The three F’s at eRotary Changeover

Mary Nettle becomes our new President for 2015/16

Click for Action eRotary members celebrated on the 11th July, 2015 at the Cafe Bliss, as Mary became President for the Rotary Year 2015/16. Yes a day of Fun, Fellowship and Food to mark this next stage in our journey of Rotary online, offline and wherever we go.

A very special handover and everyone wishes Mary a very successful year, joined by her President Nominee Jacqui Horn by Skype, the day showed how flexible eRotary can be and how informal eRotary is in the 21st Century for busy people who can’t be physically present. What was great was that this was done in a public cafe, showing Rotary does not hide away but blends into community life.

As President Mary starts her year she hopes members, potential new members and friends will join in with our exciting programme of activities planned for 2015/16, plus she would be very keen to hear your passions, ideas and activities you are undertaking in your communities.

Our programme 2015/16

July – Summer Event with Yayu in Wimborne learning about her passion for Indonesian Cooking and Botanical Water Colour Painting

August – Plans are in hand about Tap Avoidance to show we care about Water supplies in the world.

September – Again we hope to join in with World Peace Day on the 21st Sep.

October – We want throughout the year to continue to encourage people to discuss openly and learn more about Mental Health and will again run an event on Saturday 10th October at the Cafe Bliss in Worcester to celebrate World Mental Health Day.

November – sees us continuing to support the Let’s Loop the UK, with the Loop Awareness Week 2nd – 8th November, our projects in Swindon will continue to encourage others to get involved.

Plus throughout the year we will help our Uplands Interact Club develop their Guess where the Cow drops it Pat, as they raise funds for the Toilet Twinning Charity. We will continue our support with the District 1100 Vocational Training Team to Sofia in Bulgaria supporting work with the FSCI Houses of Opportunity and of course the important work in the UK with Food-banks.

Don’t forget to encourage friends, work colleagues and relatives to join in with our eDraw, a win win opportunity for everyone including The Rotary Foundation and SOS Children’s Villages. Look out for news of our Young Writer’s competition, Disability Awareness Event, plus more as Mary’s year and team show eRotary is Fun and full of fulfilment.

President Mary would encourage you all to enjoy Rotary, join in with the planned monthly themed vocational meetings, which will use some form of video conferencing. Get to know each other through our Facebook Members Only Coffee Lounge or by what is best for you e.g. telephone, meet ups, involvement with others in activities.

We invite all our Rotary friends and members to visit our programme page on our website every Thursday to read our presentation for our 24/7 week, some great insight of projects, activities and learning more about Rotary and Service above Self.

Finally we wish our Rotary International President Ravi Ravindran a fantastic year for 2015/16. He leads us back to Rotary being about Service through our vocations as he asks us all to be a Gift to the World.

Rotary President’s Message to Incoming Club Officers (EN) from Rotary International on Vimeo.

As President Mary, sends off the President Elect ribbon to Richmond in Canada so that Debbie Vance can take on her new exciting role from across the pond.

President Mary of Click 4 Action eRotary with her team wish every Rotarian across the world a Wonderful and Happy New Year with the hope that we can all achieve this year’s theme through our individual and joint Service to be a Gift to the World.

Action the name of our Game

Today 22nd March is World Water Day and we are pleased at this time to be running our Virtual Balloon Race for Water, please help us sell balloons to friends, work colleagues, family, perhaps download the leaflet eClub Balloon Race A5 2015 and help promote our sales. To encourage people to purchase more than one balloon, it is either possible for Click 4 Action eRotary members to collect the money with the leaflet or for multi-purchases to be actioned through our website paypal donate button, just add balloon in the reference.

President Janice says ‘Morning everyone, don’t forget today is World Water Day, something we all can help to promote in all sorts of ways and especially with our Race for Water balloon race going on.
It would be great to see our balloons blazing a trail through the internet making sure everyone knows the importance of the Race for Water. The balloons are taking their time to race, we cannot be so relaxed about supporting everyone throughout the World access to clean water and hygienic sanitation.’

Talking of water, the Rotary Community Corps in Malmesbury are continuing to watch and protect the town against flooding again. Led by our Rotarian Ray, plans and actions are being developed to keep the mechanisms working so that the water is kept flowing and at correct levels. Plus, the RCC members are still helping where they can to support the Malmesbury and District Foodbank.

Let’s Loop Swindon had a Cheesy Time on Saturday 14th March, 2015

Thanks to Rotarian Jacqui for her organisation of our Cheese and Wine Event to help raise funds and awareness for the Let’s Loop Swindon campaign. We raised £314 towards equipment for our Rotary Community Corps members to use when checking buildings for Hearing Loops. In the picture we can see Jacqui and Rotarian Jasper (who’d travelled all the way from Germany) using the Hearing Loop to communicate clearly the stories about the wines people were drinking. We thank everyone for their support of this event, as we continue to help make Swindon a champion town for Hearing Loops.

The RCC Let’s Loop Swindon Team are doing a stirling job, they have just completed auditing Department Stores and the McCathur Glen Designer Outlet Centre, they have now audited over 200 premises. Whilst they continue to check for Hearing Loops, further work has included our Launch Awareness Event on 25th February, when they received their RCC Charter from District Governor Martyn Harwood.

Some of the team described the work of Let’s Loop Swindon at the Rotary District 1100 Mini Convention and other areas are considering replicating the RCC Let’s Loop model e.g. Paddington and in the Cotswolds. Definitely action is very much what this team is undertaking every month as it continues to Let’s Loop Swindon.

Membership recruitment is still key to our actions

Congratulations to Rotarians Debbie, Sunil and Jacqui for receiving the Rotary International Blue Badge awarded by the RI President for sponsoring a new member. In presenting them President Janice says ‘On behalf of Rotary International I would like to thank you for sponsoring a new member of our club, for which RI have presented to you the blue backed pin.’ The challenge is for all our members to do this and how many members can go for gold and sponsor 6 new members?

