2021-22 Highlights

During the year we will keep this page updated with news of our projects and activities.

Further Funding for School in a Bag - June 2022

Following the £600 grant earlier in the year to School in a Bag (see below), further monies have been raised through online purchases made by members and friends of the Club via the Easyfundraising facility, and through Amazon Smile, and this has enabled us to make a further grant of £200.  We are pleased to share that this has been allocated to that charity's initiative to support displaced children in Ukraine

Photographic Competition 2022 - 27th June 2022

The night was a bit of a triumph for Peter Andrew!  As well as winning the overall award for the picture with the most marks in the evening, he also won two of the other classes and was a runner up in the 4th. Well done Peter.

He is shown here with the winning shot "Space Oddity", being presesnted with the Competition Trophy by President Dianne.

Fuller details of all the winning and runner up photos is included in the Photographic Competion pages on the website, alomngside the classes chose for the 2023 competition.

Young Chef Competition - June 2022

The usual national Young Chef Competition has not been held this year, but the Club decided to hold a local competition involving the two schools we usually involve.

A record number of students from Northallerton School & Sixth Form College contested our opening heat, with eight junior chefs impressing with their skills. Each was tasked with producing a healthy two-course meal against the clock, with a tight budget for ingredients. The winner was 15-year-old Lottie, whose ravioli made with fresh pasta and chocolate dessert really impressed the judges. Runner-up was Florrie, also 15, whose turkey mince cottage pie followed by mini vanilla cheesecake, was deemed absolutely delicious. Lydia was named as reserve and fellow 15-year-olds Ruby, Katie-Ann and Maddy, plus 14-year-olds Max and India, were also highly commended for their tasty dishes.

 “Congratulations to all the students for making our job so difficult,” said ex-RAF Warrant Officer Nick Wright, formerly of the RAF Leeming catering team, who led the judges. “The standard of cooking was the highest we have seen and it’s clear they put an enormous amount of preparation into planning and delivering their meals. Only a couple of points separated the eight students and all of them did a fantastic job.”

Lottie and Florrie now go through to a cook-off with Bedale High School, who will be staging their own heats in the near future.

With grateful thanks to the Allerton Players who set the scene for the Murder Mystery, we had a great event at the Forum to raise money for the Ukraine Appeal and made the magnificent sum of £1,250. The scenario was set by the well known author Anne Cleeves and, like an similar event we held a couple of years ago, worked well in keeping the audience guessing.  This time things were very loosely based on her Vera novel "The Darkest Evening". It would not be right to tell you "whodunnit" because others may wish to use this scenario in future, but suffice it to say the majority of our budding detectives got it wrong - but for some very amusing reasons! Everyone seemed to enjoy the whole event including the afternoon tea, and dug deep to support our raffle and a bookstall with a range of pre-loved detective novels and thrillers.  It's great when we can put the fun into fundraising.

Our picture shows our cast of characters - don't get fooled by their innocent looks - they all had something to hide!

The Rotarian Lifeboat launched at Filey - May 2022

After a number of years of fundraising across the Rotary District, to which our Club contributed, it was good to see the launch of the new lifeboat for Filey which has been named "The Rotarian".

Applegarth Community Garden Picnic Bench - May 2022

We hope that many people local to Northallerton will be aware of the Applegarth Community Garden which is situated in the Applegarth Park. If not this is worth a visit. Using money raised from the Pie and Pea Quiz Night earlier in the year as our main source of funding, we were happy to help with the set up costs for the scheme by presenting one of the two picnic benches that have been placed in the Garden.  The other bench was presented by the Northallerton Amateur Variety Company from the proceeds of their pantomime held in January.

The Garden is part of the Incredible Edible Network where produce from the plot will be available for the community to pick. As well as some permanent planting of fruit trees and bushes, raised beds are already full of a range of plants and with recent rain and an enthusiastic team of waterers things are coming on fast.

Our members Anne and Geoff were present for the formal fixing of plaques and were wearing two hats for this as they are also members of the Variety Company. They together with other rotarians helped with some of the initial planting, and will continue to support this worthwhile project.

Particular thanks must go to Liz Styan who is the coordinator of this very worthwhile scheme, and all the other volunteers who have helped in the initial creation of the Garden.

We hope it will inspire people to get growing themselves in their own spaces, and also provide a place for relaxation - and picnics of course on the smart new benches!

