Prestwick Rotary is 70 years old

Prestwick Rotary 70 years old in 2018

The club will be 70 years old on 27th September. It was chartered in 1948, mother club being Ayr and daughter club Troon. This will be celebrated by a special Thursday night meeting at our usual Parkstone Hotel venue. We intend to wallow in a bit of nostalgia and remember any memorable events over the years.

The pictures above show the following:

1) An earlier Prestwick Rotary charter dated 1988.
2) The Prestwick Rotary 60th charter dinner.
3) Honouring 50 years of membership of Rotary International.

In the past at Christmas we took Santa’s sledge around all of Prestwick. The children were able to tell Santa what they wanted and we collected for the old folk. We were distributing 600 parcels worth over £12000 when we had to stop.

 Since then we have had a Grotto at Christmas which is now tied in with Prestwick’s Lighting Up. We also have a prominent role at Prestwick Prom celebrations and other community ventures.

Prestwick Rotary have laid out and planted a garden for patients at the Biggart Hospital and subsequently upgraded it to form a secure sensory garden for dementia patients.

Over the years we have responded to appeals to provide help when disaster has hit an area and we have provided Shelter Boxes and assisted with water aid.

We organised from scratch the Space Place in Prestwick, raising all of the necessary funds, establishing requirements and organising construction and initially were involved with the board who ran the scheme. For this we won the district prize for best project.

A Carol Concert is organised each year by Prestwick Rotary which now involves our local youth orchestra and singers.

We have arranged various fund raising events over the years and at present our major fund raiser is our AM AM which is held at Old Prestwick Golf Club.

Prestwick Rotary is involved with other local Rotary Clubs and arranges an annual beach clean every year. Recently we were involved in launching a message in a bottle scheme which has been so successful that further bottles require to be provided.

We have a close liaison with schools in our area and provide prizes for Prestwick Academy pupils, helped to finance St Ayles skiff, and have been successful in sending senior pupils to the European Parliament in recent ears.

Also we hold a local round of a general knowledge quiz for the local primary schools in Prestwick, the winner going on to the district completion final.

Our Rotary group arranged for some talented musical youngsters to take part in district competitions at the Conservatoire in Glasgow.

We were awarded a grant from South Ayrshire Council to provide visitor maps which contain details of walks to various local features.

President Adnan Soojeri in 2014/15		President Debbie Broughton-Hay 2012
Iain Forrest rotary President 2013 presenting Lady Isle trophy to Matt Train.		President Colin Duncan 2016
60th Charter Dinner 2008