District Governor's Newsletter - August 2018

August is Membership and New Club Development Month

‹ › ×

DG Dave Writes

August is Membership and New Club Development Month, so I would particularly like to welcome all new Members into Rotary District 1260, in particular my dear wife Wendy who was inducted into Brookmans Park RC on 3rd July and Geraldine who I helped induct into Stevenage RC on 30th July. I also look forward to presenting Ampthill Park (formerly the Flexi Group) with their charter in the near future and hoping that Woburn Sands can soon reach the magic number of 20 members enabling them to charter as a new Club too.

I have spent the last month visiting the Rotary Clubs of Chesham, Bedford Castle, Milton Keynes, Letchworth Howard, Harpenden, both Stevenage and Stevenage Grange, Newport Pagnell and Luton North, with visits planned to Hoddesdon, Aylesbury Hundreds, Dunstable Downs, Luton Chiltern and Amersham within the next month. The most rewarding part of the job of being District Governor is meeting some old friends, some brand new friends and learning about all the fantastic service that is being carried out in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

I have also helped at a Junior Technology Tournament try out at Cople Primary School in Bedfordshire, attended a very crowded Harpenden Common for their Classics Show, was present at a very informative International Seminar with some great speakers. In addition I was pleased to attend Ampthill Park’s Garden Party, Ware’s Afternoon Tea Party and watched some very skilful Kite flying at Royston’s Kite Festival.

I am very much looking forward to attending Bedford RC’s 95th Charter Celebration on 6th September and Baldock RC’s 65th Charter Celebration on 12th September and if any Clubs would like an official visit from the DG then please send me two or three dates and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

A couple of important dates coming up are World Peace Day on 21st September where a ceremony will be taking place at the Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes and World Polio Day on 24th October where we shall be planting crocus corms at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, further details to follow.

In the meantime let us all continue to Be The Inspiration

Dave
District Governor

District 1260 International Report - 5th July 2018

1. Trees in Development I continue to liaise with Rotarian Paul Keeley and his NGO/charity, Sustainable Global Gardens (SGG) (https://www.sustainableglobalgardens.org.uk), as well as RC Marangu, Marangu being a town at the start of one the climbs to the summit of Kilimanjaro. RC Marangu, working closely with SGG, is focusing effort on planting fruit trees with local schools and non-fruit trees as part of rehabilitation of degraded areas on Kilimanjaro, specifically for spring protection.

Message of thanks from Rotarian Paul Keeley

SGG would like to thank clubs in District 1260 for their generous donations of £100 each from the Rotary clubs of Barton le Clay, Dunstable, St. Alban's and Watford and £200 from RC Baldock (total £600) in order to support tree-planting in East Africa. Funds were given to RC Marangu and 125 fruit trees and 2,250 non-fruit trees have been planted. RC Bala sponsored the planting of 3,750 non-fruit trees at Marangu. A fuller report with photos will be presented at the District International workshop on August 2nd.

The total tree count by SGG now stands at 41,380 - and it is intended to continue this activity for the foreseeable future. Some of the participating clubs have already expressed a desire to continue supporting this project - it would be wonderful if any clubs in District 1260 would be able to do so too.

Paul Keeley
Rotary Club of Newcastle-Gosforth

2. Sand dams
I have had useful discussions with David Jordan, Chairman of Excellent Development, the NGO supporting sand dams. He made available DFID’s evaluation of sand dams, summarised below as a well as a report on a visit by a Rotarian.

Final Evaluation: Food Security through Increased Access to Water & Food Production, Kenya (Oct-Nov 2016)

The conclusions draw learning and insight from a story of success. Excellent Development’s partner the African Sand Dam Foundation has an important combination of values, approach, skills and a more difficult to define “attitude”. The values centre on a strong belief that being paid to work on your own development undermines the benefit of development interventions. Technical sand dam building and agricultural knowledge and skills are combined with high level project management skills used to build ongoing learning. Well supported field officers do the difficult work of facilitating community members to work together effectively and efficiently without payment in Self Help Groups. This approach played a crucial role in the success of the project.

Thanks to over £725,000 invested by Rotary, 56 sand dams have been built giving over 100,000 people access to safe water (click here to see the full list of groups supported by Rotary). I have not been able to substantiate the Clubs or the amount donated by clubs in District 1260.

3. District International workshop
This is scheduled for Thursday 2nd August at Tilsworth 1900h-2130h, a draft programme is attached

4. Contact with Club International Chairs
I now use email addresses for Club International and/or Foundation contacts listed in the Club directory. However many clubs appear not to have contacts and some bounce back. This means that some clubs are still not receiving relevant information.

Jim Ellis-Jones
3rd July 2018