Club News

At a very enjoyable evening get-together on the 30th July at Evesham's newest restaurant, Felton's in Vine Street, Rotarian David Cartwright was presented with a Paul Harris Fellowship by Oliver Lister, Immediate Past President of Evesham RC.  David has been a Rotary member since 1986, first at Newent and latterly at Evesham.  He has given much time to community service and has served as President of both clubs.  Perhaps his biggest contribution has been setting up and managing the Tree of Light database.  The hundreds of hours of manual work required to run this important pre-Christmas event in Evesham have been greatly reduced and the donation process made much simpler. 

The Paul Harris Fellowship is named after Rotary's founder and honours outstanding Rotarians who have followed the guiding principal of 'Service Above Self'.   

St. Richard's Hospice and Pershore No8 benefited to the tune of £750 raised at Pershore Inner Wheel's Quiz Night on the 8th March at Fladbury.  A packed village hall enjoyed a welcoming glass of wine, a raffle, a challenging quiz and excellent fish and chips.  Congratulations to Diane Cartwright and her Inner Wheel team for such a fun evening.    

This is Zak Botherton and proud Dad, Glen, pictured at an international angling competition in Portugal.  Zak, a 14-year-old student at The De Montfort School, is a member of Evesham & District Angling Association and a bit of a whizz with rod and line.  He wanted to go to the competition with members of the Association, but the cost of travel and accommodation was a bit out of reach.  Evesham Rotary Club heard about Zak's problem and was happy to help.  Over two blisteringly hot days, Zak competed as a team member and also a solo angler.  His team came 6th, and Zak himself 4th and 5th on the two days.  The EDAA under-20's excelled and won gold.  Zak competes regularly with adults and has recently notched up a mixed pairs - adult and child - win.  Have a look at Zak's Facebook page where he writes up all his competition experiences.  Well done, Zak.  We're proud of you too.     

Crocus Planting, 2 November 2022

Another year, another crocus planting event! The purple crocus represents the purple dye used to mark the fingers of people around the world immunised against polio.  This time, a team of Rotarians was helped by many enthusiastic students  from the Interact club at PHHS to plant 2000 crocus bulbs (well, to be honest, they did all the work). This time, the venue was Evesham Abbey. The Abbey Trust has a project to build a pathway along what was the Abbey nave, and this will now be lined by the crocuses we planted today (we even managed to plant some daffodils). Look out for a beautiful display in Spring!  

Murder Mystery Evening

Who killed John Lemon? That was the question we had to answer after watching the Phoenix Theatre Group perform the world premiere of "Shockin' Rockin'", a sixties-themed murder mystery specially written for us by Ian Leaver.

Many theories were discussed while we tucked into an excellent buffet; we then had a chance to quiz the characters. Their answers were always truthful but not necessarily helpful! Finally, the grand revelation showed that several teams had deduced who the villain was, but the prize went to Hein's team, who gave the best explanation of their reasoning.

The evening concluded with a sixties disco. We raised money to support Phoenix, who lost all their costumes in a fire last year, and also for Ian's chosen charity for sick children. 

Remembrance Day, November 14th, 2021

Once again, there was no church service this year. However, the traditional parade was held, from Market Square to the War Memorial. President Pamela and Rotarian John Mansfield marched in the formal procession, and laid wreaths. It was a moving occasion, with a large parade and many spectators from Evesham and beyond.

Purple for Polio - Crocus Planting, 19 October 2021

Following the success of the crocus planting at Crombe Court, we decided to move nearer home. A team of Rotarians, ably assisted by students from the Interact Club at Prince Henry's High School, planted 2000 corms on the riverbank opposite Raphael's Restaurant.

The corms were planted in the shape of a P4P logo, and the turf was replaced, to deter the unwelcome attentions of squirrels and other creatures.  

Thanks to Raphael's for providing free transport across the river, and an excellent lunch.

Freedom Centre Audio-Visual System, 29 September 2021

We have donated some of the money raised by the Tree of Light 2020 to enable the Freedom Centre to buy a high-resolution audio-visual projector for their impressive new premises in South Littleton. Several Rotary members enjoyed a tour of the new facility, followed by a formal hand-over of the projector by President Pamela to Tracy Hemming.

**********************************************************************

Tree of Light Switch-On, November 26th, 2020

The Tree of Light switch on is usually a very festive occasion, with many people present holding candles and enjoying music from school choirs and perhaps some (non-alcoholic) mulled wine.

Once again, though, Covid-19 has caused us to change our plans. The Tree was indeed switched on at 6:30,  and looks as impressive as ever.  There was a ceremony, but once more we have resorted to electronic media; you could watch it on Facebook or on out website - and still can! 

