Hi All,

As in the programme we are talking about getting our messages out, we thought it would be useful to review and up-date everyone on what is going on at the moment.

This week the President and Secretary did an evaluation exercise of what we’ve achieved against the Goals set out in our programme dated 10th May 2012, these are the results in brief (a review of year’s activities can be seen on News Update posted Jan 5th :

Membership – mostly been achieved, although we need to re-think the way in which we mentor new members and we haven’t really run localised membership campaigns.

Service Projects – all achieved and more.

Foundation – made a good start, but we need to do more to understand how we can develop this avenue of service.

Public Relations – Our E-wareness campaigns have helped e.g. Autism Awareness, some opportunities with press and radio and face space parties have helped, still need to do more through social networking.

Administration – in this area a lot of work is in progress, the new working group on our website will help move this forward.

President Janice will be laying out her plans, hopes and will ensure that we will be building on all the excellent work we have achieved this year, whilst taking us forward in new directions as well during 2013/14.

In respect of our achievements we will be celebrating these at our President’s and Charter Celebration Event on Saturday 18th May at the home of Maria and Ola, Dartley Farm, Nr. Bagendon just off the A417 outside of Cirencester. The programme will be from 12.00.p.m. until 3.00.p.m. to include a tour around the farm in the lovely cotswold countryside, a talk by Maria about her adventures in India, and a bring and share Barbecue/Picnic. Cost £5 per person all funds raised are going to the Human and Hope Association. Please ensure you’ve booked your places with the Secretary Janice.

DUCK SALES – Debbie is organising this activity which we hope all members will help with. The Rotary Club of Swindon Old Town hold their famous Duck Race on 27th May, to help other charities and groups they ask them to sell the Ducks, and half the proceeds go to the groups selling and half to Rotary Charities chosen by the the Old Town Club. Last year as Rotary@1100 sold 500 Ducks plus, RC of Swindon Old Town gave us all the funds £500 which helped us with some of our projects. This year we are attempting to sell 1000 Ducks. Please see video on Facebook support page for more information and visit the Duck Website. Please contact Debbie for Duck paper tickets.

Autism Awareness Workshop – over the Easter holidays Lorna typed up all the transcripts of the flip charts, we are now preparing to send these out to the attendees. The next step is to develop a plan to make sure these ideas happen, plus set up the Task and Finish Group to start working on the Business Accreditation Scheme. Hopefully you will have seen on Facebook the group we have set up to continue to sign post information for parents and interested people, we have had some exciting responses from grateful parents.

As part of Autism Awareness Month it would be good if members could help on Social Networks keep Autism Awareness at the forefront of posts. Well done to Jan and Debbie who both attended the Autism Awareness Workshop and took one of the ideas about lighting up buildings Blue on the 2nd April, and did it with Christ Church Swindon Old Town, the Old Swindon Town Hall and at the top of the Brunel Tower.

Worcestershire Literary Festival

We still need help in promoting the Young Writer’s Competition. When Polly, Tim, Janice and Debbie met with some of the directors about the competition it was very exciting and they agreed to help us with the Festival of Rotary, in that we are going to have a poets and writers corner. Thanks to everyone who has so far offered to help at the Festival, if you haven’t yet please can you contact Janice, it is on Saturday 4th May. Another thing that came out of our meeting was that Martin joined the eClub and we talked about perhaps having a slot in the Literary Festival devoted to Mental Health Awareness, hopefully Mary, Polly and Martin will call this meeting and others of us will help.

Vocational Projects

Lynne our Rotary@1100 Vocational Lead is planning to organise a workshop in June, Community Act-Employment. This new workshop will help explore how barriers to employment can be overcome, especially for more vulnerable members of the community e.g. special needs, mental health, veterans. Rotary@1100 working in partnership with HEALS, is looking at new ideas that can really get things happening.

HEALS is run by Alison who is currently joining our eClub, Tim, Patrick and Lynne have had some interesting discussions with Alison as to how HEALS can become a national community charity, by using the Rotary network.

Anyone interested in helping with the development of the Community Act Workshop, please contact Lynne.

Trussel Trust 

A national charity which Rotary International in Britain and Ireland are supporting in the development of Foodbanks across the UK. This week Mark joined us, his role is Head of Fundraising at the Trust. As part of next year’s programme we want to support the work of the Trussel Trust Foodbank Network, does anyone know a Restaurant or Hotel who would sponsor Rotary@1100 putting on a Rich Poor Person Dinner? This is where the attendees draw lottery tickets most end up with a bowl of rice and a few will get a good meal. We would use the event to raise awareness about the Foodbank Network Charity, whilst entrance would be by gifts of food.

Interact and work with Uplands School

This week Lynne, Mary and Tim will be working with Lynda, Lorna and David on another session of Interact at Uplands School, we are making a quilt for sale to raise funds for End Polio Now. We also hope to get the Interactors to write to other schools in the area to get them interested in the Roll Out the Barrel Project, information already on this eClub Blog.

Intergenerational Work

We welcome George as a provisional member, hopefully with his huge experience of Rotary over 60 years he is going to help us develop an intergenerational project based on Facebook, once he has mastered it himself. To develop this project I’m also meeting with Brian this week another provisional member who is the CEO for Wiltshire Age UK in Devizes, hopefully I will be able to show him how to get on our website and discuss the initial ideas around a project of this type. Finally it would be good to involve the Rotaract Hub in helping older people to use social media. The idea revolves around getting Rotarians and Rotaractors to engage with older people through Facebook to give them contact with someone if they are housebound. This is still a germ of an idea and I hope George, Brian and some of the Rotaractors will help work it through.

Project Pages

Over the next few days we hope to update our project pages, so that members can see at a glance what we are up to or please keep updated through our News Update which you can subscribe to.