Charity Boxing Nights

Between 2005 and 2019 , our club and Ramsgate Boxing Club (one of the oldest boxing clubs in the country) organised 14 Charity Boxing Nights at the Margate Winter Gardens which, over the years, have raised around £444,000. A fantastic achievement!

Heavyweight champion Sir Henry Cooper OBE, KSG  (Our Enery) was our guest in 2008 and again in 2010. Possessed of a formidable left hook, he won 40 out of his 55 fights. 27 of them by a knock out. Some notable Thanet Rotarians are in his company - Neal Elliott, David Mirsky, John Reid, Roger Rook (sadly now deceased) and (hon member of our club) Frank Thorley.

We have the programme for the last of the events in March  2019 with messages from then President of Thanet Rotary, Robin Page, and Les Ray, President of the Ramsgate Boxing Club. They rightly acknowledge the mammoth effort by Rotarians and Boxing Club members in  setting up  these evenings, as well as the generosity of many  others, including  sponsors.

Many, many causes benefited from the charitable funds raised over the period. We do not list them all, but they include Ramsgate Boxing Club, of course, to improve facilities at their club for the benefit of the boys and girls using them.

But financial help also went to Oasis (domestic violence), Hospice care, Care homes (Michael Yoakley and Alexandra homes), Broadstairs Town Shed, Millmead Children's Centre, Sarah Thorne theatre, the Scouts and Sea Cadets, the Alzheimers Society, Age UK , Porchlight (homelessness)  and, more recently, responding to the Covid outbreak.

We have been able to help internationally in support of other Rotary clubs:  Margate Rotary's Tea Leaf project which supplied a bus to take children to school from  the tea plantations in Sri Lanka; and a project brought together by Rotary clubs in Reading to improve hospital services in Uganda. We have given funds for ShelterBoxes which provide shelter and the means to survive for people caught in disasters as well as funds for air ambulances and a portable  anaethesia machine in Nepal.

We are proud of what we achieved in organising these evenings and of the good which we have been able to do with the funds raised. The challenge for our club, now that they have ended, is to find other ways to fund raise. We believe that we have made a start with the sponsored walks which we organised in 2019 and this year.