Presidents Diary

President’s Diary – June 2021

President blasts off on holiday

President Elect Celia will be taking some of the meetings in June, as I am off on an adventure to Devon and Cornwall on a motor bike with my partner Barrie. So best wishes to Celia, and many thanks to her for covering my holiday. I will be back for the President’s handover!

Looking back over the past year dominated by Covid restrictions and as president during this unprecedented year, could I thank all the Club members for your patience and kind support. I should like to thank also all Committee chairs, who have stood by and supported your project teams, keeping fellowship, friendship and fun going throughout the pandemic and our zoom meetings. Our response to the Covid-19 crisis has been to increase our giving, and donations this year have been £7,738 helping both local and international causes. I thank everyone for making this possible.

This year we have much to celebrate as a Club, as it is 45 years since we were Chartered in 1976. It is a proud moment. Our Club has gone from strength to strength in this time. Rotary is an amazing international organisation to be part of, it provides such a wonderful framework for service, self-development and fellowship, so it is indeed a privilege to be counted a Rotarian.

This month we welcomed David Perkins, a multiple Paul Harris Fellowship award winner and our District’s Foundation team-leader from the Westbury RC. He highlighted the role of Rotary Foundation, Rotary’s charity which invests and doubles-up our fund raising. His talk was inspirational, our work as Rotarians is enhanced and enriched by the money we invest in Foundation.  As a Club we have through fund raising and personal giving, allotted £63 per member this last year going to Foundation, which we re-coup with match funding three years later as District Grants. This is better than the average for our District per member, but the target Rotary International continues to set for us is £73 per person per year, or $100 per Rotarian. We must strive to do this to ensure our future ability to work for and give donations to our chosen charities. David’s inspirational Foundation Powerpoint will be put on the website for members to see.