April Newsletter

Congratulations to Rotarian Sandie Trapnell for putting on a very successful Fashion Show at Ringwood School on Friday 6^th March.                 

172 tickets were sold and the evening made a magnificent surplus of £2,448 for New Forest Young Carers and other local charities.

Sandie wishes to thank all the Rotarians and their partners who helped on the evening especially Rotarian Carole Miller who organised the raffle and raised the incredible sum of £525.

The evening started with Rotarians, looking very splendid in evening dress, serving bubbly and canapés to all our guests. The guests were then seated in the School’s theatre to watch all the models parade up and down the catwalk in fashions provided by Ringwood School Textile Department, Hobbs, The Dressing Room, Woodsies, Beach and Body, Whistles, British Fashion Designer Veronica Morgan and finally Anna Bridal Couture.

As it was such a great evening, both for the attendees and financially, the Fashion Show will hopefully become a biennial event for the Club and as other boutiques will have heard of its success it is bound to become an even larger event. Don’t panic Sandy you have 2 years to organize the next one!                                          

Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)

At present the Club’s charitable fund-raising activities are governed by a trust deed which is registered with the Charity Commission. Under this trust deed the trustees (three at present) and all members are personally liable for the debts of the trust if it becomes insolvent. This could occur if an event made a loss or the trust was held liable for an uninsured accident.

Historically the only way for the members of a club to have limited liability was to choose to incorporate as a charitable company limited by guarantee. However, this required registration and filings with both Companies House and the Charity Commission, each of which has its own regulations and requirements.

This has now changed with the ability of charitable organisations to incorporate as a CIO which only needs to register and file accounts and returns with the Charity Commission. Members of a CIO can have their liability set at nil.

A CIO requires a minimum of three trustees but again their liability can be nil, except if they have not acted in good faith, for example, not prepared a risk assessment of an event or accepted a risk that could occur knowing, in our case, that the Rotary insurance does not cover the risk being taken.

Your Council has agreed that the Club should form a CIO, named Ringwood Rotary CIO, so that in future Club members are protected.

Once the CIO has been registered, we will need to state on all advertisements, leaflets and newspaper articles relating to any charity event we put on that it is organised by Ringwood Rotary CIO and not the Club.

A little something to ponder on why you are all stuck at home – Whilst I have been sat at home finding things to occupy my mind its not so bad really, but it does seem strange to me that one bag of rice has 8956 grains in and another one has 8756 where are the missing 200?

What obscure things have you done?

Can anyone spot the Rotarian in the picture? The first to tell the editor where and who it is gets a bottle of MLW’s finest wine from his cellar! Can someone inform the editor as well please!

Angela has sent in a lovely Spring photo of blackthorn blossom with a glorious blue sky – has the rain really gone? With all this staying at home now I’m sure lawns will be like bowling greens or in my case undulating grass with a touch of moss!