A few days ago, the Rotary Club of Towcester took Northampton Young Carers for a fun-filled day out at Sailability on Pitsford Water.
The day started with the Young Carers getting kitted out in water safe gear and then they all went out onto the water for a real sailing experience.
Afterwards they actually built rafts themselves from flotable drums and wood which they then tried to sail with various degrees of success!
The day ended with a warm meal.
The Rotary Club are able to provide such days of relaxation, fun and education for the Young Carers through the funds which they raise from other Rotary Events and they would not be able to do this without the fantastic support which they receive from the public.
The Rotary Club of Towcester was delighted to sponsor local candidate Eileen Conroy to attend a week’s course at the RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) at Grafham Water in Huntingdon.
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards is a leadership development program organised by Rotary. The course events can include presentations, activities, and workshops where attendees are encouraged to develop their skills as a leader while having fun and making connections. Topics include:
Leadership fundamentals and ethics
Communication skills
Problem solving and conflict management
Community and global citizenship
What are the benefits?
Connect with young potential leaders in your community and around the world to:
Build communication and problem-solving skills
Discover strategies for becoming a dynamic leader in your school or community
Learn from community leaders, inspirational speakers, and peer mentors
Unlock your potential to turn motivation into action
Have fun and form lasting friendships
Eileen Conroy, Rtn. Dawn Denton and Charlotte Fagan
The Rotary Club of Towcester was delighted to participate in the Towcester 917 Saxon Fair celebrations to mark the 1,100 years of the town’s history when the Vikings tried to invade it. The Saxon Fair will featured a Saxon encampment demonstrating weapon making, weaving and leather working, re-enactment battles between Saxon and Danes/Vikings, children’s Saxon workshops, story telling and music, archery and displays by Cotswold Archaeology and Towcester & District Local History Society.
Andrew Litchfield, Rtn. Andrea Lord & Emelia Porteous
The Rotary Club of Towcester was delighted to present two Rotary Star Certificates to students at Paulerspury C.E. Primary school. In addition to the certificates, the students also receive a Rotary Star Badge as well as a £25.00 Voucher to local shop Colemans.
The Certificates went to Emelia Porteous for baking cookies during the Easter Holidays and then selling these around the village – the monies from which she gave to the Guide Dogs for the Blind. Emelia demonstrated initiative and care for others in the community
Andrew Litchfield was awarded his certificate as during his fund-raising endeavours for Water-Aid as a Rotakid – he single-handedly raised £100 – which is amazing. He showed creativity in the things that he organised and dedication to helping others.
The Certificates were awarded by President Elect Rtn Andrea Lord.
Young students, who are also RotaKids from Towcester Primary School, Nicholas Hawksmoor School and Paulerspury Primary School were invited by the Rotary Club of Towcester to a Picnic in the Park.
The Rotary Club wanted to thank these young Rotakids for all their fabulous fund-raising over the past few months which has raised hundreds of pounds for Water-aid, as well as funds for DISC (Disability Inclusive Sports) at Towcester Leisure Centre and Mary’s Meals. All of these Rotakids held various events which they thought of, organised and managed themselves in order to generate the funds for the various charities.
Says President-Elect, Andrea Lord “We are very proud of these Rotakids and what they have achieved in such a short period of time. The Picnic was our way of saying thank you to them, to let them have some fun and also for them to meet the other Rotakids in our area”.
When they first met, each group of Rotakids introduced themselves and explained what projects they had been running. They then went outside where they were split into teams and they built some wigwams and tents – in which they then had their picnic!
The Rotary Club of Towcester is proud to support the British Grand Prix every year by providing Chauffeurs for VIP guests during the 3 day event.
This year at the Silverstone F1 Grand Prix 2017, the Rotary Club of Towcester provided the VIP chauffeurs for attendees arriving at the event by helicopter, taking them to their hospitality suites in Porsche Panameras, Cayennes or Macans.
