The Swanage Christmas Market took place on Saturday 2nd December. Read all about it here.
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Christmas Market Delights
Category: Events
Despite all the recent wet weather threatening to spoil the Rotary Community Summer Fête, Thursday 10th August dawned with clear skies and a very positive forecast, allowing all of the planned entertainment to take place.
With a later start time of 12 noon this year, there was more time to ensure that everything was ready to go and organiser Helen Hardy, taking charge for the first time, ably assisted by Mike Bonfield, ensured that Sandpit Field was looking splendid in the sunshine and ready to welcome locals and visitors alike.
As well as the later start time, the site had a new layout and there were stalls galore for people to visit, offering everything from skittles to Cornhole, hoop-la to ‘Splat-the-Rat’ and numerous craft stalls alongside the more traditional bric-a-brac and tombola.
As ever the refreshment tent and barbecue did brisk business throughout the day and the commercial and food stalls were also doing good trade.
Under an eventual cloudless sky, music was provided by acts as varied as the Allsort’d choir and Jurassic Rock’n Roll, fresh from their recent appearance at Swanage Carnival.
The raffle was drawn at 4:30pm with generous cash prizes going to the first three tickets drawn followed by a plethora of interesting prizes from many of Swanage & Purbeck Rotary’s Business Partners and friends, amongst which were tickets on Swanage Railway, a Jurassic Cruise with City Cruises, meals at The Grand, The Black Swan, Harlees and The Cabin, golf at Isle of Purbeck Golf Club and chocolates from Chococo.
Swanage & Purbeck Rotary CIO would like to thank everyone who came along and spent their hard-earned money, which will help to support the many good causes that we are hoping to help this year.
It’s that time in the Rotary year where we start looking at our priorities for the year ahead (starting 1st July) and hand over the reins to a new Club President.
Firstly came the Club Assembly in early June. This was the occasion where incoming project leads identified their proposals for the year ahead, funds permitting, and laid out where they would like the money that the club raises to go. Of course, nothing is cast in stone as there may be additional requests that come to us during the course of the year, but this at least gave us some initial guidelines for our future efforts.
Then, this week, we had the handover, where the current President hands over the running of the club to the new President.
We held our handover event this year at a new venue (for us), which was Swanage Sailing Club, and over 30 Rotarians, partners and friends were present to see outgoing President Chris Le Fevre pass the mantle of responsibility to incoming President Dai Hounsell.
On a beautiful evening and nourished by a superb meal of chicken in white wine sauce followed by cheesecake, the formal handover was conducted with Dai confirming his priorities for the coming year.
Taking over as President Elect (President 2024/25) was Maggie Hardy, who was presented with her ribbon by the new President.
Also present was District Governor Bill Casey, who surprised one of our veteran Rotarians, David Pike, with a special award in recognition of his many years of loyal contribution to Rotary and the wider community.
So we’re off and running again into the next Rotary year and it won’t be long before our next event, the annual Summer Fête – more details available on our dedicated webpage here.
Swanage beach was the venue for the inaugural Club Boules competition this week, superbly organised and run by one of our new members, Helen Hardy.
More than 30 Rotarians and guests assembled on the main beach, competitive juices flowing, for the event held on a beautiful late May evening with sunshine a-plenty and virtually no wind to spoil it.
Competitors drew partners from a hat (well, a tin actually!) and were split into four groups of three pairs teams. Each team played each other over 4 ends to decide the quarter final line up.
The knockout stage saw the eight remaining teams battle it out, leaving just two to contest the final.
President Chris LeFevre and his partner, Rotarian Peter Davies, were the ultimate victors, defeating husband and wife team Robin and Pam Briggs in what can only be described as a one-sided affair, winning 7-1.
Grateful thanks go to Helen for an excellently organised event and one which we are sure will be repeated.
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Celebrating Our Community
Rotarians and members of our community came together in Mid March to celebrate the achievements of the past 12 months.
Swanage and Purbeck Rotary’s Presentation Night is an opportunity to recognise everything that has been done with local groups to try and make things better for the community.
Representatives of many of the groups who have helped or been helped by Rotary attended and we were delighted to welcome Swanage Town Mayor Tina Foster and some of our Business Partners too.
After enjoying a sumptuous buffet, lovingly prepared by our very own ‘catering dream team’, attendees sat down to hear about the key arms of Swanage and Purbeck Rotary’s activities – Community, Youth and International – the chair of each committee highlighting their major events from the past year.
Then it was the turn of International and Foundation Chair Maggie Hardy to deliver the annual ‘surprises’ of Paul Harris Fellowships (the highest honours in Rotary) to members of the community who had demonstrated going above and beyond.
Incoming President Dai Hounsell concluded the formalities with an overview of the way in which Rotary interacts with so many other groups in the community, following which many remained to network with other groups (and make sure that the buffet didn’t go to waste!).
Many thanks go to everyone who attended to make it such a positive evening. Rotary is now starting preparations for the next 12 months of service and looks forward to seeing many more people out and about in the coming months.