************************************************************************

Remembrance Day 2020 

Remembrance Day 2020 did not allow the usual acts of commemoration because of lockdown, but a 'virtual' remembrance meeting by Zoom and a simple wreath laying ceremony at the Evesham War Memorial took place. Evesham Rotary Club President Trevor Battersby and former soldier John Mansfield laid the wreath to mark the club's respect for those who fell and also in gratitude to those who now serve, whether in the Armed Forces or in any way as responders during the Covid-19 crisis. 

Photo courtesy of Peter Young

WORLD POLIO DAY

When you see the illuminations of the Bell Tower in the old part of Evesham this Saturday, you might well wonder why they have turned purple!

The answer is partly that Saturday 24th October marks World Polio Day commemorating the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against polio. The global campaign for the eradication of polio is organized by the World Health Organisation and supported largely by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the help of Rotary International.

When the campaign started in 1988, the terrible disease of polio was endemic in 125 countries, but thanks to a tremendous amount of work and investment, this has been reduced down to only 2 – Pakistan and Afghanistan. And just this year the whole continent of Africa was declared free of wild polio. A great achievement!

So why purple? The campaign in the UK is known as ‘Purple4Polio’, so called because purple is the colour of the dye used on childrens fingers to show they have been vaccinated.  Evesham Rotary has been part of this campaign for many years in various ways. Over the past few years they have developed a partnership with the Trustees of the Walled Garden at National Trust, Croome and over 14,000 crocus corms have been planted with help from students of Prince Henry’s High School and The De Montfort School. The crocus line the pathways in the Garden and bloom beneath the heritage collections of apple and pear trees.

It is hoped to hold a “Spring Flower Festival’ in the Walled Garden next year so everyone can enjoy the beautiful sight of all the spring bulbs. In the meanwhile, look out for the purple illuminations in Evesham Old Town!

The Rotary Club of Evesham would like to thank everyone who helped in any way with our recent Art Auction in support of Freedom Day Centre.  The funds raised will help to make life better for the service users at the Centre from Evesham and Vale.

The consequences of Covid-19 have made this a very challenging time for all of us, but especially for the small local charities who do such good work in our Community but who have lost access to many of their usual sources of fundraising.

The Rotary Club of Evesham has been working very hard behind the scenes to see what we can do to facilitate access to funding from a number of sources to minimise this problem. We are extremely happy to share that working with several local charities we have together raised significant funds. With the Art Auction and these grants the Rotary Club of Evesham has helped local charities raise around £15,000. Typical of the responses we have received are ‘the grant for the youth club has taken a huge weight off my shoulders’ and ‘thank you to Rotary for keeping us informed of all funding and being there for people like me who need the help filling the forms sometimes’.  

We don’t intend to rest on our laurels! We want to continue doing all we can to help those who are less fortunate in our community and we are sure we can rely on your support in helping to achieve this.

Rotary – ‘People of Action Making a Difference’ in our community!

Change of plan for the Art Auction: Circular for Contacts

Please use this as appropriate to explain to your contacts the change in arrangements for the Art auction:

Announcement

(Dear Friend)

We hope you are enjoying following our Facebook pages to see the art being offered as part of the Art Auction in support of the Freedom Day Centre in Badsey. Please keep looking for regular previews of the prints as this will give you an idea of the broad range of subjects that are available.

We are very sorry to have to announce that, because of Covid-19 restrictions placed on the Freedom Day Centre by Social Services, we are unable to use the Centre for the purpose of viewing the prints during the week running up to the Auction closing on Saturday 8th August.

Thanks to the kindness of two businesses in Evesham, however, we are displaying a selection in the windows of Reeds Rains Estate Agents and Brew Bear Coffee House, both on Evesham High Street. So, if you have business in Evesham, take a moment to look at the prints being displayed!

Bidding is now open through the website, so please submit your bids using the online bidding form which you can find at

www.freedomauction.online

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause but we trust you will understand that this is part of the ‘new normal’ we will have to get used to. We also hope that it will not prevent you from putting in a bid and helping us to raise money for this very worthy cause!

Thank you so much for your support.

***********************************************************************

Happy 90th Birthday, John!

Rotarian John Mansfield recently celebrated his 90th birthday. We would normally have had a riotous celebration, but at the moment only a few of us, carefully socially distanced, were able to assemble on the lawn outside his dwelling to toast him. As you see from the photo, this was very well received!

***********************************************************************

It’s nice to know our elected representatives acknowledge and appreciate the good work we have all been involved with at this time of crisis!

