2024-2025 President Maria Sims

The Rotary Club of Maryport, was formed shortly after the close of the 2nd World War, and met for the first time on 10th January, 1946.

The Club was helped to become established by the Rotary Club of Workington, and initially had twenty five founder members; sadly none survive today.

Our Charter was presented on Thursday 19th. March 1946.   Naturally enough, in its early stages the Club's resources were centred on local activities such as outings for Crippled Children, Allonby Home for Deprived Children, Maryport Boys' Club, OAP clubs in the area and the Educational Settlement.

As we became more established we widened our sphere of activities by helping the William Pit Disaster Fund, British Red Cross, Calvert Trust, R.N.L.I.Guild, Leukemia Research, Cancer Research Eye Camps, Talking Newspapers and Bingo Sessions at Parkside Home for the elderly and contributed to the Flimby Flood Disaster Fund. Internationally, in cooperation with other Rotary clubs in the District we fund the provision of facilities for children in deprived areas of Africa, India, Thailand, in fact throughout the world. Rotary International is committed, with the help of the Bill Gates Foundation, to ridding the world of polio and we are well on the way to achieving that aim.

We do all this with local support as we raise cash from ourselves and the community and we thank you for that support.

We have strong links to our Sea Cadet Unit, sharing many fund raising events with them; the most recent was sponsored bike riding at Dunmail Park, earning money for replacement kayaks as well as our own funds to provide a Shelter Box to be sent to major disaster areas.

We also have strong links with our local schools, both primary and secondary. All Maryport and district schools are invited to take part in our annual Carol Concert at St Mary's Church in December, an event which is extremely well supported, and our links to Netherhall School are being fostered by providing the opportunities to take part in Rotary competitions and sponsorship to RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards).

Our club is situated in Maryport a town with a superb Trawler Harbour, a Marina, and the Wave Centre which hosts competitions and provides activities such as caving and rope climbing, and a magnificent Aquarium with hands-on experience of local fish.

Anybody interested in joining this well-established organisation is encouraged to make enquiries of Rotarians or the Secretary, care of the Waverley Hotel, Maryport or during the current pandemic look at our Facebook page for further details.