Internationally, Rotary focusses its efforts in seven key areas, which encompass some of the world's most critical humanitarian needs and provide an opportunity for Rotary members to transform communities at home and around the world.

In Andover, UK, we are fortunate to have a community that is supported by a large number of charitable teams striving to support specific community needs.  Our role in Anton Rotary is to work with a selection of those charities, either through funding of new projects or working with the charities to develop and deliver new projects that help them deliver their services more effectively.  Anton Rotary is also a very social club, we firmly believe that we can work better together by maintaining a great social programme of events, developing friendships that ensure a better understanding of each other and the variety of skills we can bring to benefit what we do.

Examples of organisations we support in and around Andover include:

Countess of Brecknock Hospice,

Andover Foodbank,

Andover Hospital Charity Trust,

Andover Young Carers,

Finding Freedom from Abuse,

Neighbourcare,

Andover Trees,

Local Special Schools and several other groups.

Our international supportis delivered through our seven areas of focus, namely Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention, Disease prevention and Treatment, Water, sanitation and Hygiene, Basic Education and Literacy, Maternal and Child Health, Community Economic Development, protecting the Environment.

Rotary International most successful project is in the elimination of polio around the world.  When the project started over 25 years ago, there were thousands of new cases of polio every day.  Last year, there were only a handul of cases in only two countries; we are working tirelesssly to reduce that to zero.

We also support organisations such as Shelterbox, who provide much needed temorary accommodation to communities and families hit by natural disasters, and in some cases, war.

Examples of a couple of recent initiatives are shown below:

June 2025,Anton Rotary makes a £2000 donation to 'MaGGiE's', a cancer support charity operating in a number of locations close to major cancer centres. Southampton is one of the 11 drop-in centres in England.
The donation will be used to fund and develop the Cancer Support Courses that they run, aimed at supporting the patient's family and close relatives.
The donation will fund work at the Southampton Centre

The Donation was accepted by Will Ham.The Fund raising Manager of Maggie's Southampton Branch.

Anton Rotary Metal Detecting Rally 2025.

13^th September dawned sunny and bright, following torrential rain overnight, for Anton Rotary’s 15^th Metal Detecting weekend.

Gazebos were installed on the Friday afternoon before the event, suitably tied down to ensure survival overnight with the forecast wind and rain.  Under one of the gazebos, kitchen facilities were installed and tested while the second gazebo to provide covered seating areas for our guests due the following day, as well as tables for finds to be recorded and the raffle prizes to be displayed. 

Everything was set up and operational by 7:30 am on Saturday morning to welcome over 80 metal detectorists from around the country who were to spend the day searching fields owned by a friendly farmer, with the hope of finding that elusive treasure trove.  Under the leadership of Richard Vaughan, sausages, bacon and eggs were cooked to provide breakfast for those who required such sustenance.  Our detectorists started arriving before 8 am, ready for a briefing at 10 am, the purpose of which was to tell our detectorists which fields they were able to work, where they were to report to with any finds and times for lunch.  There was also the essential need to sell as many raffle tickets as possible for a superb prize draw.

Shortly after 10 am our detectorists set off from our “HQ” area to begin their searches.  You may be interested to know that our detectorists are not only men in scruffy jean and coats but they include single women and family units with young children.  Several of our detectorists have been coming to our event every year for the past fifteen years and their geographical spread is all over the south of England, the Midlands and South Wales.  This year we had available 75 acres of farmland spread over 5 fields that had not, to our knowledge, been worked before.  We are fortunate to be close to the Weyhill Faire, which in earlier times was one of the country’s largest sheep fayres.  It is also situated on a major eight point cross-roads.  Nearby are the remains of roman villas and of course, we are not very far from Stonehenge.

The first of our detectorists started returning with their finds after a couple of hours, with others continuing until late in the afternoon.  Finds this year included several Roman coins and even a silver thimble.  In earlier years our detectorists have uncovered coinage from all centuries from 2000 BC to the present day, several items of jewellery, buttons and exchange tokens used by middle-ages businesses in lieu of coins of the realm.  All valuable items are reported with some items held by the British Museum for up to 2 years before returning them to the finders.  Probably the strangest item found was a small table cannon, probably early 19^th century, used to fire pellets at fellow diners while enjoying your post dinner port!!  However, the item that caused the most excitement was an unexploded hand-grenade that required help from the police and the Army Bomb Disposal Team to make the site safe.

The event was timed to finish at 4 pm, allowing us time to dismantle our gazebos and kitchen equipment, transferred to our storage barn before the rains returned.

Our immense thanks go to Tony Lynn who spent many hours in contact with our detectorists, and especially Mike Walton who masterminded the events and has undertaken all the research to find new fields to work and to manage the whole rally, and to our generous landowners who allow free use of their fields once the harvest is in. Thanks also to the club members willing to support the event.  This year we raised approximately £1500 from a group of people willing to support our charity fund-raising efforts.

Throughout November, members of Anton Rotary have been helping Andover Trees United plant 1500 new trees alongside Bury Hill Meadow in what will become a natural corridor for wildlife, providing refuge for wild animals such as wild deer and small mammals who populate the area.  Andover Trees United has arranged transport for all the schools in and around Andover to bring classes of children to plant trees with the help of volunteers from organisations such as Anton Rotary, Stannah, Lloyds, Simply Health and others.  With the help of these volunteers, children learn the value of caring for our environment, as well as learning a little of the history of Bury Hill.