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Swanage Community Once Again Rises to the Challenge

One of the younger members of our community donating!

We have all seen the horrific pictures of the aftermath of the earthquakes in Türkiye (formerly Turkey) and Syria, and many people are desperately trying to find ways in which they can help.

Last weekend (Friday 10th and Saturday 11th February) members of Swanage & Purbeck Rotary were out in Swanage Town Centre collecting funds to pass on to ShelterBox, who are experts in providing shelter and equipment to those affected by natural disasters.

And once again our local community rose to the challenge, donating in their droves, with many putting £10 and £20 notes in the collecting buckets.

Every penny counts, of course, and all donations, however much people were able to give, were gratefully received. We are delighted to advise that we will be making a donation of £5,500 to ShelterBox as a result of the collection.

From all of us in Swanage & Purbeck Rotary, we would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who donated. Every penny raised will go towards helping those in desperate need in the affected areas.

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Swanage Linking Lives bringing Christmas Joy

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World Immunisation Week, 24th – 30th April 2021

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Rotarian Maggie Hardy reports on a real good news story:

Swanage and Purbeck Rotary has supported the Global Polio Eradication Programme for many years both financially and by the attendance of three club members at a National Immunisation Day in Delhi, India. Rotary members know the power of immunisation well and are delighted that this awful virus is now only endemic in two countries but recognise that this disease is only a plane ride away so every effort must be made to continue support and completely eradicate Polio.

Over the last year S&P has raised £2,000 for Polio Eradication which is an amazing achievement during the coronavirus. This amount will be trebled by the Bill and Melinda Gate ‘s Foundation giving a sizeable donation of £6,000 to Polio eradication.

And now as Covid -19 vaccines are distributed around the world the well- established infrastructure for Polio is being used to support the pandemic with every effort being made to promote the value of immunisation/vaccination which will be highlighted with greater importance this year during World Immunisation week at the end of April. 

In S&P Rotary our support continues positively with the ‘Jab it Forward’ campaign, devised by a local Rotarian and her nephew to encourage all those who have been given their Covid vaccines by the NHS to donate the sum of £5 per vaccine to a fund aiming to provide Covid-19 vaccines to low- income nations around the world.

                                                “No one is safe until we are all safe”  

And locally Rotarians have also been supporting the Purbeck Vaccination Centre in Wareham as members of the vaccinator team working alongside many other volunteers who wish to help with the important work of Covid -19 vaccination.

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Santa Supports Schools!

The Swanage & Purbeck Rotary Charitable Incorporated Organisation has recently agreed a generous support package to help young people in the Isle of Purbeck. Its Youth Committee recently contacted all schools and associated pre-schools in Swanage, Langton Matravers and Corfe Castle to see what help Rotary could offer in this unprecedented year in which schools and pre-schools have been unable to hold their usual fundraising activities. 

By Christmas, Rotary was able to hold several successful fundraising events and financial support has therefore been agreed for each school and pre-school to support a variety of projects, such as:

  • financial help towards the construction of an electric car at The Swanage School, under the Greenpower/IET Formula 24 initiative, and the purchase of equipment for its Band Club
  • financial and practical help towards the construction of ponds and development of wildlife areas in primary schools, and a therapeutic Year 6 legacy art project with The Koru Project
  • provision of an outdoor shelter/reading room and play facilities, a bench for outdoor use and support to purchase IT equipment and consumables for pre-school children.

The local community gave generously to Santa’s Sleigh, so it seems fitting that Santa helps its children move out of lockdown and back into life at school.

THANK YOU, SANTA AND THE GENEROUS PEOPLE OF SWANAGE, LANGTON MATRAVERS AND CORFE CASTLE!

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Happy Birthday Rotary!

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On February 23rd 1905, a man called Paul Harris, a lawyer in Chicago Illinois, arranged to meet up with some of his business acquaintances from the city to see what they could do to help the local community.

And so Rotary was born.

One hundred and sixteen years later, it now numbers over 1.2 million members in more than 35,000 clubs covering virtually every country of the world. And as we celebrate its birthday today, it has probably never been more relevant, supporting its local community and projects around the world through its seven areas of focus and helping to make the world a better place.

