Rotarians scale London’s 02 Arena

TWO Storrington & Pulborough District Rotarians celebrated Rotary’s 110th birthday and raised funds for a Polio charity by scaling the 02 Arena in London.

By The Newsroom

Published 7th Mar 2015, 17:00 BST

Brian Parfitt and Tony Vaughan joined 150 other members of Rotary clubs across Great Britain and Ireland to climb the 02.

Once at the top they raised the ‘End Polio Now’ flag .

To date Rotary GBI has raised £21 million for the global polio campaign.

Tony said: “It wasn’t the best of weather days which made the climb all the more testing, but it was all in a great cause”.

Since the launch of ‘End Polio Now’ in 1985, the amount of endemic countries has decreased from 125 to just three – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Nigeria has also seen no recorded cases since July, sparking hope that it too will be declared polio free in the near future.

Vice-president elect of Rotary GBI, Eve Conway said the event was a great way of celebrating the efforts of Rotarians in Great Britain and Ireland to eradicate polio.