President's Evening & Paul Harris Awards

President's Evening Saturday 15th June 2024

With the closure of the 2023-2024 Rotary year almost upon us, Rotarians, partners and many guests enjoyed a delightful evening with BBQ and music at Oaksey Golf Club.

President Ray's guests included District 1100 Governor Anne Bartholomew and her husband Alan.

Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland honours two local residents

At the start of the evening President Ray introduced the District Governor Anne Barthlomew who presented a Paul Harris Fellowship to two members of Malmesbury’s Rotary Community Corp (RCC) in association with the towns Flood Working Group. (MFWG) 

The first presentation was made to Paul Kershaw, of Lower High Street, who since the formation of the community Corp in 2012 has been an invaluable member of the group helping to maintain the river Avon at a safe enough levels to prevent severe flooding to Malmesbury. This has been achieved by operating the sluice gates at Cowbridge some one mile downstream from the affected area on an almost daily basis. His actions have been recognised by the receipt of this award, which is the highest award that the Rotary movement can present an individual. The award is in memory of founder of Rotary International - Paul Harris in 1905.

The second award was presented to Edward Evans a retired professor in flooding and river management. Since 2013 he offered to help, the volunteers within the RCC and MFWG to formulate a plan to alleviate the possibility of flooding and property damage. The plan through his knowledge has resulted in seeing the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency visit Malmesbury some two years ago. More recently the Regional Flood & Coastal Committee have a six-figure sum to build hopefully a flood wall and removable flood gates to protect the lower High Street and historical parts of Malmesbury, this would not have happened without the persistence of his pressure on the organisations concerned.