunteered to help on this evening which was sponsored by Speller Metcalfe who are building the new premises at the College.

All the tickets at £40 were sold and 202 guests came to be entertained in a lovely marquee with twinkling lights in the ceiling drapes.

Each of us were allocated 2–3 tables to deal with and our duties ranged from welcoming our guests, checking their pre-ordered drinks, and taking further orders, selling them raffle tickets, inviting them to take part in a table quiz – with team name etc. and later to collect these and deliver them to the markers.

When the curries were ready we delivered them to our respective tables ,with other helpers serving other guests.

The Comedy part of the evening was the performance by the Lost Voice Guy, winner of Britain’s Got Talent competition. He is the first stand-up comedian to use a communication aid, and has performed at the Royal Variety Performance and many other shows.

Lost Voice Guy is seriously promoting the view that disability should be no bar to participating in all types of activities where possible. His act was amusing, thought provoking , and good entertainment.

Compere Faye Hatcher held the evening together very expertly and cajoled the audience into buying more raffle tickets and participating in the Auction.

The marvellous amount raised for each of these was over £1,200, which was an excellent result, and will be used to support young people with complex disabilities at National Star.

Vivien Barr

June 2023 Handover to a new President and the start of a new Rotary Year

At the Club Meeting on 29th June President Janet Keenan passed the Presidency to Kevin Gwilliam for 2023/24.This was held at Southam Village Hall aat which over forty Rotarians and Guests were present.

Entertainment was provided and  Our Rotary Club is most grateful to Eric Labrum for arranging Maria Jagusz to perform. He has kindly promoted and sponsored this mezzo-soprano on many occasions.

Professionally she has performed many “trouser” roles for The Royal Opera House, English Opera, Longborough Festival Opera as well as many European Opera Houses and has been able to perform with many of the great names in Opera. She has coached emerging artists on the interpretation of operatic roles with stage techniques. Maria now works at Longborough Festival Opera arranging operatic performances for the local schools together with her pianist Jessica May.

On this occasion she presented a young mezzo-soprano Eleanor O’Driscoll from Cheltenham who recently won the “Weston” Prize for the most promising classical singer at the “Chris Treglown” Awards in Cornwall. Later this year she is singing in the chorus of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera performances at Buxton and Malvern.

She performed her “signature” operatic aria, the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen to great applause. Together, they sang duets from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and the Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffman by Offenbach. Maria sang Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” and a Polish song before ending the concert with “There’s a place for us.”

We are all looking forward with confidence to the new Rotary Year under our new President Kevin.

April/ May 2023 Pendyrus Male Voice Choir Concert & Gardener's Questions Evening

Cheltenham North organised two very successful events during April and May 2023. These were held at the new Leckhampton High School and raised over £4000 for Rotary Charites.  

May 2023 Club AGM and Club Assembly

Cheltenham Nort held its AGM and also its Club Assembly at which the Club President for 2023/24 Kevin Gwilliam outlined his plans for the new Rotary Year

April 2023 Cheltenham North Supports Scout Group

The Rotary Club has made a donation of £250 towards the development costs of the new Explorer Scout Unit based in Shurdington.  This group welcomes young people between the ages of 14-18, drawing from central and south Cheltenham.

Update on the Wine Festival and Carol Concert

We are very pleased to report that the 2022 Wine Festival generated a sum of £11000 and the 2022 Carol Concert a further sum of £3500. These monies will be used to support Rotary nominated Charities.