Club Chronicle

1 October 2026: Business Meeting

As is now usual for our Business Meetings, today we met on Zoom. The meeting was set up by our Secretary even though he is currently in Spain.

Thirteen members were present, with one apologising for absence. President Anne took the chair.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved, as were the accounts presented by the Treasurer. £265.00 has been donated to the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, £500.00 to ShelterBox and £287.50 to Farleigh Hospice. The Club has paid £110.00 for purple crocus corms for donation to local schools as part of the End Polio Now campaign.

President Anne reminded us that the District Conference will take place on Saturday, 3 October, and the District Forum will take place at the County Hotel.

There will be no Club meeting on 29 October. Instead members will have the opportunity of taking part in the Five Clubs Meeting the Rotary Club of Chelmsford Mildmay is organising for the preceding Tuesday. This will be held in the evening at the Royal Tiger.

The Club will be holding a quiz for the Wilderness Foundation Uk on 12 November; helpers are needed.

We need to decide where we will meet in February - June 2027. The next Fellowship Meeting will be on 15 October at Channels, which is a possible venue. They have two suitable rooms, one for a maximum of 12 people and the other for a maximum of 16. The only other space they have is The Barn; that is for a minimum of 30, which is more than our current membership. The Six Bells is another possibility.

Warwick Aldham is trying to establish whether any other local organisation has a minibus we could borrow occasionally.

Alison Moses reported that 10 members have volunteered to help at the jumble sale all day and John Watkins is available to help in the morning.

Warwick is preparing a brochure for next year’s centenary of Rotary in Chelmsford plus a larger history. President Anne is looking for possible material for a pull-up banner.

We can ask Jill Parkin whether it would be possible to say something about the centenary in this year’s Chelmsford Competitive Music Festival programme. Volunteers will be need to attend the Festival classes that feed into our own Young Musician competition. We won’t know how many are needed until Jill has finalised the Festival programme.

The Chelmsford Heat of Young Musician will take place at St Cedd’s School on the evening of 8 January 2027.

Owing to health problems Keith Otter will step down as editor of the Bulletin and as webmaster at the end of the year. Warwick has expressed an interest in these roles.

Rotary Young Musician District Final

Report by Anne Moriaty

The District Final took place in Brentwood Cathedral on Saturday 28 February in the presence of the Deputy Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Smita Rajesh, and her consort.

The audience were treated to a lovely concert with high standard performances from five vocalists and six instrumentalists. Sadly there could only be two winners going through to the Regional Final and after lengthy deliberations the accolades went to pianist Tailin Liu sponsored by the Rotary Club of Bishops Stortford and vocalist Harry Sunderland sponsored by the Rotary Club of Dunmow.

Our Chelmsford winners, Henrietta Lawrence and Chloe Mahler were worthy runners-up.

I had the honour of giving out the certificates and the Deputy Mayoress presented the winner and runner-up trophies.

Collection for Marie Curie

On 25 February 2026 President Graham, Francis Whitbread, Keith Dabbs, Anne Moriety and Steve, worked as a team at Morrisons Supermarket to collect monies on behalf of the Marie Curie charity. We collected a handsome sum, of which £80 was collected via card payment through the “SumUp” device. We enjoyed the day and special thanks to Francis who made the arrangements and remained all day throughout others’ slots. A photo opportunity could not go amiss.