Another great year!        back

Among the successes of the past 12 months we have installed a Wishing Well in Dronfield, at the Ferndale Garden Centre and it has produced an income of £255 to date. The money will be used to support the work of Rotary Charities.

The club ran the Festival of Leisure, which brought together under one roof 62 different organisations from within the town. It also brought over a thousand people through the doors for the event, including our local MP, Natasha Engel and the Town Mayor, Wendy Templeet. The event also enabled the Inner Wheel Club to raise over £500 by selling refreshments.

Projects in Dronfield included Our Citizen of the year who was Norma Phillips for her work with the Dronfield Cardio Club and her many other activities. We supported “Kids Out” by taking children from Ashgate Croft School to the pantomime at the Pomegranate. We also supported the production of a booklet for the Old Dronfield Society. Unfortunately our attempts to create a skateboard park for the youth of the town were frustrated but we still hope to create something for the youth in the future.

Our International successes covered support for older projects like Aquabox, Shelterbox, the Ndundori Clinic in Kenya and the Bizweni Centre with the Rotary Club of Helderberg in South Africa –successfully completed this year, we have also given £1,000 to the Balikyenunya Foundation in Uganda to provide a facility to capture and store Rainwater at the orphanage. This facility means that by 2010 the orphanage will be self sufficient in terms of growing its own food, but with immediate effect it has meant that 4 of the older boys have been able to move out of the main orphanage building to live in a shelter in the fields and they have been able to take in and offer shelter & hope to 4 new orphans. A little money can go a very long way in developing countries. The Club has also set up “The Fishtail Fund” in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Pokhara Fishtail in Nepal. This fund is designed to provide financial support to Nepalli children to enable them to remain in education after the age of 11. It costs just £55 a year to educate a child, but such is the economy of Nepal that many are working as Sherpas from the age of 11 onwards. With gift aid we already have sufficient funds to support 5 children through school for 5 years. Finally, walking aids. 2 large shipments, each of over 200 pairs of crutches, together with zimmer frames, walking sticks, medical instruments and waffle mattresses have gone to Sierra Leone and Ghana this year and we have another shipment of 116 pairs of crutches packed and ready to go to Tobago. The total new value of these 3 shipments is well in excess of £12,000

Leisure events in the past year have included.... a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum, a snooker evening, a games evening, attending quizzes, snooker and 10 pin bowling competitions, organising a Burns Night Supper, our 34th Charter Dinner and a medieval banquet.

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