Nigel Huddleston MP

Member of Parliament for Mid Worcestershire

HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON SW1A 0AA

Dear Rotary Club of Evesham

It has been brought to my attention the absolutely wonderful work that you have been undertaking on behalf of the local community in this time of the coronavirus crisis, including making laundry bags, headbands, face mask extenders and helpful items for people with dementia. I know that you have made and delivered an extraordinary number of items, all designed to make people more comfortable and feel safer, and your team of volunteers have worked so very hard in such a short space of time.

Could you please pass on my sincere congratulations and appreciation to all of those involved. It is acts like these which make our community what it is – and volunteers with the Rotary Club of Evesham are amongst the very best of what makes a wonderful community and society. I know you will continue to keep up the good work in good times and in bad, and I offer you all my deepest thanks.

Once this awful crisis is over, if you would care to invite me to come and visit you at the Rotary Club, I would very much enjoy the opportunity to meet some of the volunteers and have the chance to thank them in person.

With very kind regards,

2nd June 2020

Tel: 020 7219 5814
nigel.huddleston.mp@parliament.uk

Letter of thanks to volunteers who took part

PPE and other items produced for Evesham Care Home workers
and Domestic Care workers

Dear All

We are astounded by your achievements! In less than four weeks, since we first came together as a community team to produce PPE items for Evesham’s Care workers, you have produced some 831 items, 794 of which have been delivered to the Care Workers we wanted to acknowledge. In doing this, you achieved the target of providing each one of them with whatever they had requested – laundry bags/headbands/extenders – and even added a few ‘Fiddler Muffs’ for people living with dementia. Well done indeed!

Here below is a table showing a breakdown of what was achieved during May;

Laundry bags              270

Headbands                  406

Mask extenders           110

Fiddler Muffs                 14

Reserve - 9 laundry bags and 28 headbands

Grand total of items delivered = 800

Grand total of items produced = 837

We have received many emails expressing grateful thanks from the recipients together with a few photos. We are in the process of posting them on the website and Facebook page of the Rotary Club of Evesham for everyone to see. We think you also all know that the Evesham Journal included an article in last week’s edition. Please let me know if you would like your own copies of any of these and we will email them to you.

From Rotary’s point of view, we think we can draw this project to a close now. We want to thank everyone once more for all your efforts and would ask that you pass on the spirit of this letter to any friends in your circle who have contributed to this result. Please do not hesitate to contact us in future if you think our Rotary Clubs can help in any way with community or charity issues in our area.

Best wishes

Trevor

Trevor Battersby

President Elect; 2020-2021

Rotary Club of Evesham

rotary.trevby@gmail.com

Great community spirit

More good news and an example of how people are pulling together to help our NHS and Care Worker ‘Heroes’ during this Covid-19 emergency!

Volunteers from several outlying villages, including Fladbury, Cropthorne, Lenchwick, Dumbleton, Charlton and Lower Moor as well as from Evesham Town itself, Evesham Rotary and Rotary in the Vale came together over the past few weeks to produce a range of items of PPE for donation to our local health services. Following on from donations to hospitals in Worcester, Redditch and Droitwich attention turned to recognising our own local Care Home Workers.

Nearly 400 Care Workers in 8 homes in and around the town were identified. To start off with they all received small gifts in recognition of their hard work of chocolates and hand lotion donated by the Rotary Club of Evesham.

‘Who doesn’t need chocolates and hand lotion at the moment? Bring on expanding waistlines and softer hands!”, said the staff at Briarlee Care Home!

Following on from this, a team of volunteer sew-ers from the villages produced hundreds of laundry bags, headbands, face mask extenders and ‘fiddler muffs’ that were delivered to each of the Care Homes. 

Over 500 items were delivered! - laundry bags, headbands, face-mask extenders and fiddler muffs

Evesham Rotary President Elect, Trevor Battersby said, “We have been delighted to co-ordinate this effort, which has achieved a magnificent result in a very short space of time. Our Club was also pleased to provide financial support to De Montfort surgery to help them prepare for the emergency and continue to offer whatever help we can to the Foodbank operated by Caring Hands in the Vale. These initiatives are exactly what Rotary Clubs across the country are about and we are proud to support our local communities here in Evesham and The Vale.”

Evesham Abbey Gardens taking shape

30 minutes sitting quietly in the newly-created Abbey Gardens on a sunny day, secluded by those high ancient walls, brought a little of the peace and tranquillity that the Abbey cloisters were built for 1,300 years ago.  As everything grows and matures the gardens will be a sanctuary from Evesham's traffic and bustle for many years to come.