Swanage and Purbeck Rotary were delighted to host their annual Silver Saturday event at the end of February, celebrating the older members of our lovely community.
A gathering of over 100 people, including guests, Rotarians and entertainers, assembled at the Emmanuel Church in Victoria Avenue, our usual venue for this event, to enjoy a sumptuous afternoon tea, with sandwiches, cakes and other goodies a-plenty, lovingly prepared by our catering dream-team!
Entertaining those present was renowned local magician and entertainer Kevin Burke, who amazed those present with his sleight of hand, and the Ukelele Band, playing many of their favourite tunes. We were delighted that Swanage Town Mayor Tina Foster was also able to join us and cut the cake celebrating the 118th birthday of the Rotary movement.
Town Crier Andrew Fleming was on hand to ensure that everyone knew what was happening.
Generous donations amounting to over £320 were collected from the attendees, which will go towards local good causes supported by Rotary.
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Musical Youth!
Swanage and Purbeck Rotary held its annual local heat of the Rotary Young Musician competition on Sunday 5th February and we were once again overwhelmed by the depth and range of talent on display.
Performers playing and blowing instruments and singing demonstrated their prowess at Swanage Methodist Church with an enthusiastic audience of family and friends enjoying every minute.
President Chris LeFevre was on hand to present certificates to all participants and the awards for the winners, who will proceed to the District Final at Canford School in Wimborne on Sunday 19th February.
We would like to extend our grateful thanks to St Mary’s Junior Choristers and the Purbeck Youth Choir for performing during the interlude.
The winners were as follows:
KS2 – 1st Place: Guiliana Forte; 2nd Place: Indiana Sanders-Wishart; 3rd Place: Hannah Kent; Highly Commended: Lily Fawcett
KS3 to 5 – 1st Place: Martha Harwood; 2nd Place: Nicholas Aiko Dando; 3rd Place: Abbie Yew; Highly Commended: Rosie Kent & Suzanne Lejeune
Among the many stalls at the Rotary Summer Fête and Craft Fair, held on Sandpit Field on Thursday August 11th, was a popular tombola stand set up and run by local solicitors Humphries Kirk.
The money raised was recently presented to Swanage & Purbeck Rotary and we were delighted to receive a cheque for over £220!
Rotary President Chris Le Fevre said “We are hugely grateful to Humphries Kirk for their very generous donation which will go towards local projects. Humphries Kirk have been a long-standing and valued Rotary Business Partner and their continuing support is much appreciated.”
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Summer Fête Hotspot!
President Chris LeFevre reports on a scorching hot day in Sandpit Field:
After a two year absence, we were delighted to hold our Summer Fête and Craft Fair on Sandpit Field on Thursday 11th August.
Temperatures were very high, but despite this we had a steady flow of visitors enjoying the wide range of stalls and entertainment on offer.
These included traditional favourites such as hoop-la and the tombola, as well as more recent innovations such as the Cornhole game.
The refreshment tent and BBQ were on hand to sustain those attending and other options included vegan soups, craft coffee and, of course, Purbeck Ice Cream!
There were plenty of crafts on display too, as well as the ever-popular Boutique In A Bus.
Charities presenting included Sustainable Swanage, Planet Purbeck and the RNLI.
There was no shortage of entertainment either. Kevin Burke did his magic show (when he wasn’t striding around the field on stilts!) and music was provided by Karen Grant, local musicians Jurassic Roll’n Roll and the Ukulele Band.
The Grand Raffle was drawn towards the end of the day, with prizes, most of which were kindly donated by our Business Partners and other local organisations, presented to the lucky winners. Those winners not present will find their prizes delivered to them in the coming days.
All proceeds from this event provide valuable funds for the many good causes that we are supporting.
Our most grateful thanks go to all those who have helped to support the fête this year, including Friends of Rotary, Business Partners, Harman’s Cross Fête Committee members and, of course, the members of our Rotary Group. Here’s to next year!
It’s that time of year when we start to look at our targets and objectives for the new Rotary year, which begins on July 1st.
The group holds an ‘Assembly’ every June to identify the events that the CIO plans to run and the areas that it would like to support, assuming we are able to raise the funds to do so, in 2022/23. These include:
- The Rotary fete on August 11 2022
- The Young Musicians competition for school children
- Help with the Friendly Food Club
- Environmental projects including helping Greengage and restoring the Rotary garden
- A host of Christmas events including the street market, Santa’s sleigh and charity Christmas mail
- Christmas shoeboxes for deprived children in parts of the world less privileged than our own
- A pop up shop to raise funds for various international projects including Rotary’s disaster relief charities, Shelterbox, WaterAid and the people of Ukraine
- Support for pre-school and primary schools in Swanage and surrounding villages
- A range of projects with Swanage School
- Initiatives to help local children get involved with various sports clubs
- Silver Saturday – an afternoon of fun and refreshment for Swanage’s older residents
We look forward to seeing our wonderful local community at many of the events and sincerely hope that we will be able to raise the funds required to fulfil these plans.
Anyone who would like to know more about the group, what we do and how they can get involved can contact us via email here.