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Service above Self ---- Service above Self ---- Service above Self ---- Service above Self
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As we are at the start of a new Rotary year, I thought I should take this opportunity to mention some of our key activities over the next twelve months. You can find more about these in the Newsletter and on our website.
Walk The Test Way - Sunday 8 October 2017
Our Club is perhaps best known for Walk The Test Way in October. Each year walkers (around 700 in recent years) walk various distances of the beautiful Test Way, raising funds for their favourite charities. Planning is a twelve months' activity and on the day we guide and encourage walkers along the route. Since the first WTTW in 2003, the event has enabled walkers to raise the outstanding sum of over £700,000 for charity.
Reminiscences of Romsey - Saturday 10 March 2018
We run Reminiscences of Romsey for around 200 senior citizens and members of friendship groups in the town. This is an afternoon of fellowship and entertainment at the Crosfield Hall. It started as a one-off for the millennium and by popular request we have been running it ever since.
If you know of someone who would like to attend, please get in touch.
The Mayor's Picnic - Sunday 1 July 2018
We run the Mayor's Picnic and duck race on behalf of the Mayor of Romsey. This is a very enjoyable day attended by thousands of people from Romsey and the surrounding area. Traditionally it is on the first Sunday of July and so is the first event of the incoming President's year. This also provides an excellent opportunity for local charities and organisations to raise awareness and much needed funds.
Community and Youth
Our Community activities are at the heart of what we do. We run 'Tell Us Your Wish' for people to nominate a charity or worthy cause we may be able to support. "Know Your Blood Pressure Day" in April raises awareness of strokes and other consequences of high blood-pressure.
Our Club is also very active in supporting and providing opportunities for young people in the community and in schools. This includes the very successful annual Technology Tournament, giving dictionaries to primary schools and helping students learn about conflict resolution through "Peace Jam".
Members of the Rotary Club of Romsey Test seek to serve and make a positive contribution to our community. We thank you for your support.
If you would like to know more or help with these and similar activities, please get in touch. We welcome new members.
Jon Livingstone
President of the Rotary Club of Romsey Test, 2017-18
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We run this annual event - effectively a village fete for Romsey. This year..........
• Record numbers - nobody could remember the Memorial Park being so busy.
• The weather was like Goldilocks' porridge - Not too hot, Not too cold,Just right.
• Record duck race sales – The duck called Ross was the winner, scooped from the river Test by Romsey Subaqua Club.
• 30 stalls for local charities to promote their causes and raise money.
• Amazing sales of food and refreshments. Almost everything ran out.
• Plastic trumpets and trombones in abundance, played by Halterworth and North Baddesley Primary Schools.
• Fantastic music from Mountbatten School Big Band – about to head to the Montreux Jazz festival.
• The last dunking of Rev Tim Sledge as Vicar of Romsey. Can you be dunked as Dean of Peterborough?
• Three enquires from people who thought they might like to join Rotary and help with next year’s event.
• Members of Romsey Men’s Shed helped out at the very busy entrance to the park and selling Duck Race tickets..
• Almost no litter to be picked up.
A happy day for young and old alike. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.
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We are happy to work closely with our parent Club, the Rotary Club of Romsey, promoting the concept of “Rotary in Romsey"
At the start of each month we now have a Rotary in Romsey column in the Romsey Advertiser, telling readers about activities that both clubs share.
A new innovation is the Rotary Community Group. This meets approximately every 3 months and brings together representatives of businesses, charities, schools and organisations with which we work. It gives them a chance to share ideas with one another, for them to tell us about their concerns and needs and for us to tell them about what Rotary is planning. We were very pleased at the meeting in June to receive a cheque for £250 from E-florists (photo above right) as sponsorship for Walk the Test Way. The next RCG meeting will be at the beginning of October and we would welcome new participants. Please contact us if you would like to attend.
In June Rotary in Romsey was represented with a stand at the Festival of Volunteering in Romsey Abbey (photo above left) in in July at the Romsey Beggars Fair.
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We’ve started a new more flexible timetable of meetings Here are some highlights.
• A visit to the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton. If you’ve never been there and have even a passing interest aviation and local history, you should go. It holds some unique items.
• A breakfast meeting with a quiz of questions that you might be asked if you were applying for British Citizenship. Our level of success in answering them suggests that we should all learn more about the country in which we live. (Do YOU know how many members there are on a jury in Scotland?)
• A visit to a crop trials farm near Stockbridge where we learned about new (and old) varieties of wheat and barley and were treated to free hats and bottles of beer.
• At Lyburn Cheese we sampled the cheeses and saw how they were made but also learned about growing organic vegatables on a commercial scale.
• We went "Around the world in 80 minutes" – a culinary tour sampling food from the far-flung corners of the world.
• Each year we assist with taking a group of special needs children, their parents and teachers on a day out. This year it was to Marwell Zoo. The weather was fine for “Kids Out” and everyone had a great time.
• We spent an evening ten-pin bowling at the Swan centre in Eastleigh. The antics of the evening did not however match the prowess of our skittles team who prevailed in a closely fought final against the Rotary Clubs of Fordingbridge and Wareham to win the Rotary Wessex knockout contest that had taken us to many pubs throughout last winter. We have now won this competition in all but one of the past 5 years. (Last year we were only runners-up!).
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Our interests and activities are much wider than the immediate Romsey area.
