The Month That Was That Was - March 24

Welcoming New Members and saying good-bye

In February and March we received applications from 3 potential new members and formally welcomed Barbara Jones and Kevin Phillimore into the club: hopefully next month will see Ray Adlam inducted as a new member to Wells Rotary as well. Sadly though we have also said adieu to Piers and Sue Rose, who are leaving Wells to set up home in Devon to be closer to their family.

After a lively couple of months either side of Christmas, February and March have been a little less busy for Wells Rotary. However we were quite busy.

End Polio Now fundraising party.

Well done to John and Rachel who hosted a wine tasting evening in support of the Rotary Foundation flagship project to end polio across the world. Taste-testing four red and five white wines was a little challenging but nevertheless a most enjoyable evening and a great fundraising event.

Including the raffle the total raised for Polio was over £400.

Tools for Africa

President Angela attended a talk at Mendip Rotary about the tools for self-reliance project. This is project that Richard Leworthy is leading for Wells: he has already sorted out some tools from his own shed. If anyone has old tools they do not need any more, please make contact with Richard and we can arrange a collection.

Skittles with WI widows

We thought it would be a good idea to entertain the men of the WI women while the women were at their meeting. Not only was this a great social evening but it was an opportunity to promote Rotary. Even though we were thrashed in skittles we all had a really great evening.

February’s Guest Speaker - Charlie Adcock

Charlie gave the club a talk about his Somerset based business - Event Horizon which operates from three locations in Somerset. The firm is engaged primarily in energetics, with the core areas being aerospace, defence and the film industry: it does a lot of work for big movies creating controlled explosive special effects. Its work can be seen in a wide variety of films including Captain America, Skyfall, Warhorse and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to name a few.

Emergency First Aid in Wells

February and March saw us running 3 training sessions for local businesses with St. John Ambulance. Attendees from the club and a number of Wells high street businesses were kept busy practising techniques and asking questions. This included learning how to use a defibrillator. Specifically, the training taught participants that there are things we can all do to try and save a life, if we come across somebody who has had a mishap, fall, seizure or health event on a street.

The next stage is to invite everyone who has completed the training to the club and present them with First Aid Packs. We are also talking to City Maps about promoting the location of 1st Aid Packs and Defibrillators on the back of the Wells City Map.

March’s Guest Speaker  Paul James

Paul joined us to talk about the Winston’s Wish charity, which the Santa Fun Run was in support of. Paul gave an interesting exposé of his solo walking fundraising exploits on behalf of the charity, which seeks to support grieving children and young people, providing specialist child bereavement support services across the UK. President Angela closed the evening by presenting Paul with a cheque for £750.

Winners of the Art Competition

March saw the conclusion of the Young Photographer 2024 competition, which required young students to enter their photographs to the theme of 'Rebuilding', and also the Young Artist 2024 competition, which required students to enter a piece of their own artwork, to the same theme. They were allowed to interpret the subject in any way they liked. 

The Listening Project expands to St Cuthbert’s Junior School

We are pleased to say that our Listening Project has expanded to the Infants School. We have a great list of volunteers who dedicate their time to hear children read. This all came about after the Covid pandemic and Rotary asked how we could help the children to repair the damage. Our listeners find it very rewarding and are more than happy to give up 1.5 hours a week to hear the children read.

VISIT TO THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY STEAM MUSEUM

Our main social event in March was the trip to Swindon. We were guided through the offices and stores, then through the foundry, pattern and carriage-building shops and the machine and boiler shops to the finished product. It was a fascinating day out, and gave us a really good insight into the organisation needed to run a very large factory in Victorian times and through to the 20th century.