60 Years of The Rotary Club of Andover
Honoured Guests, Fellow Rotarians, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honoured to address you this evening on the 60th Anniversary of the formation of The Rotary Club of Andover.
On the evening of Wednesday 23rd November 1949 the Club was granted it’s Charter – I should mention in passing that I was about to celebrate my 2nd birthday!
The meeting was held at the TA Centre in East Street and there were 27 members present made up of 4 Charter Members, 6 Council Members and 17 ordinary members. In total 150 guests attended. The charter was handed over by Rotarian Bill Read of No. 11 District and as the meal had just finished and Bill stood up to begin his delivery all of the lights failed. He continued by candle-light supported by a pressure lamp.
During that same month Andover Round Table was formed and the following year the Andover Inner Wheel Club met for the first time. Sixty years on and today we have 38 members with an average age of (wait for it) 69.71 increasing by the minute as we speak. I am pleased to say that the average age of the last 4 members in-ducted is 58.5 – so perhaps youth beckons!
I shall now summarise briefly, as best one can, the club’s achievements since 1949.
First locally and second internationally. Our hospice, The Countess of Brecknock, has received £53,000. Others are numerous but include for example Andover Young Carers, Naomi House, Icknield School and Andover Shopmobility. Internationally, £35,000 was raised five years ago for the Asia Tsunami Appeal.
Key in all of this is the Rotary Foundation, the Movement’s own charity. We have contributed nearly £30,000 over the last 20 years. In 1949/50 total funds raised came to £10.14.6d. Three guineas of that went to “The British Friendship of Greece Association”. In the first decade a total of £859 was raised. Inflation is clearly reflected when comparing our having raised £256,000 in the last 20 years.
So much for the figures!
A word or two further on Foundation is apposite! It is funded voluntarily by contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation. Monies raised are spent in support of humanitarian, educational and cultural programmes and their operations throughout the world.
The Rotary Foundation’s most ambitious project has been Polio Plus, a campaign to help the World Health Organisation and UNI-CEF immunise the planet’s children against polio. Since 1985 Rotarians across the world have raised well over $700 million and helped to reduce the countries in which polio is endemic from 126 to just 4. Grants and scholarships form part of the Foundation’s output, enabling young people to visit and study in other countries.
Andover is closely involved with the Rotary Group Study Exchange, hosting latterly young professionals from North America, Argentina and India. We sent a young lady from here to Argentina for a month this year. In common with the Rotary Movement as a whole, since its birth the Club has supported people worldwide. Since 1981 we have been involved with Voluntary Service Overseas, sending young professionals to improve the lives of so many souls and since 2000, 91 shelter and 54 aqua boxes have been delivered to various disaster areas around the world.
A “Youth Speaks” competition is held annually for local pupils to develop their oratory skills, build confidence and progress on to contest at higher levels of achievement. In harness with this is Rotary Youth Leadership Awards weekends in the New Forest. Youth effort is augmented further with a highly successful Young Chef competition. This is for pupils from Andover secondary schools.
In concluding, I hope to have imparted a clear impression of what the aims of the Club have been and continue to be.
In looking to the next sixty years we are determined to increase our membership in a world that has lessened its outlook on service. We hope to find new and effective methods of reaching out to the peoples of this fragile planet and to strive for skilful communication and thus enlarge understandings of one another.
David Moulton
President 2009 - 2010
This speech was made by on 23rd November 2009 as part of the evening of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Rotary Club of Andover.
