Fair weather favours the Rotary Barge Week

Fair weather favoured the guests and volunteer crews for the Rotary Club of Newbury annual barge week which took place between the 8th & 14th September.

Guests from The Polio Group with their Rotarian crew enjoying their outing

Fairweather favoured the guests and volunteer crews for the Rotary Club of Newbury annual barge week which took place between the 8th & 14th September.  The week gave the Newbury Rotary crews the opportunity of giving local community groups the pleasure of a day out on the beautiful Kennet & Avon canal on sections between Great Bedwyn and Woolhampton and back to Bedwyn again. This year they were delighted to entertain groups from Eight Bells Mental Health, Fairclose Day Centre, Kintbury Volunteers, The MS Society and The Polio Group..

Typical of the guest responses to their trips was on the Monday outing between Newbury & Kintbury, when Cyrilene of the Polio group commented “Thank you so very much for a very relaxing and enjoyable day. The volunteer Rotary crew worked very hard to make sure that we had a fantastic time – we hope that we can come again next year”

This is an annual event in Newbury Rotary’s Community calendar in which the club uses a specially adapted barge from the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust Bruce Branch fleet. Hannah is a specially-designed, purpose-built, wide-beam canal boat which can be used by disabled, disadvantaged or elderly people having  wide-access ramps for boarding at the stern deck and a electro hydraulic lift down into the boat. The extra width of the boats provides excellent manoeuvrability for wheelchair users and they all have special built-in facilities.

Since the late 80’s, The Rotary Club of Newbury has utilized one of the KACT Bruce Branch canal boats to treat local charities to day trips as part of their Community programme. To date in excess of 200 day trips have been provided enabling over 2000 charity members to enjoy the tranquility of canal barge travel and our local Kennet Valley scenery. If any local charities are interested in being guests next year they should get in touch. www.newburyrotary.org

Irene Waters, the current Newbury Rotary President, commented “This event fully demonstrates our Rotary community focus and we get great joy from operating the barge week and seeing the pleasure that this gives to those members of our local community & charity groups that join us.”

The final leg between Hungerford and Great Bedwyn proved to be hard graft with low water levels causing two other boats to be marooned. Not so with the Rotary team who managed to get the boat Hannah back to base.

'What We Do' Main Pages:

We work in and around the Community in many ways - to help others with their projects and fund raising - some are featured here. We were recently presented with an Award from the Beeches Community Board in recognition of our work in the community.

more  

If you want to use your talents and energy to improve the lives of others in the local community while making new friends, come along to one of our meetings or events to find out more.

more  

Details of some of the events organised by Club members.

more  

We will be holding the 33rd Donkey Derby - a great family day out- at Burnham Park on Saturday May 25th 2024 the weekend of the May Bank Holiday

more  

Our annual Burnham Beeches Rotary Charity Run is a VIRTUAL event and entrants took part during July to September 2022. The funds raised were donated to Shelterbox to help those affected by the Ukraine crisis.

more  

One of the seven areas of focus for Rotary is Supporting the Environment. We take part in Rotary District organised events and work with schools and others in the community to promote awareness of environmental issues

more  

Our Club's international activities

more  

After two years of restrictions we held a Donkey Derby with a difference on Saturday 28th May 2022. There was great arena entertainment, lots of stalls, food offerings, funfair, plus of course - DONKEY RIDES.

more