Programme for week commencing 30th May, 2013

At our Annual Meeting this year I hope to show as President how much we have achieved of our plans and goals for 2012/13 and how as a team our eClub is growing in strength, from those early days when were still finding our way. We certainly have much to celebrate and good foundations to build on in future years.

Membership

Over the last twelve months we sadly lost 4 members, we increased our current membership by 17, and we have 1 Associate member and 14 provisional members.  Our number currently recorded on the Rotary International Data Base is 37 Rotarians, achieving our goal set at the beginning of the year to increase by 10 members. We moved away from having the Action Groups finding these didn’t really work and that what worked better was to engage our members in their passions.

As well as increasing our Rotarian membership we have the Uplands Interact Club for young people 14 – 18 years and the Rotaract Hub for young professionals 18 – 30 years, these initiatives will grow in the coming year.

We are now involved in helping to develop E-Rotary throughout RIBI, with partners  in West of Scotland, Ireland, Hertfordshire, East Midlands, these will grow during 2013/14. We are developing our membership in a far greater area including internationally and are leaders in promoting the E-Rotary membership.

Partnership work

During the year it has been good to see the eClub develop the idea of partnership work with both traditional Rotary Clubs and other organisations. Our collecting for End Polio Now at Christmas in the Swindon Outlet Centre in partnership with the Makin’ MuZic choir was great fun, whilst our collecting on the streets of Swindon with the Rotary Club of Swindon Thamesdown gave us another experience of seeing the children so excited to meet Father Christmas. We’ve continued to support work at Uplands Special Needs School and we were greatly honoured when the RIBI President visited the eClub at the Charity Shop and helped launch the Uplands Interact Club.

We made history during National Heart Week, working with the British Heart Foundation running our Virtual Balloon Race, so many balloons flying around the internet. Members have also supported other BHF fund raising events.  Internationally we supported the selling of ducks for the Swindon Old Town Rotary Club Famous Duck Race.  Great fun has been had by our Rotarians attending Rotary Club functions, like Call My Bluff Wine, Charity and President Balls, Averbury Rocks, etc.

Vocational and Social Events

In late July we had a visit to the Gloucester City Farm, to learn all about this project, deciding to help them create a new Duck Pond for the project. I, with Janice, went on a sponsored diet and as well as loosing the pounds, we raised £500 towards this venture, to be built in November 2013. In September we had a wonderful visit to the Stroud Canal project and learnt more about the restoration of this waterway. The visit to Croombe Park Estate, Nr.Worcester run by the National Trust, saw us seeing places others don’t get to see, this resulted in us collecting books for their bookshop supporting restoration of this fantastic house.

We tried to take part in the District Quiz and Skittles Competition, but these proved too difficult for the eClub to maintain teams for, so something not to be involved in in future years. However the Face Space evenings organised by Kevin and Denise have proved very successful and the sharing of nutty challenges and apps very popular, these have really helped us build relationships. What a wonderful time we have at our meet ups, Jimmy’s in January proved really popular and I much enjoyed our President’s Event and Dartley Farm just the other week.

We having been building new partnerships with the Trussell Trust, HEALS of Malmesbury and Roll Out the Barrel.  All will see further development during our new year 2013/14, bringing our theme Rotary ‘We’re for communities’ to the heart of what we are about.

International Service

A number of eClubbers enjoyed hosting the Group Study Exchange visitors from North Carolina and going on some of their activities, like the Ghost Walk organised by the Royal Wootton Bassett Rotary Club. From 40 Shoe Boxes for Christmas, Shelter Boxes for disaster areas, Baby Clothes for Romania, the eClub has done its bit towards International Service and we held an online Peace Symposium to show our support for the Rotary theme this year, Peace through Service.

We have also worked towards the Foundation Service through our efforts for End Polio Now and 10% of all we raise being given to the Rotary Charity – The Rotary Foundation.

E-Wareness

During the year we had hoped to do more on making Mental Health Awareness a more open issue, we have plans now for a workshop in October 2013 as part of World Mental Health Day, but we have run one or two programmes throughout the weeks. We’ve also had a programme on Domestic Abuse. Our real success has been in our Autism Awareness Campaign, which resulted in our successful workshop at Uplands School on the 16th March, with work now being followed up with an Action Plan and Facebook Autism Spectrum Condition Sign Posting Group. It was really great to see the social network support for the Autism Awareness Month of April and the lighting up of buildings Blue especially in Swindon. We look forward to developing the E-wareness campaigns in partnership with Mel Powell’s E-Club in LA.

Plus more…

Planting bushes for the bats highway in the Stroud Valley, District and RIBI Conferences, doing Lace Making to promote Rotary, the Young Writer’s Flash Workshop and partnership for the young writer’s competition with the Worcester Literary Festival, the Festival of Rotary in Cheltenham.

In fact all we’ve done is well recorded on our News Update do visit to see more.

What a fantastic year:

• what were your memories?
• what did you get involved in?
• what did you enjoy most?

Help make this Annual Meeting special by contributing below to add what I’ve left out and let us celebrate together a really successful year. Thank you to everyone who has helped us to achieve wonderful and exciting things, as we continue to show E-Rotary is about Service, Friendship and Fun, for busy people in the 21st Century.