Donations were made to several charities at the Age Concern Day Centre in Gravesend on 3rd December. The cheques were presented by the Mayor of Gravesham Cllr John Caller. The other man with a chain round his neck, but a brighter jacket, is club president John Baker. The money came from the Club’s annual sponsored On Your Bike cycle ride in April. Later, on the 8th December, EllenorLions Hospices’ chief executive, Claire Cardy, was presented with a cheque for £7,000.
Past president Peter Torres and Marion for the British Legion were selling poppies in Gravesend Asda with Rotarian Chris Keeble.
“The response from the public was superb and we hope to beat the £7000 raised last year” said Peter.
Young Archie Munns at 5 weeks old didn’t know he was probably the youngest one wearing a poppy in the town.
Bob Denby
Rotary clubs in the Southeast have supported the rev Ken Berkin who has been helping orphans in the Ugandan township of Kigezi for several years.
Recently our club gave him £600 towards building a clinic and on October 6th 2014 Ken visited our club with Rachel Harris his chairman of trustees to tell us of the latest developments in its construction and show us how our contribution had been spent.
Kigezi is in an area known as Little Switzerland and lies “beyond the tarmac” way out in the bush at the western end of the African Rift Valley.
Southeast Rotary club’s support is helping Ken’s charity “The Friends of Kigezi” who have worked tirelessly to bring water, education and sanitation to the local families and children in temperatures of up to 42 degrees.
The photos show the clinic building and our president John Baker with the rev K Berkin
Bob Denby
The Rotary Club of Gravesend is part of district 1120 which includes all of Kent , part of Sussex and (recently) Gibraltar. To keep in touch with clubs and their members the District governor, Martin Williams, visits all 85 clubs in the district and the photograph shows him(on the left) with our president John Baker during his recent visit to Gravesend.
The theme of this years photographic competition was ” What I like about Gravesend” and was open to all the infant and junior schools in Gravesham.
On Monday July 4th the Mayor of Gravesend Councillor John Caller with the Mayoress Sue Caller welcomed the winners to the Mayor’s parlour in the Civic Centre and awarded the prizes.
The children told the Mayor what had attracted them to their particular subject and how they had composed their picture.
The Mayor said “how encouraging it is to see the younger generation taking an interest in their local environment. Gravesend and its multicultural society has so much to offer to so many people. All children who took part in the competition are to be congratulated and hopefully next year there will be even more entries..”
He thanked Rotary for organising the competition and for the many ways it served society.
Bob Denby