Old Projects
 | Having been a member of Birtley Rotary Club for the last twenty years you may imagine that I am enjoying the whole thing or I wouldn't have stayed around that long. As for projects I can recall two of our members receiving citations from Parliament for the work we did within the club on the Can Collection scheme, earning many thousands of pounds for charity. |
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On another occasion the club sent help to a Rumanian Orphanage, a fully loaded Juggernaut with £72.000 worth of aid which most of the surrounding Rotary Clubs contributed to by collecting items desperately needed at the orphanage. And to add to that, one of the members took his wife and daughter over there following the lorry and stayed a full week dispensing orthopaedic assistance to those children needing it.
Every year at Christmas we deliver 50 to 75 parcels to the elderly or infirm of the community, usually along with a card and our best wishes, it's not really the parcel that brings the tears but the fact that some one cares enough. Also we used to partake in Mock Interviews for potential school leavers and donate time to that invaluable project. Due to PC this is now on the back burner for the time being.
On a regular basis we think up other new projects or ways of collecting cash for various charities and overcharity logos the last year alone have paid out cheques to Marie Curie, 
The Hospice, the Air Ambulance, the Lifeboat Rescue Team. We have presented all the Primary School leavers from the surrounding schools with a specially designed and printed edition of the Dictionary. We donated garden furniture to Lingey House School and presented goal posts to the Friends of Elisabethville community Centre. These and many more but still managing to sponsor deserving young folk in the community with some amazing projects of their own.
Two of our members managed to raise £1500 by doing a wire slide over the Tyne , not a small thing considering one of them suffers from a fear of height. (Even more so now I should think.)
It would take many pages to relate all of the recipients and the many projects we have undertaken but almost any Rotary Club in the world does just as much to help their community and promote international understanding. It may appear a formidable task but we have derived a great deal of fellowship and fun in doing it. Birtley Rotarians have encouraged and entertained speakers from all over the country and beyond to their club dinners. Like them or not they were powerful speakers, e.g. Michael Heseltine, Jeffrey Archer, Leon Brittan the Belgian Ambassador and Dr. David Owen, plus several other politicians. There was Lord John Hall, Lord Brian McKenzie, the Bishop of Durham, and a multitude of other genuine speakers who needed to be heard on the Rotary forum.
On a rare occasion if we have no speaker visiting us we may call upon one of the club members to relate their own tale of woe. (Proving we really do have a good sense of humour.)