7th – Speaker Meeting
We met at The Royal Chase Hotel and had a very interesting and inspiring talk from June and Martin Hull who run Shaftesbury Car Link, a not-for-profit community transport organisation, who offer transport services to people of all ages in the SP7 area, where public transport is either not available or cannot be accessed.
They do a fantastic job ensuring that people who have no transport and would otherwise struggle to afford to pay for a taxi, can get to medical appointments, collect prescriptions and see other people so they are not isolated. They run the Car Link with the help of volunteer drivers and an administration assistant. They were extremely busy when Covid hit and continue to be busy.
Those who nominated Shaftesbury Car Link were impressed by the care and time that those at the car link put into helping people, and their cheery nature, helping people in the community travel, who would otherwise be isolated and unable to travel. In recognition of their contribution towards the community of Shaftesbury we awarded them the Shaftesbury Rotary Caldwell Award 2021.
14th – no meeting!
16th – Social Evening
Our 1st new year social “Party” with wives and partners or should I say “gathering” and what a great start. We all met at Sheena and Bernard’s gaff better known as the Retreat which is their beautiful home as well as their business base. On arrival we were warmly welcomed with a choice of drinks and the conversations in particular flowed between wives and partners who have not had the opportunity to meet for many months. At the appointed hour our hosts called us to order to be served our Bangers & Mash and this was followed by a choice of lemon and meringue pie or bread and butter pudding. A super evening and all credit to Sheena and Bernard for organising and being excellent hosts.
17th – Night of the Great Debate – Shaftesbury Rotary’s Youth Speaks Competition
Teams from Shaftesbury, The Blandford and Gillingham Schools took part in Rotary’s Youth Speaks competition on 17th February at Shaftesbury School. Each team had a Chairperson who managed the debate, a Proposer who put forward their motion and an Opposer, arguing against it.
There was an Intermediate competition, with students aged 11 – 13 years old and a Senior competition, with students aged 14 – 17 years old.
It was fantastic to see the effort the students put into their debates, arguing their points well in front of a judging panel and having to field questions from the questioner. If that was not enough, they did so in front of an audience and within a time limit – quite daunting for the students, but they all did an amazing job.
The winning team in the Intermediate Competition included Olivia Sharples, Tamzin Caves and Tyler Spencer from The Blandford School, whose topic was “Should PE be taught in mixed or single sex groups?” and the runners-up were Olivia Pretlove, Seth Collis and Seth Young from Shaftesbury School whose topic was “Reasons for and against allowing entry to refugees and asylum seekers”.
The winning team from the Senior Competition included James Joshi, Isaac Clifton and Gift Catesby from Shaftesbury School whose topic was “Should citizens have a moral obligation to break the law?”. The winners will go through to the next round of the competition which takes place in March.
Many thanks to Shaftesbury School for hosting the event, all the students for taking part, their schools and teachers for supporting them, the judges: Rachael Gale – local teacher; Simon Hoare MP; and Cllr Pauline Batstone, and the questioner Virginia Edwyn-Jones.
The event was run by Shaftesbury Rotary Club in partnership with Shaftesbury School, and in conjunction with Gillingham Rotary Club. We will be running the competition again next year.
If you want to know more or to get involved with Rotary, please contact: hello@shaftesburyrotaryclub.org
28th – Business Meeting at The Royal Chase
The invasion of Ukraine was uppermost in everyone’s thoughts and so we agreed to make a substantial donation. This was finalised after the meeting at £2,000. We also agreed a donation of £1,500 to Rotary Foundation. This is Rotary’s own international charity. We then agreed £500 to to continue PolioPlus Rotary’s work with various partners, including Bill Gates, with the aim of eradicating this dreadful disease. We are so near to success.
There were congratulations all round for our very successful Youth Speaks event.
Our recent Bangers and Mash evening had raised £190 for BooBs. This was matched with another £190 from our charity account.
There are further social events in the near future – a trip to Salisbury Theatre and a Tapas evening.
All of our forthcoming events – the Cycle Ride, KidsOut and Gold Hill Festival are well in hand.
We also agreed a donation of £2,000 from last year’s golf event to go to CRUSE.
So that was a lot of money from our charity funds going to worthwhile causes, but a lot of social fun too. If you would like to join us in this please make contact through hello@shaftesburyrotaryclub.org
