The Month that was April 26

April was quite a busy month for club activity, with good progress to report on current and upcoming projects and, to add a little gloss, two new members being welcomed into the fold at the beginning of the month.

Fostering: the challenges and rewards

Our speaker at the meeting at the Crown was Meal & talk: Karen Deverell MBE from Foster Care in Somerset who spoke on fostering, the challenges, issues and rewards. Karen spoke with passion and warmth as to how foster parents make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable young people and of how there is a shortage of foster homes for older children (aged 10 and over). There are currently circa 200 fostering households in Somerset and with circa 390 children in care circa 160 of those children are with foster families. Karen herself felt real empathy for children from unstable backgrounds, being a forces child who often moved homes, which, coupled with her experience of working with traumatised children while at the YMCA, led her into fostering. John Boucher introduced Karen and gave the vote of thanks.

During the meeting Angela formally welcomed Jake and Jenny Arnott into the club as new members. A big welcome to both from all at the club.

Club Council

It was a relatively short and sweet meeting this month, with the usual review of finances and projects. The main decision was to recommend to members that money ring fenced for the Wells Mosaic project be re purposed to the Wells Skatepark project. It was reported that the Frugal Lunch had raised £147 for Polio Plus.

Committees and Business

Held at the Museum, the business meeting followed the monthly committee meetings with Janette Billington from Wells WI joining us to give members more background on what Wells WI gets up to and how they manage to recruit and sustain such an active membership.

Communicating via social media (primarily daily posts to What’s App, Facebook and Instagram) keeps everybody in the loop on their many and varied activities. The essence of the club is fun and engagement. Unlike Rotary, WI Presidents remain in post until they run out of steam and choose to step back, and the club is focused on members’ events rather than supporting good causes that make a difference to the lives of others both at home and abroad.

Following Janette’s presentation members voted unanimously by show of hands to re-purpose the £1,000 ear marked for the Wells Mosaic project to the Wells Skatepark Project. In discussion members were advised that the former project was on indefinite hold pending identification of a suitable location for the mosaic, while for the latter project the club’s donation would make a significant impact on helping the project reach the funding threshold needed to make a lottery grant application. Members noted that the aims of the skateboard project were very much aligned with the objects of Rotary and in particular with those of Wells Rotary.

When reporting on the Dairy House project Alan advised that good progress had been made in securing Dutchy support for the proposed build design and choice of material.

With respect to the Wells Festival of Running Mike advised that over 500 runners were now registered for the event; that the marshalling team was pretty much lined up; that plans were in hand to promote the 8 and under race around local schools; that Ray and team would be selling balloon raffle tickets on market days at a stall in front of The Crown; and that 8 or 9 stalls were confirmed for the day. 

Very sadly the UK government has decided to withdraw financial support of the Global Polio Eradication initiative. This is and has been a key Rotary project for many years. All members were asked to write to Tessa Munt, our MP, in a personal capacity asking her to encourage Government to reverse this decision.

It Ain’t Half Hot
 

Gavin Osborn, our guest speaker at the business meeting a few months back from SWEDA – the South West Eating Disorders Association – challenged members to join in the fire walk, a fund raising challenge on behalf of SWEDA. Rising to the challenge Angela and Jill braved the hot coals in front of a sun-drenched cathedral sun set and large crowd of supporters and on lookers. 

Up and Away

Not a hot air balloon ride (that’s next month!!) but clearing up the enclosed play area at the Stoberry Park Primary School and carting all the vegetation and masonry away in preparation for the construction of a sensory garden.

The project, which is being led by Wells Rotary with the support of the School and PTA saw volunteers from the club spending two mornings hard at work clearing the site. Hard, but rewarding work with a big thanks to Sue for keeping the ‘workers’ well supplied with teas and coffees.

 and a visit to the seaside

Organised by Alan, members of the club travelled to Lyme Regis to visit the Boat Building Academy open day. A fascinating day out, perfect weather for a day at the seaside, a nice pub lunch and sadly for the drivers no opportunity to snooze on the homeward leg.

Located by the sea in the heart of Lyme Regis, the academy provides life-changing opportunity to learn boat building and woodworking skills, with practical hands-on instruction in traditional and contemporary boat building construction methods and related skills. Typically, around four or five boats are commissioned each year by the students and examples of their craft – beautiful examples in fact – were on display at the open day. The Academy also provides tuition in furniture making, giving an introduction to design, material choice, hand skills and power-tool s.

Pull the Other One John

At the end of the month a small group from the club joined John Cricket (Santa Claus at the Santa Fun Run to many) for an exploratory bell ringing session at the Westbury sub Mendip parish church. Time just flew by as we listened to John explain the principles and techniques before having a go ourselves. Suffice it to say campanology is a vastly more complicated and challenging hobby than one might imagine.