ROTARY ROUND-UP: Club reflects on how much has been achieved over the past twelve months

The Rotary year finishes at the end of June when our new president Sally Nowak will take over and new projects will be planned.

An exciting and busy time lies ahead with many of our popular annual events such as the August bank holiday procession and the Christmas tree in town.

The annual KidsOut Big Day Out trip to Chessington (paid for by Rotary) takes place in June and around 20 pupils from Palatine School will be attending, accompanied by staff from their school, plus club members.

Meanwhile we recently held our AGM when we reflected on the past year and how much has been achieved.

Some of the highlights of the past twelve months have been:

n The 426teen project – this wonderful initiative has continued its valuable mentoring work with year 10 youngsters at Durrington High School.

Several members of our club are mentors with training provided to ensure they offer the best support to the youngsters involved.

The mentoring scheme has proved very popular with the pupils taking part, who are carefully chosen and matched to the mentors in terms of interests and personalities. The one-to-one sessions benefit the youngsters hugely and the school staff are most appreciative too for the support we are able to give.

n The Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) course enables a local youngster to be sponsored by our club to take part in a five-day course near Dorking where team and leadership skills are nurtured through a series of exercises and challenges.

The candidate we sponsored this year proved to be an extremely good choice when he acted as compere for the whole presentation evening at the end of the course. In front of a packed hall he guided all the other candidates through their songs, talks and awards. He then recounted some of his highlights to us last week at our club meeting.

We also receive a number of requests to help local charities and individuals, and over the past year have given donations to: Superstar Arts; Oak Grove College, for a special Acheeva bed; Sussex Disability Football League, towards the hire of football pitches; Fishermen’s Mission; Friends of Worthing Hospitals; and after the terrible disaster at the Shoreham Air Show we were able to give money for immediate emergency help to the family of one of the victims.

Internationally we aim to offer urgent aid in times of disasters such as earthquakes and we have been able to supply LifeStraws, ShelterBoxes and sponsor street children in Pattaya.

We are delighted to be able to offer help for some of the many great needs in our community, as well as the wider world.

To join Rotarians in making a difference to the lives of others, both locally and internationally, have a look at our website: www.worthing-rotary.org, call us or come along to one of our Monday lunchtime meetings. We would love to welcome you.

Details of Worthing’s three Rotary clubs are:

• Worthing Rotary Club meets Monday, 12.55pm, at the Chatsworth Hotel, in The Steyne, Worthing, 01903 262222.

• West Worthing Rotary Club meets Tuesday evening at Tudor Close, Ferring, 01903 501961.

• Worthing Steyne Rotary Club meets Monday evening at The Ardington Hotel, in Steyne Gardens, Worthing, 01903 234957.

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