The Club has been involved in this event for over 20 years – and sadly, this was the first year that Rotarian Bob Carter was not with us – and his presence was sadly missed. Our sponsors kindly made a registration plate especially for Bob – BOB 1 – which you will see in the photos below.
Once again the three day event was at times tiring but mostly fun and it is an event which the Rotary Club of Towcester is proud to support and thanks Silverstone Helicopters for it’s donation to the Rotary Club of Towcester’s Charity account.
The weather was unkind on the Saturday and the heliport had to be closed due to low cloud- but on the Sunday from 8 am the VIP helicopters were a constant vision in the skies above Silverstone.
Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on his win and we look forward to the 2018 F1 Grand Prix.
A Level and GCSE students from Sponne school presented their creations to the Rotary judges last week for the local heat of the Rotary Young Designer Competition 2017.
As always there was a range of highly creative and original ideas which the judges had to grade on technical merit, commercial viability, research, cost structure and ease of manufacture as well as the overall finish of the prototype presented.
The Rotary Young Designer competition integrates itself into the normal school curriculum that the students follow for A level and GCSE and it allows them to showcase their creations and receive constructive feedback on all areas of their design.
This year’s entrants were:
GCSE students:
Shaun McMillan – who designed a storage unit
Isabelle O’Dell – who created an educational and interactive table
Chloe Howkins – who designed a storage unit
India Leask – who designed a dog feeding station with built in storage space
Christopher Jones – who designed a coffee table with an in-built light
A level students:
Bethany Loosley – who designed a storage unit to hold make-up
Liam Thompson – who designed a portable instrument stand
Kit Thurman – who designed wall-mounted cat furniture
Brina Johnson – who designed an indoor sustainable plant feeding station for schools
India Leask – dog feeding station – GCSE winner
Beanna Field – who designed a water-proof personalised instrument case
Freya Robinson – who designed a multi-functional table.
The judges this year were Bob Snedker, Dave Shield, Robert Davey and Roy Bricknell.
The first stage of judging produced 4 finalists who were:
Brina Johnson and Kit Thurman for A levels and India Leask and Chloe Howkins for GCSE.
After much consideration and discussion with each student to understand why and how they came up with their design and how they could build in any improvements the judges finally awarded first prizes to:
India Leask – GCSE for her dog feeding station. The idea behind this is to keep the dog water and food off the floor, bring the food up to a more convenient level for a dog to eat from -and to provide some storage space for treats and food. The prototype presented was finished to a very high level and was aesthetically very pleasing to the eye. It could also be very easily adapted to various different heights for various breeds so confirming a good commercial product.
Kit Thurman – A level – for her wall-mounted cat furniture. The driving force behind this design by Kit was the need to create a space for a cat which could be “dog free” – ie to create an area where a cat could go and play and dogs would not be able to gain access. The furniture consists of walk ways – play areas – a sleeping area as well as a feeding area. Being wall-mounted – it could be placed in any room and at any height for the convenience of the consumer. In addition – each area was an independent “station” and so the whole thing could in fact be sold in small kits – so each consumer could construct their own personalised cat furniture play area.
Both Kit and India will now be entered into the District final of the Young Designed competition which will take place at De Montfort University in Loughborough on Saturday June 17th. The winner of the district final will get 12 months mentoring from De Montfort University and the opportunity to take their creation to market.
Says Rtn. Roy Brickenll who organises the Young Designer competitor for the Rotary Club of Towcester, ” We are delighted with this year’s winners and we wish both Kit and India much success in the District Finals”.
The finalists – Chloe Howkins, India Leask, Brina Johnson, Kit Thurmanthe entrants
Brina Johnson – sustainable indoor planting systen – A lever runner upChloe Howkins – storgae unit – GCSE runner up
Rtn. Alex Cooke, Dr Chip Kingery, President Rtn. Trevor Brown
All members of the Rotary Club of Towcester were delighted to welcome Dr Chip Kingery of ProVisions Asia who is the founder of ProVision Asia in Bangalore. Dr Kingery was travelling from Bangalore back to the USA via the UK and was delighted to visit the Towcester Rotary Club and to personally receive the cheque for the monies raised by Rtn. Alex Cooke following his bike ride across India. Alex met Chip while he was in India and visited the centre in Bangalore where much of the work takes place.
