Contact us at

Tag: Admiral Nurses

Categories
blog Events Members

Fundraising Success!

Club members gathered with organisations who have been supported by Swanage Rotary, and organisations that have supported the club’s activities, on 13th June to commemorate another successful year of fundraising, with almost £21,000 raised up to the end of April 2018.

Over 65 people, including Swanage Town Mayor Mike Bonfield, crammed in to Swanage Conservative Club to enjoy a sumptuous buffet laid on by Rotarians Sue Whitton and David Pike.

This was followed by an on-screen presentation highlighting the events and activities of the year, including the Summer Fête, Santa Sleigh, Christmas Market, Young Musician and Young Chef competitions, Swanage Walks and the Purbeck Pirate Festival amongst many others. Even the ‘Beast from the East’ got a mention!

While a significant amount of our fundraising has already been distributed, we were able to present a number of cheques on the night amounting to over £4,000 to Swanage Foodbank, Barry Audley on behalf of Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, Swanage & Purbeck Development Trust aka The Centre and Admiral Nurses.

                    

We were also proud to be able to award a Paul Harris Fellowship to Kim Gallagher for her sterling efforts over many years to The Centre in particular and the youth of Swanage in general.

During the evening, Rotarian Hubert Pierce was presented with a certificate marking 50 years as a Rotarian.

The night concluded with a networking opportunity for those present to find out more about the various activities that Rotary is involved in, amongst which are Foundation, Community and International.

All agreed it was a most successful evening and a good showcase for Rotary’s contribution to the community

Categories
blog Events Members

Walking for Dementia Awareness

Rotarian Maggie Hardy, Community Committee Chair and event lead, reports on a wonderfully fulfilling day in the sun!

SWANAGE WALKS, held on May 5th 2018, was organised and run by the Community Committee of Swanage and Purbeck Rotary Club in support of Dementia Friendly.

From an original idea of Rotarian Hubert Pierce, the Rotary Community Committee organised a walk for all at the King George’s Playing Fields in Swanage.

Supported by the Swanage Area Dementia Friendly Community team, Swanage Town Council and Swanage Carnival Committee, a sub group was formed to facilitate the event for Dementia Friendly, the charity of this year’s Town Mayor Mike Bonfield and our own Rotary Club President Ro Clark.

The event attracted generous support from the Swanage Town Band, Kevin Burke (Children’s Entertainer), pupils from the Swanage School, who designed and painted a Dementia Friendly design on the graffiti wall at the field, and ‘Scooby Crew’ who provided a bouncy castle.

A Treasure hunt, organised and led by Rotarian Dai Hounsell, provided an excellent focus to the Walk around the half mile radius of the field which highlighted the lovely views across the Purbeck hills and the steam trains of the Swanage Railway.

The excellent weather of the day encouraged more people to the beach than to the walk so the hoped for donations to Dementia Friendly were not great BUT the increased profile to wide areas of the community and the coordinated working of several organisations made it a memorable and happy occasion which could be repeated in future years. We were delighted that our newly appointed Admiral Nurse Rachel was also able to pop in and show her support.

The “icing on the cake” for me was the invitation to attend an Assembly at the Swanage School which focussed on Dementia and the effects on individuals. The event also celebrated the Dementia design painted on the graffiti wall by two school pupils and which received so much interest from school members.

A whole school is now aware of dementia – a priceless benefit of community groups working together!

Rotary was privileged to lead this event and thanks everyone involved in raising awareness of Dementia.

Categories
blog Members

Understanding Dementia

We were delighted to welcome Rachel Murray to our meeting on 28th March, who is the Purbeck Admiral Nurse dedicated to our area of the country.

Rachel works specifically in Dorset and explained where the understanding of dementia is today. Around 36 million people have Dementia around the world, of which at least 850,000 are in the UK, and this figure is set to increase in the coming years.

The condition was called the quiet disease by former Prime Minister David Cameron and it’s easy to understand why when statistics show that family members save the nation £17.4 billion by providing care at home, out of sight and often therefore out of mind.

Rachel explained some of the early signs to look out for, such as problems with word finding, lack of concentration and withdrawal. There are over 200 subtypes of dementia and affects a wide cross section of the community including outwardly otherwise healthy individuals such as professional footballers.

Admiral Nurses were started in memory of a gentleman known as Admiral Joe, who loved sailing but sadly contracted vascular dementia. Rachel expanded on the care that was available and where Admiral Nurses fit in to the overall picture, known as the ABC Tiered Model. The service provides partnership working, specialist assessment support for carers and supportive education. It is very much a family and relationship centered approach.

On behalf of the club, Rotarian Mo Andrews thanked Rachel for a most inspiring and uplifting talk. More information is available on the Dementia UK website.

See also guide to alcoholism and dementia by Ollie Clark. This blog article also includes the infographic below detailing the long-term effects of alcohol on the brain.

(Attribution to Rehab-Recovery.co.uk)

Benefits of Mindfulness for Recovery

Categories
Members Rotary Announcements Top News

Presentation Night

Our meeting this week included some guests who were receiving money from the proceeds of the club’s fundraising activities over the past year.

President John was delighted to present cheques to:

 

Swanage Lights

Lydia Bennett

Langton Matravers Lights

Admiral Nurses

Swanage Youth Centre

With the summer just around the corner, we are hopeful of raising many more funds to help support worthy causes, both local and further afield, from the various summer events that will be taking place over the coming weeks.