Cheque Presentation to Walsall Rotary
Andy and Dawn attended our mother club Walsall Rotary’s meeting to hand over a cheque for monies raised from their fun run in September where we ran a tea and coffee stall. The funds raised will be distributed to a number of local charities, including St. Giles Hospice.
They had an excellent evening and were given a very warm welcome. Walsall Rotary had recently celebrated their 90th birthday and interestingly their mother club, Birmingham were also present, even older!
There was fascinating talk about one of their founding members, John Ashworth Crabtree who founded the Crabtree company in 1919, and amongst many other things, was a prominent member of Rotary.
Foundation Award Received
Our club was honoured to receive an award at the recent District 1210 Council meeting. The award is for having the highest per-capita fundraising for Rotary’s Foundation charity, and this is the sixth time we have won this annual accolade since Bloxwich Phoenix was formed in 2003.
Rotary’s Foundation is a multi-faceted charity which ensures that every pound we donate is made available to charitable activities. The Foundation allows us to match fund projects within our local area, as well as providing funds for international scholarships and projects.
In recent years we have used Foundation funds to support buying equipment for a local sports group for the disabled, and to provide bike racks for a local school.
You can read more about Rotary Foundation and its International programmes here, including our efforts in the drive to eliminate Polio from the world.
Funds for the charity are raised throughout the year, from our Santa Sleigh, charitable auctions, competitions, and through individual member donations.
Rearing Silk Moths to Restore Forests
At the first meeting of each month the Rotary Club of Bloxwich Phoenix collects a £1 donation from each of the members present, and the money raised is donated to a small international charity or cause selected by one of the members from the Global Giving (UK) website.
At out first meeting of November 2011, we collected £18 which is on its way to support an initiative in Madagascar. A region of the country is receiving special protection. People who live at the edge of the Makira Protected Area are excluded from using it. If these boundaries are to be respected, local farmers need alternative means of income generation to replace income from forest resources on which they previously depended.
The project to which we have donated our £18 is aiming to introduce wild silk production to key, community-managed conservation areas that surround the Makira Protected Area, home to many critically endangered species including the silky sifaka, red ruffed lemur and serpent eagle.
Although a small amount, our £18 will fund a month’s production of cocoons for a single farmer, and a farmer producing 2kg of cocoons will earn enough income to send three children to school.
The organisation behind the project is called CPALI (Conservation through Poverty Alleviation, International), and you can find out more about them and their work on their website.
If you’d like to support them from the UK, you can donate via their Global Giving page where, if you’re a UK tax payer, they can benefit from Gift Aid raising any donation made by a further 25%.
Banner Exchange With GSE Team
President Andy represented our club at the inbound Group Study Exchange team’s only visit to Zone 7. The team, from Rotary District 5550 (covering part of Central Canada) attended a meeting of Walsall Saddlers Rotary Club to which neighbouring clubs had been invited.
The team consisted of Alicia, Jody, Brennan and Shaunna, with Rotarian Dave Bennet as their team leader. They had presented at the District Conference in Chester in mid-October, and at other clubs around the District, but this was a chance for Rotarians in our area to hear them, and the didn’t disappoint.
During the evening a banner exchange took place, in which clubs passed on banners to the visitors. Andy passed on one of our club banners and we received one from the Rotary Club of Neepawa in return. They don’t have a website (to our knowledge), but you can find out about their District 5550 on their District’s website.
Neepawa is a small town famous for its Lily Festival, situated in Manitoba province.
You can read more about the team’s stay with us in District 1210 on their blog.
Ambassadorial Scholar Visits
At our meeting on Sunday we were pleased to welcome Embri Stuart, an inbound Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar from the Bahamas. She is studying an L.L.B. in Law at Keele (Staffordshire University) and being hosted by our President Elect Steve Holmes and his family during her stay in the U.K.
Embri, who is 20 years old (front right in the photograph) already has a number of achievements under her belt prior to being accepted on the RI Ambassadorial Scholar programme, including being a finalist in the Most Distinguished Achiever in the Bahamas, a member of the Bahamas National Youth Council, and earning an Associate of Arts Degree in Law & Criminal Justice Studies with Honours.
Embri intends to take part in community service projects with our club and to attend as many meetings and conferences as she is able to during her year of study. She is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Eleuthera. Chartered in 2008 it is the newest club in the Bahamas, but has already developed a strong programme of Rotary projects, and were given their District Governor’s Gold Award last year.
The Bahamas is a chain of over 3000 islands and cays. About 30 of these islands are actually inhabited and the Capital city is Nassau. The Bahamas is the place with Christopher Columbus landed when he first arrived in the “New World” in 1492. Until that time the Bahamas was inhabited by Arawak Indians. Shortly after Christopher Columbus departure the Bahamas remained uninhabited until the 1650’s when a group of English Colonists colonized the island of Eleuthera.
Today the Bahamas has a population of about 330,000 people, mostly of African decent followed secondly by people of British decent. The Bahamas has a very tropical climate with an average temperature of about 32 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). The main industry is tourism followed by banking. The Bahamas is a Commonwealth Country and follows the Westminster System, with the head of state being the Queen and is a democratic nation with the head of government being Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
We look forward to having Embri with us during some of forthcoming events and community projects and wish her every success with her course at Keele.
2013-14 RI President Nominated
Ron D. Burton, a member of the Rotary Club of Norman, Oklahoma, USA, is the selection of the Nominating Committee for President of Rotary International in 2013-14. Burton will become the president-nominee on October 1 if there are no challenging candidates.
In most years the candidate selected by the nominating committee goes on to become the president-nominee, but the rules of Rotary allow for other candidates to stand. Read more about Ron and his background on the Rotary International website.
Burton is choice to lead Rotary International from Rotary International on Vimeo.