• We work closely with local primary schools and one of these, Awbridge School, has been running an ambitious project to collect books and send them to Burundi in central Africa. Several of us were pleased to be invited to the school to meet the Burundian ambassador, to hear about the project and to add books (including Dictionaries4Life) to the huge collection that will soon be in a container and on its way. There is only one library in the whole of Burundi (population 10 million)!
• We are busy filling jam jars (donated by Tiptree) with money so that the contents (after we have eaten the delicious jam) can be donated to the Rotary Foundation project to eradicate polio. We have almost £200 so far and many jars are yet to be counted.
• One of our members, Paul Grainger, with his wife Elaine cycled the 3000km from Bucharest in Romania to Le Havre, approximately following the course of the rivers Danube, Rhine and Moselle. Though not specifically a fund raising effort they collected £1000 for Jane Scarth House, the cancer support centre in Romsey. Paul’s blog of their six week adventure on May and June is amusing, informative and gives a flavour of the challenges they faced. Well done!
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At our meetings we’ve had interesting and varied speakers.
• We learned about the organisation and objectives of the Army Cadets from Col. Rod Lambert, the cadet commandant for SE England.
• Representatives of Romsey School told us about their very positive experience at the Peace Jam event at the University of Winchester and how they had brought the new ideas they had gained to start a "Compassion in Action Awareness" agenda in their school. Mark Ward, the head of Awbridge Primary school told us about plans for similar initiatives in younger children.
• A new nature reserve is being developed in Romsey. Andy Lester, Conservation Director, Arocha UK told us about the history of the Fishlake Meadows wetlands, it’s remarkably diverse flora and fauna and enthused us with its potential as a nature reserve right on our doorstep. It has since been announced that the reserve will be managed by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.
• Steve Norman told us how he acted as a business "dragon" investing in promising ideas from his students at Winchester University. Enterprises he described were varied, surprising and mostly involved people enjoying themselves. He has a base, IncuHive in Chandlers Ford. In early August he featured on TV, opening doors with an electronic implant in his hand!
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It is 3 months until our 15th annual charity fundraising event on Sunday October 8th.
Preparations are well in hand, reconnaissance walks are being done along the route to check whether there are any obstacles. Where there are, the relevant landowners are being contacted to arrange their clearance.
Posters and leaflets are in local shops, village halls and other public places. The biggest poster is in Specsavers window in Romsey - fitting since they are providing £3000 of sponsorship for the event. We re also grateful to e-Florists, a new supporter this year, for their £250 donation.
What is most important is that walkers are registering. The count to date is appraoching 400, well ahead of numbers at te same date in previous years.
Will you and your friends be walking on October 8th and supporting YOUR charity?
Note. this is a dog-friendly walk.
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At the dinner to mark the handover to our new President and his team, outgoing President Tony Trowsdale, (above right), was presented with an award by David Glover of Shelterbox. Tony has been and remains a champion of the charity giving talks and demonstrations to show how it provides practical support to the victims of natural and man-made disasters.
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Meetings and events for next 3 months (and beyond), at Romsey Town Hall. (7.00 for 7.30 unless otherwise indicated).
- August 16 "Lady Hamilton, Nelson's mistress"
- August 23 "Stop the Traffik" (Wellow Golf Club)
- Sept 6 Business meeting
- Sept 13 Social event (not at Romsey TH)
- Sept 20 "Rotary Foundation"
- Sept 27 "So you think you can drive" Wellow GC, breakfast meeting.
- Oct 4 Business meeting
- Oct 6 Rotary Community Group White Horse Hotel.
(Breakfast meeting).
- Oct 8 Walk the Test Way
- Oct 11 TBC
- Oct 13-14 Rotary Wessex Conference, Ageas Bowl.
- Oct 18th "Beyond Boaty McBoatface"
Looking ahead to 2018
- March 7th Young Technologist Competition, Crosfield Hall
- March 10 Reminiscences of Romsey, Crosfield Hall
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President Jon Livingstone
Senior Vice Pres Stuart Wineberg
Junior Vice President Bill Gidley
Secretary Roger Shepherd
Trust Fund Treasurerer David Upton
Club Treasureer Nick Bellamy
Community Service Richard Jordan-Baker
Youth Opportunities Bill Gidley
International Philip Kirkland
Rotary Foundation Stewart Mitchell
Fundraising Sandy Dunn
Walk the Test Way Sandy Dunn
Membership Steve George
Sports and Social Tony Abbott
Communication John Gould
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The Rotary Club of Romsey Test was started in 1990 and presently has 57 members (2 honorary). The Club was an offshoot of the Rotary Club of Romsey (the lunchtime club) that meets on Tuesday lunchtimes at the White Horse hotel. We are part of Rotary International and Rotary International of Britain and Ireland. We are guided by the principle of Service above Self
The Club’s activities focus on
• Community Service – dealing with service to the local community
• Fund-raising – our major fundraising event is Walk the Test Way.
• Youth Opportunities - working with young people around Romsey
• International – dealing with our international giving and including our partnership with Dentaid to produce the Rotary Dentaid Box.
• Foundation - Rotary Foundation is Rotary’s own charity and deals with such global projects as the eradication of polio.
• Club Service - responsible for running the club.
• Membership - recruitment and retention.
• Communication - internal and external
• Sports and Social
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