BURNS NIGHT CELEBRATION GOES WITH A BANG!
| BURNS NIGHT CELEBRATION – 70 Rotarians, Masons and guests came together on Saturday 18th January to celebrate Burns Night at The Heritage Suite.Tony, the piper, joined us for the second year running and started off the evening. Richard Shean was on-hand to manage proceedings for the evening. Liz of Beautiful Buffets treated us to an excellent three course traditional Burns Night meal. David Wynn-Mackenzie addressed the haggis in true style, after which we enjoyed the Immortal Memory Address from Alan and Hazel Kerr, followed by an ‘edgy’ Laddies Address from Peter Sale, and an even more edgy response from Stephanie Prideaux-Aspinall. We then enjoyed dancing to Tom Clements and The Clementynes, a really lively and quality local band. The raffle raised over £800 for local causes. |
A great night of debate – Teams from Shaftesbury, Blandford and Sturminster Newton Schools took part in Shaftesbury Rotary’s biggest Youth Speaks on 22nd January 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.
The winning team in the Intermediate Competition included Tilly Westbrook, Amber Barlow and Owen Jackson from Sturminster Newton High School, whose topic was ‘The voting age should be lowered to 12’ and the runners-up were Sophie Duke, Arabella Muir and Odette Miller from The Blandford School whose topic was ‘Should we be telling our children fairytales?’
The winning team in the Senior Competition included Phoebe O’Keefe, Lucy Holdcroft and Esme Compton-Cowdrey from Shaftesbury School whose topic was ‘Is AI developing too fast?’ and the runners-up were Edmund Dobson, Blake Stonton and Sam Parsons, also from Shaftesbury School, whose topic was ‘Should humans colonise Mars?’
The winners progress to the District Competition on Saturday 5th April at The Mountbatten School in Romsey. Many thanks to Shaftesbury School for hosting the event, all the students for taking part, their schools and teachers for supporting them, and the judges: Rachael Gale – local teacher; Matt Billingsley – local solicitor and Virginia Edwyn-Jones – Town Councillor and Chair of the Shaftesbury Chamber of Commerce.