Race Night - 30th April 2022

The Pantheon of quality horseracing venues has increased recently.  Forget Epsom, Newmarket, Chantilly.  The newcomer is Northallerton.  Here's why. On 30th April we held a Race Night at the Town Hall where sponsors with the calibre of Sam Turner, Nick Mitchinson, J Thompson, The Golden Lion, The Wellington Heiffer and the White Horse Cafe helped put on a wonderful evening of equestrian fun, with quality eating, drinking and gambling usually seen on the best of England's Race Courses.  A good time was had by all.  With grateful thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, runners and riders, over £650 was raised to help the Friarage Hospital in their work.  But note: No animals were put down as a consequence of the racing.

Bedale Book and Postcard Fair - 3rd April 2022

Our Spring Book and Postcard Fair was held again in the lovely setting of Bedale Hall.Although numbers attending were a little lower than we had hoped for, the day was a success and nearly £900 was raised from the entrance fees and the refeshment sales which will boost our funds available to support Club projects going forward.

Collecting tools for Tools With A Mission (TWAM) - March 2022

Following a recent talk to the Club about the work of this charity, Club members have been searching their garages and sheds to find unused and unwanted tools that can be refurbished as required and then sent to developing countries by the Charity where they enable individuals to establish themselves as self employed businesses - joiners, plumbers, mechanics and more Their local collector joined us on one of our Club meetings to pick up the things we had collected, and our member Basil is seen holding some examples before they got packed away into the van.

Supporting Shelterbox - March 2022

Using some uncommitted monies from an earlier international fundraiser we were pleased to send £52 to Shelterbox to support their appeal for funds linked to their role in supporting the people of Ukraine who have been forced to flee their homes.

A Collection for Ukraine -  16th March 2022

As a joint initiative with the Northallerton Club we held a street and supermarket collection and had a bric a brac stall on Northallerton Market. Due to the generousity of those in town on the day we were very pleased to have been able to collect over £3,300 for the Appeal.

Rotary Technology Tournament at Catterick Garrison - 8th March 2022

“It’s good to be back”. This was the message from all the schools taking part, and from all the Rotary clubs organising the 2022 Technology Tournament which was held at Catterick Garrison on 8^th March. The Tournament, which involves teams of four working together on a solution to a problem set on the day, saw schools building a model to remove a “radioactive” ball from its container and placing this carefully in a target area. 24 teams from 6 schools, together with two teams from REME took part on the day and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. As ever the range of ingenious solutions that were worked up by the teams was testament to the inventive talents of our young people. The Tournament, one of many similar ones organised across the country, is organised by the Rotary Clubs of Northallerton, Northallerton Mowbray, Thirsk, Richmond and Wensleydale, together with the 1^st Close Support Battalion of REME based at the Garrison, and we were pleased once again to be hosted at the Garrison. We were also particularly pleased this year to receive generous sponsorship from the West Yorkshire Society of Architects. The Tournament is organised at three levels, with more complex requirements set for the older age groups. Winners at the Foundation level were the team from Richmond School, at Intermediate level Team 1 from Barnard Castle School, and at Advanced level the team from Richmond School.

An update on our project to support Hambleton Food Share - February 2022

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic the club decided to set aside money to support our local Foodshare scheme, and we were pleased that our application for District Foundation Grant was also successful, doubling our initial £1000 to £2000.  With a further member donation of £100 we started the project with £2,100 to spend.  We agreed with the Foodshare that the most useful way to allocate this would be to respond to requests from them to go shopping to make up particular shortages in their stock as required and over the last 20 months two of our members have been on 11 shopping expeditions. The last of these, that spent up the balance of our project budget, took place this month. This time we were buying baby nappies, toiletries and sponge puddings. During these difficult times this has been a very worthwhile local project for a charity that has done so much good over the period of the pandemic, seeing a significant increase in the demand for it's services.

Helping out with the Applegarth Community Garden - 22nd February 2022

Last year we held a very enjoyable quiz night and pie and pea supper and were able to raise £630 from the event. Half of this was earmarked for a local environmental project and when we heard about the Applegarth Community Garden scheme it sounded like the ideal project to support.  So adding some other monies raised at our October 2021 Book Fair we have pledged to fund one of the picnic benches that will be installed as part of the scheme, and also to provide some "hands on" help to get the scheme up and running. So on a lovely sunny February day four members of the Club joined the workparty for the inital planting of the trees and shrubs, and we look forward to providing further support as the project progresses.

