Coronavirus Update - What the Club did during the first period of Lockdown in 2020

This page gives you a flavour of how the Club dealt with the challenges of the Covid pandemic, and in particular what we awere able to achive furing the first period of Lockdown until the Autumn of 2020. We are continuing to provide our usual summary of what we achieve in each Rotary year - so as the Covid restrictions continued into 2021 there is lots more for you to read elsewhere on this website. 

When the Covid restrictions commenced in March 2020, and in line with Government guidance and in the interests of our members and the public, the Club agreed not to hold it's normal face to face weekly meetings until further notice.

During 2020 we had to cancel a number of events such as the Bedale Book and Postcard Fair due to be held in April and October and the planned Music Showcase working with schools that was due to be held in June.

As a Club we kept in touch and provided support within the Club.  We started holding virtual meetings using Zoom - which is a good way of many members getting together at the same time in one interactive way. We quickly moved to having a full speaker programme in place on Zoom which worked well. We have had an interesting programme of guest speakers since the summer of 2020, and this continues in to 2021. Details of upcoming meetings are on the Club Calendar.

Many of our members found ways in which they could provide support to others during this difficult period, including support to family, friends, neighbours and the community. 

In the usual way we are maintaining the pages on our website that will let you know what we have been doing, so this page just gives a flavour of the things we agreed to do, or completed, in the period up to the early autumn of 2020.

In that period:

We pledged to support the Hambleton Foodshare with financial assistance if they needed it during this difficult time.  We realised that many people including Club members individually have been donating to this vital cause, but in the event that funds run low the Club earmarked up to £1,000 in the first instance to provide support.The picture below is of our first call off against this which was a shop for items the Foodshare was short of - mainly pudding items and coffee and some snacks on this occasion.Since then we have made a number of further shopping trips.

We made a donation of £475 to Martin House Childrens Hospice from money we had previously set aside for the 2020 RYLA progamme.

We held a Lockdown Photographic Competition which raised £200 for the Northdale Charity which in happier times provides activity and work-based placements for adults with a learning and/or physical disability.  See our 2019-20 update page for more details on this and the winning three photos.

We have done some "hands on" work to support Chopsticks, a community enterprise in Northallerton, by packing bags of kindling sticks that their usual team on adults with disabilities had been unable to do becauseof the Covid precautions.

We decided to hold back our uncommitted funds at that point to be in a position to support local charities and good causes who may well find themselves in financial difficulty because of the Coronavirus - for example because their normal fundraising activity has been impacted by the crisis.

We supported the appeal to provide treats and essentials to our hard pressed NHS team at the Friarage Hospital. The Club purchased a large number of Easter Eggs for the staff on the Wards and Departments to raise spirits, and a number of members contributed to a collection of other requested items such as toiletries (staff were being asked to shower before they went home) and supplies to put in the on-call rooms, which were much used in the period of intense activity with Covid patients. The second picture below shows some of the things donated by well wishers ready to be distributed

A number of our members helped in other ways, for example by volunteering at the Foodbank, or signing up for the NHS Volunteers Scheme, and similar local schemes such as the one run by Hambleton Community Action.  And of course we were all helping where we could to support friends and neighbours whilst keeping to the Government's guidance on social distancing.