As Dr Kingery said. ”Rotary as an organisation has had a profound effect on the lives of people in India. People such as myself who have been working with disabled and disadvantaged people for many year now, can see that the world-wide Rotary project to eliminate Polio has had a major impact on the kind of disabilities that our organisation has seen, as we now treat very few people with the after effects of Polio as it has practically been eradicated. We are grateful to Rotary in general and especially to Alex for his generosity in taking the time and making the effort to raise funds for us.
OUR MISSION is to inspire hope among people with disabilities by providing an environment which fosters transformation. We encourage the vision of abundant life through practical life-skills training; provision of mobility aids, physiotherapy, job placements, education sponsorships, computer training; counselling and government advocacy.”
On Friday April 21st, the Rotary Club of Towcester was delighted to present four young students with prizes following their entries into the Rotary Young Writer competition 2017.
The theme this year was “reflections” and the students had to submit an original piece of work of not more than 500 words. Our Judges this year were published Author Geoff Iley and Rtn. David Reed. A number of criteria were used in judging the winners including creativity, accuracy (grammar!), and appeal. The judges were extremely impressed with the submissions – 13 in total from students at Nicholas Hawksmoor School and Towcester Primary School. There were very few points dividing the first from the third place winners and both judges expressed their belief that all of these students would go far in their studies!
So – the winner was Grace Goram of Nicholas Hawksmoor school – and she received a set of 6 books of the Dork Diaries.
Second place went to Leo Mullins from Towcester Primary school who received a set of 5 books of the World of Norm.
There were actually two third prizes given – as it was impossible to choose between them – so both Hannah Goram of Nicholas Hawksmoor School and Lillie Golding of Towcester Primary School received a book each written by David Walliams.
Rtn. David Reed said: “The Rotary Club of Towcester would like to thank Towcester Library for so generously donating all of the prizes, as well as providing us with space to present the prizes on Friday and displaying all entries in the library for members of the public to read. In addition, of course, our thanks go to Geoff Iley for his invaluable advice to these young writers and his time in judging. You can see the entries this week in the Library. Grace’s piece will now be sent to the District competition which will be judged in June this year and we wish her much success”.
The Rotary Club of Towcester is absolutely delighted to announce that Emily Ramplin of Towcester Primary School came joint First in her Solo Vocalist category (6-10 year olds) and the Brass Quintet from Towcester Nicholas Hawksmoor School came First in their Instrumental Ensemble category (6-10 year olds).
Emily let up the lit up the room with her beautiful voice enchanting us all with “Castle on a Cloud” and “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”. The Brass Quintet composed of: Katie Skey, Laura Punter, Pheobe Earnshaw, Charlotte Gautrey and April Williams played two Beatles songs, “Yesterday” and “Yellow Submarine”.
Our students competed with other entrants from Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire at Leicester Grammar School on Sunday March 19th 2017. There was a plethora of talent and the Adjudicator – Gerard McChrystal (who is Professor of Saxophone at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and also teaches at the RWCMD in Cardiff, and Harrow Boy’s school in London) had a very challenging task in deciding who should be crowned the winners of each category.
The Rotary Young Musician Competition is an annual Rotary event and provides students with the opportunity to excel in their chosen musical area and also gain the precious life skill of performing live in front of an audience. The age groups are 6-10 year olds, 11-13 year olds and 14-17 year olds. Students can either sing or play an instrument.
The Rotary Club of Towcester meets weekly at the Saracen’s head and is always delighted to welcome new members. Please contact: secretary@towcester-rotary.org.uk