The project forms part of the international Incredible Edible network. The aim is to provide an open, beautiful space where both people and wildlife can thrive and where produce is shared. The initial planting included some espalier as well as some standard fruit trees, and a couple of cob nut bushes.

The work party was great fun for a group of all ages from the very young to the not so young!

Supporting the charity "School in a Bag" - January 2022

For the last few months Club members and friends of the Club have been using the website EasyFundraising when shopping online to raise funds for the Club. With £300 from this source, and with matching funds from a District Foundation Grant, we have been able to buy 30 schoolbags through the charity "School in a Bag" for students in Nepal and Malawi.

More details are available on our International pages by clicking here.

If you wish to support our future work why not join up with Easy Fundraising and nominate our charity account for your support - see the Homepage of our website for more details.

Our picture shows one of the students who received a bag we funded - Parbati Tamang from Nepal

Supporting the Little Faces School in Mombassa

We had an inspirational talk from Sally Searle, the founder of The Little Faces School in Mombassa. 11 years of hard work by Rotarians has transformed what was a rusty tin shack serving 35 children, into a modern school for 350 with books and up-to-date computers.

We were able to make a small cash donation, and also provide some clothing and equipment that will go out to Mombassa. Hearing that the scout group attached to the school did not have neckers and woggles, one of our members used a contact in the local Scouting District to obtain some surplus stock from a previous District Club Camp.  We are sure the youngsters in Mombassa will wear these with pride.

Our Santa Fundraisers in December 2021

2021 has seen the refurbishment of Santa's Sleigh - and we would like to thank the Northallerton Men's Shed for their help on that project.

The Club was able to assist at the Town Late Night Shopping event and then as Christmas approached we took to the streets of Northallerton to bring some Christmas cheer.

We also held bucket collections at B&M and Tesco and would like to thank them for their support.

We raised just under £1000 for our project work, including those aimed at young people, in the year ahead.

A Fundraiser Quiz and Pie and Pea Supper 24th November 2021

It is always good to put the Fun into Fundraising - and this event which we held at the Forum in Northallerton certainly ticked all the boxes. Once again the Forum proved to be an excellent venue and putting the event on sale at their box office meant that teams from the commuunity as well as from our own club and neighbouring clubs were able to enjoy a great evening together. We sold 100 tickets, and could definitely have sold more.

We were also able to raise £630. Half of this went to support the charity "Aquabox", which provides equipment to deliver fresh filtered water to those without a clean water supply. The other half has been earmarked to support a local environmental ininitiative of some kind, and with a talk to the Club on the Greening of Northallerton coming up in early 2022 we are hopeful of being able to identify a worthwhile project to support during 2022.

Celebrating 100 Years of Rotary in York - 19th November 2021

The Rotary Club of York is 100 years old and a party of 10 of us from the Club joined in the celebrations at The Ebor Suite at York Racecourse. After an excellent dinner it was time for dancing to the Abba Tribute Band - Revival. We all had a great time.

Helping at Northallerton Fireworks - 5th November 2021

As usual we had a team from the Club shaking buckets to raise funds for the Town Council to help fund the 2022 event. Everyone attending seemed to enjoy the event and it was good to be back after missing 2020 of course. With our help, over £4,000 was raised towards the cost of staging next years event.  

Bedale Book and Postcard Fair - 24th October 2021

The Club organises this event twice a year in April and October and it was good to get back after a prolonged Covid related break- it was October 2019 when we held the last one. We had good attendance from both stallholders and from the public. As well as making the practical arrangements the Club also runs the tearoom, and this is where we make most of our money from the event to use for our charitable projects. 

Allowing for the fact that the finances of the event ended up being spread over 3 rotary years, in all we made over £1000 net for good causes.  So a good return for an enjoyable day all round.

 District Conference was an opportunity to hear about some of the projects we have helped to support - 9th October 2021

Normally District Conference is a chance to make a trip to Scarborough - but this year the Covid position meant that like so much else this had to be held online.  It gave a chance to catch up, however, on some of the projects we have been supporting.  

Last Rotary Year we sent £100 to the District 1040 appeal to fund an inshore lifeboat at Filey.  The overall target was £26,000, but the final total reached was £30,000.  All this means the boat, a D-Class inshore boat,  is now being built and will shortly take up it's role at Filey.  It will be called "The Rotarian".

