South Milford & Lumby

North Yorkshire

ROTARY REPORT

Day after day requests for donations from Charitable Organisations drop through the letter box basically demanding money. Apart from wondering why it is necessary in our sophisticated 21st Century world for people to beg for money in this way, it also makes one wonder if it is not easier to send out thousands of requests for donations by post knowing that there will be a regular average success rate rather than go out and proactively do something to raise the necessary funds. One thing about being a Rotarian is that one can ignore most of these requests with a clear conscience as giving to Rotary fund raising activities ensures that every penny given is spent on the project with no deductions. In the case of foreign aid, money is often sent to a Rotary Club near to the source of the problem so that it is known that the money is not being diverted elsewhere. Rotary also has its own Charitable Foundation which annually channels vast sums of money to where it is most needed and this covers a vast range of projects worldwide.

Another huge natural disaster has occurred this time in Burma. Despite the reaction of their government, the fact remained that there were thousands of people desperately in need of help. Before the rest of the world had reacted, emergency aid paid for by Rotary clubs had been despatched from a warehouse in Dubai and was made available to the victims almost immediately. The Rotary box projects are under enormous pressure because of the various natural disasters which have occurred over the past 2 years and therefore all Clubs need to have fund raising projects. Boxes ready filled with the necessary survival items are expensive now ranging from an Aquabox filled with filter sets at £250 to The superb Shelterboxes at £490. However they do save lives.

The Club had a presence at Sherburn Gala running the coconut shy. Miraculously the day stayed fine and there seemed to be a good attendance. Apart from the benefits gained by the bending and stretching exercise in retrieving the ammunition, it was also a worthwhile project which raised a reasonable contribution towards the total target needed for our Chernobyl Children Project Fund. We were particularly pleased to have such a beautiful day for our second Car Boot sale which proved to be a resounding success not only in terms of the number of sellers, but also in terms of buyers who turned out in their hundreds. Let us hope for fine weather on the 3rd Sunday of each month up to the end of September as these events are so weather dependent.

Several of the Members will shortly be making their way to Borrken in Germany to attend the Dinner at which the Presidency of the Club passes from one member to another as part of a twinning weekend which also involves the Rotary Club of Landgraaf in The Netherlands. Despite being in different countries, these two clubs are close together and each club hosts the weekend every three years. Next year will be our turn to organise the weekend so the appropriate committee will already be busy planning for it.

Nigel Sugden