Lunch time ZOOM meeting - 1pm - John Brown speaking about Aquabox

Our speaker this week was Rotarian John Brown, 1 of 3 Scottish Ambassadors for Aquabox which is a charity and community project and was set up and managed by the Rotary Club of Wirksworth to provide safe drinking water, through the use of filtration units, and humanitarian aid to crisis zones around the world.

Since its formation in 1992, Aquabox has distributed more than 110,000 boxes to countries suffering from natural and man-made disasters, helping hundreds of thousands of people in more than 50 countries. Each Aquabox Gold Box, which is tailored to support a family group, contains water purification filters as well as items of humanitarian aid to help with shelter and shelter building, lighting, cooking, and feeding, educational development and hygiene.

Natural disasters happen all too often and when they do people are in desperate need of safe drinking water and humanitarian help. We rely entirely on donations and the fundraising activities of our supporters to fund our work and purchase the items which we supply in the aid boxes. Without the generosity of our supporters, we would not be able to continue this work.

In recognition of the contribution made by Aquabox to helping those in need and of the work put in by all the volunteers, they were immensely proud to receive the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in June 2016. 

Aquabox is almost entirely a volunteer-led organisation, with one part-time paid administrator, so the proportion of total donations contributing directly to aid boxes is amongst the highest achievable.

The Rotary Vote of Thanks was given by Iain Oates.

President Geoff gave the welcoming news that Iain Oates would take on the role next year of Junior Vice President and see how the role pans out over the year.

Wilna Roger advised that Muirhead Outreach had contacted us about supporting them on a Sponsored walk.

The Old Tools and Sewing machines project lead by Rotarian Iain Oates (phone 07423 195333) in conjunction with The Ecology Centre at Kinghorn’s Tool Shed who are refurbishing old tools donated by the public and, with the help of the charities Tools for Self-Reliance and the Global Concerns Trust, are shipped out to people with physical disabilities in Malawi. Although this is an ongoing project with a focus also on haberdashery / patterns, we are looking to draw our involvement to a close by the end of May.

This Sunday 25^th April will be the District 1010 Assembly on ZOOM where all clubs in our District will receive the message, plans and areas of focus for the forthcoming year with the theme from July 2021 being “Serve to change lives”

This coming week Thursday 29th April 2021 our meeting will be held on ZOOM at 1pm our speaker will be Gail Carstairs speaking about the Enable Charity.

Vote of Thanks by Geoff Sampson.

If you were interested in supporting the community and international projects get in touch by Private message on The Rotary Club of Glenrothes Facebook page. You will be made most welcome.