We also gave £350 to a District Project led by the Aireborough Club working with the Rotary Club of Chennai in India to help with equipment for the treatment of Covid patients in Chennai. We were one of 21 clubs and 14 individuals who together raised £18,000 to provide 20 Oxygen Concentrators and lots of PPE. It was great to hear how partnership working delivered this so quickly to benefit those in need.

There was also an interesting update on our current project to raise funds for School in a Bag, and some of the developments being introduced by that Charity in the services they are providing to those in need both internationally, and also as we learned today in this country to help groups of young Afghan refugees arriving in England.

Alongside a number of other interesting presentations it was a great showcase for what Rotary is doing in the area.

Our Celebration Dinner - 8th October 2021

Every year - around the date of the inaugral dinner when the Club was formed and granted it's "charter"- we have a dinner to celebrate our birthday.  Usually called our Charter Dinner, this year we called it a Celebration Dinner to recognise what the Club has been able to achieve over the many months where our activities have been affected by Covid.  Also unusually because of events it was hosted by both this year's President Dianne Mousley, and last year's President Malcolm Warne - who missed out on having the 2020 event because of Covid.

We had a great evening. As well as the Dinner itself we had contributions from Stephen Ellis, our District Governor, our member Peter Gibson who is now MP for Darlington who talked to us about his early days as an MP, and an excellent slide presentation prepared by member Elaine Harrison highlighting the many things we had to celebrate, and the wide range of organisations we have been able to help over the last couple of years.  Then it was time to "dance the night away" to a great mix of music from Daniel.

Everyone was very generous with their purchase of raffle tickets which meant we were able to raise £600 which was split over three youth related good causes in the town - POSCH (Parents of Special Children), the Pendragon Trust and Youth Space who will each receive £200. 

A Work Party to tidy the planting on Walkland Way in Northallerton - 25th September 2021

Members and friends of the Club got out the gardening gloves and tools to help tidy up an area of planting at the roundabout and underpass near Northallerton Library.  Being in an area where plenty of people pass by it was nice to have lots of appreciative comments, and also a good opportunity to talk to them about the work of Rotary.

A Fellowship Visit to the Theatre to see "Magic Goes Wrong" - 31st August 2021

With theatres opening up at last it was good to relaunch our "theatre club" with a number of members enjoying a fun production of the play "Magic Goes Wrong". And the action certainly lived up to the title of the play! Great fun.  And even if the tricks did "go wrong" how did they do it? That remains an amusing mystery.

We have arranged a number of further trips over the months ahead.

Whilst in normal times our annual treasure hunt is an opportunoty to go somewhere away from Northallerton to learn something about a new setting as we scratch our heads solving clues, this year it seemed a good idea to do something local so we could eat at the Allerton Court Hotel and support them as they recover from the effects of the pandemic.  So what better than to start at their carpark and take a route around the Standard Way Industrial Estate with a series of cryptic and picture clues focussing on the businesses that have their home on the Estate. Everyone seemed to have good fun in a very tightly fought contest.  The very valuable prize of the honour of setting next year's event went to "The Scruton Shooters" and it was good to meet new member Elaine's family and one of son Tobias' friends who joined with Janet to form the team.  Well done to them and everyone including all the family and friends who took part.  Our picture shows one of the other teams pondering on the meaning of one of the trickier clues!

We start to meet again in person - 9th August 2021

After a slight false start where our plans to begin face to face meetings in July were deferred again because of the spike in Covid cases, we were pleased to return to the Allerton Court for our first face to face meeting since March 2020.  It was good to be together again, and we had an excellent talk on the work of The Two Ridings Community Foundation by their Chief Executive Jan Garrill.

Refreshing the Planting at the Rotary Garden -15th July 2021

Summer has arrived and the spring planting has been refreshed with new plants for the summer.  We have put in perennials in the main. So lots of colour for years to come. 

A new Rotary Year - and a new Team - July 2021

As the new Rotary year commences we look forward to Dianne Mousley picking up the reigns as our President for the year and wish her all the best.  And thanks go to Past President Malcolm Warne for all his work during the difficult Covid affected year that has just finished. Our incoming President Elect is Robert Williamson.  Malcolm swaps with Dianne and becomes our new Club Secretary, and Tony Wood continues as Treasurer.

A full face to face handover was not possible this year but Malcolm was able to hand over the presidential chain in person to Dianne.