And what better way to demonstrate that in our own group than through the help that members of Swanage Rotary are providing to the COVID-19 vaccination programme. The picture above shows two members of our group – Maggie Hardy and Sue Whitton – at the Wareham Hospital vaccination centre where they have been supporting the incredible rollout to our community.

Rotary is open to anyone over the age of 18, so if you are interested in finding out more about us, what we do, the projects we’re involved in and how you can get involved, take a look at the ‘Volunteer’ page on this website or contact our secretary.

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Christmas Market Cancelled

SANTA’S COMING BUT ROTARY CHRISTMAS EVENTS ARE HIT BY COVID-19 CONCERNS

It is with huge regret that Swanage & Purbeck Rotary has decided to cancel this year’s Christmas Market, due to take place on 5 December. Plans were progressing well to extend stalls into Institute Road to keep them well-spaced and, working with the Carnival Committee, to provide fun and games in Shore Road. However, Rotary’s overriding priority is to ensure that guidelines are followed and public safety maintained. It was potentially going to be difficult to maintain social distancing if the market attracted large crowds, so the decision to cancel was made. 

However, Santa will still be visiting the streets as usual to bring festive cheer and hand out sweets to the children but, to keep everyone safe, his elves will not be knocking on doors. Rotary will still be collecting for local good causes but, as well as its normal buckets, will offer contactless donations on the night and the option for online donations too. 

It will not be possible to go ahead with the popular Christmas Breakfast this year but Rotary is looking at alternative ways of making contact with those who might normally attend. 

See our Christmas 2020 page for further information about all Rotary’s Christmas activities. This page will continue to be updated as information becomes available.

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Food for Thought as Lockdown Continues

The Rotary ‘Bag Creation’ team, from left to right: Steve & Teresa Parsons, Robin Hargraves, Maggie Hardy, Deirdre Selwyn and Sarah Randall

The lockdown brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic has forced plenty of people to make enormous changes to their lives. Here in our own community it has also presented some wonderful opportunities.

One of those is the expansion of the Friendly Food Club. Dorset-based, it is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to get as many people as possible to care about what they eat and enjoy the process of cooking and eating together. The workshops are free are a chance for people to make new friends within their community as well as learning some basic cooking skills whilst preparing, cooking and eating a meal together.

But we’re currently in the middle of a pandemic lockdown so the workshops can’t take place as normal. Undeterred, the organisation has modified its model to continue to provide some of the benefits of the club by providing the ingredients for a different meal every week, which are bagged up and instead distributed to the homes of local families.

It has now opened an operation in Swanage, supported by the Swanage and Purbeck Development Trust and Swanage & Purbeck Rotary and co-ordinated by Kim Gallagher. The service started this week, and members of Swanage Rotary have just created the first 44 bags of ingredients, at all times observing strict social distancing rules of course, which will be distributed to people’s homes by staff and pupils at Swanage School, St Mark’s and Swanage First School.

It is intended that this will continue at least until lockdown rules are relaxed but it may well continue beyond that.

More details about the Friendly Food Club can be found on their Facebook page.

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ShelterBox Update

Click here for the latest news from ShelterBox.

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Spring has Sprung for Polio Awareness

While most people have been huddling up at home during the cold and dark winter months, hardy Swanage Rotarians have been busy trying to add a splash of colour around the area.

Hundreds of crocus corms have been planted, and despite the unwelcome visit of the ‘Beast from the East’ (twice!), they are now in bloom and adding a riot of purple to many areas of the town.

It’s all part of the ‘Purple for Polio’ campaign, an International Rotary project aimed at raising both awareness and much needed funds to help eradicate this terrible disease from the world. We are so close now, only two countries still have the disease uncontrolled, and a final push is required to complete the job.

       

More details of the campaign can be found here.

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Merry Christmas!

As 2017 draws to a close, we would like to thank everyone who has supported, attended, bought from or donated to Swanage & Purbeck Rotary’s activities over the course of the last year.

We have been so delighted with the support that we have received and continue to receive from the local community, which enables us in turn to use the power of Rotary to help as many people and causes as possible.

From all of us to all of you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Successful New Year 2018.