Special Certificate of Merit

The Rotary Club of Newmarket has been honoured and delighted to receive a letter and a special Certificate of Merit from Clare, Countess of Euston, the Lord-Lieutenant of Suffolk. 

Alan Shand, with his team have been busy since September putting together a new local Community Award scheme for the town and have engaged both the Town Council and the Jockey Club in the venture.  With the help of the local press, we are encouraging people in our local community to nominate others to be recognised for their contribution in helping and supporting neighbours in the widest sense. We are thrilled and delighted that Lady Clare has agreed to present these awards at the Jockey Club on July 31st. 

Alongside this work of Alan’s team we have also been able to provide tangible support to those with great need.  We have donated the lunch money, which we have not paid to the hotel each week at our regular meetings, to the Club. This has enabled us to provide £500 each month to Newmarket Day Centre, which has been providing around 100 hot meals every day to the elderly housebound. Also, we have been able to give to our local hostel for 24 young, homeless people £50 each week to help the hostel purchase essential incidentals such as fresh milk and toiletries. The joy is we have been able to do this thanks to the Chancellor’s Gift Aid returns from HMRC on our regular lunch money giving to the Club. 

At Christmas, we were unable to run our Annual Christmas Carols Concert at Tattersalls, or have bucket collections at the local supermarkets, so we chose to have a Grand Valentine’s Day Draw and asked for both prizes and sponsorship from local businesses. Thanks to the incredible generosity of 25 local firms, 28 shops and restaurants that donated prizes, as well as the sale of tickets, we will be able to provide £5000 to the Macmillan Unit at West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds in the very near future.