It is so good when new members are welcomed into eRotary and this year we have inducted Rotarians Charlotte, Paul, Pamela, Yayu, Jasper and Eileen. We also welcome some new provisional members who are taking a trial period of being part of Click 4 Action eRotary, two of whom are from the RCC Let’s Loop Swindon: we welcome Chetra (Sri Lanka), Lynda (UK), Chaitanya (India), Michael (UK), Melanie (UK), Richard (UK), Charles (USA) and Veronicah (UK), we hope you enjoy eRotary and want to take the next step into full membership.

Interested in joining us? Please visit Magic of Rotary

Rotarian Michael is inducted at Regional Assembly with big cheese looking on. Thanks RGB President Elect Peter Davey

Young Writers is the name of the Game

We are pleased to be working in partnership to launch this year’s WorcsLitFest along with Titania the Young Writer Competition 2015 Rotarians. Teachers, Mum’s & Dad’s, Grannie, Grandad, Aunts & Uncles, Godparents – The FREE Young Writer Competition is OPEN!
Young writers between the ages of 7-17 may enter. Full details are available from Young Writers Competition Website.
Please download the poster, print it and take it along to local schools / colleges / libraries / doctors’ surgeries and anywhere else that you can think of in your community – we love to make this competition accessible to every child and young person.

Coming soon as we continue to make Action and Service the centre of all we do

Our Uplands Interact Club are working on a project to help get more toilets in the world by Twinning their school Toilets. We will need to help with promoting their online Cow Pat Competition. As Click 4 Action eRotary we want to do more for toilets, please visit Toilet Twinning.

We would like to start a further Interact Club in Swindon and would like offers of help from local members.

Don’t forget to help promote World Autism Day on the 2nd April, this is a key way in which eRotary can build eAwareness and get people recognising the need for more action and involvement.

Help President Elect Mary with her planning for the new Rotary Year starting in July 2015, she needs your ideas and passions as to what you’d like included in the programme and what activities we might undertake.

President Janice and Secretary Tim are looking forward to their visit to Bucharest when they go to the Rotaract EUCO 2015, where they will be with Rotarians Jasper and Mike. Rotaractors who have recently joined us as Rotarians show us all the need to work in partnership with Rotaract, so the opportunity to learn more is very exciting. As Click 4 Action eRotary want to help build Rotaract, particularly in the UK. As part of this trip Tim and Janice will be promoting our Balloon Race for Water.

Finally we are now recruiting for the District 1100 Vocational Training Team to go to Sofia, Bulgaria and help the Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion with developing Social Enterprise.  If interested please download VTT advert.

 

 

Balloon Race for Water

Today 8th February 2015 we celebrate Click 4 Action eRotary’s 3rd Charter Anniversary and we do so by promoting our Virtual Balloon Race for Water

Click 4 Action eRotary is organising an environmentally friendly balloon race for water. Isn’t it unbelievable in the 21st Century we still live in a world where clean water isn’t readily available. We believe if we can help this to be just a memory and clean water is in abundance, our world would be much happier and healthier. So please help to spread the message that we all need to do more to provide one of the basic needs of our human existence – water, plentiful and available wherever in the world you live. Help us to enable this to happen, by joining a Balloon Race for Water, promoting it to others and have some fun us as we race on the internet.

How does it work?

The virtual balloons are sold for £2 each or 3.05$ or 3.82 Canadian$ or 2.69 Euros or 189.04 India Rupee, etc. You can buy your balloon from now till the end of the race. You can buy as many balloons as you like. The more balloons you release, the more chance to win a prize. The balloons will be released on the 23rd of February 2015, another important anniversary being Rotary’s birthday 110 years old. The balloon race will end on the 9th May 2015. The balloon(s) that travel(s) the biggest distance will win a prize.

What your Balloon will help us achieve – the collected funds will be shared over the following projects:

Roll Out The Barrel

This project intends that the elderly, women and children who collect water, even from the closest of water sources or supply, will no longer need to carry it, by hand, on their backs, on their heads, or over their shoulders, by providing them with a simple push/pull 30 litre Rotary Water Barrel with a handle and rubber tyres for £30 each.
More information can be found at Roll Out The Barrel

Water Filters in India

Our Click 4 Action eRotary has 3 members from India who support a project for installing water filters for families. One water filter costs £40. It will support one family of 8 members for at least 10 years minimum. Hopefully this balloon race will make sure that several families will have access to clean water.

Jompy for Malawi

The Jompy water boiler is a simple, easy to use device that allows the user to cook and boil water simultaneously, so saving on fuel and time spent over an open fire. The Jompy will pasturise contaminated water reducing the chance of water borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera. Our purpose is to introduce the Jompy in Malawi to people who can’t afford clean water. Our member David explains more

Pa Modou supporting his village in Gambia writes “Clean safe water is essential for all, it is a basic human necessity and a right. Not having this keeps people’s life at risk, even to the extent where some get so sick and even die. This has been a problem in many African countries and the Gambia is not an exception to that, particularly proposed project for a borehole in SAMI VILLAGE” (read more at of Rotarian Pa’s hopes for his village)

How can you ensure you get on the Leader Board?

Make sure you visit the Click 4 Action eRotary Balloon Race for Water Website

Help us promote the Race to your friends, family, work colleagues by giving them the Leaflets below and displaying the poster.

Balloon Race A5 Leaflet 2015

Leaflets to promote eRotary Balloon Race A5 2015

Take a selfie of yourself with a balloon somewhere unusual and we will publicise, with a prize for the best post and place visited send to info@1100rotaryeclub.org