All Change…… Again!

Each year members of Rotary have the opportunity to take on a role in the club. From Secretary, to Social Media, and from to Public Image Lead. There are many roles and not all clubs are able to share them equally.

At Abergele, we do a lot to raise funds for organisations, we do what we can in the community frmo the In Care event to the Christmas Santa and Float, collections for disaster appeals and for local charities.

But at the core of everything are our members, without our members and the roles they volunteer for each year, without their time and consideration, we would not exist.

This year it is to me, that falls the honour of taking the role of President at Abergele Rotary Club and last night the Mayor of Abergele, Cllr Tracey Brennan kindly did the honours by hanging me, sorry on me,  the chain of office.

Unfortunately, the new Vice President was unable to attend, and so Di-anne Hogg will receive her badge of office at our next meeting.

The role of President is often seen as just charing the meetings, but the club President has the opportunity to direcft the club in a way they see beneficial. So what are my intentions for 2025/26?

First of all, I was to grow our membership, as a small club we have been told many times that we over perform, something we are all very proud of. But, if the club is to survive, we must grow.

None of us are getting any younger and many of us have health issues, but we try to never let these things get in our way.

 

So how can we, as a club grow?

Recruiting members has long been a challenge, not just for us, but it seems that Rotary as a whole is seeing this challenge globally. Oh, didn’t you know? Abergele Rotary is just one small club that forms part of Rotary International. As a Rotary member, there is barely a community on earth that doesn’t have a nearby Rotary Club where you, as a member, can visit.

One way we want to grow the club is to be more flexible and to allow people to see that we are not all business owners, we are not all retired either. Like almost any type of club in the UK we come frmo all walks of life, IT, Accounting, Printing, Medical and yes retired people as well. There is no specific entry requirement for Rotary other than being a person of good standing who wishes to give a couple of hours a month (if they can) to help the community benefit.

Thanks to the work of my predecessor Mark Davies, the Treasurer Joanne Davies and the club in general, we will be holding future meetings in the Abergele Community Centre which is great news. For many years, the club has been forced to have meetings outside of the area due to the lack of suitable and affordable premesis that we could use. We hope that having greater visability in Abergele will increase membership. With that said, we must thank Llandullas Royal British Legion for their kindness and support in the past year.

How has the Community and the World benefitted from Abergele Rotary?

You may see Rotarians more often than you think, we are one of the most active groups collecting in Tesco Abergele, in the year 2024/25 collecting for groups such as The Poppy Appeal, Marie Currie and others, Abergele Rotary has collected over £11,000 all thanks to the kind and generous people of the town. Every penny that is given helps those less fortunate than ourselves. So a big THANK YOU, to the people of Abergele and also to Tesco Abergele, who allow us to collect on their site.

We have also given money to Ukraine, Syria and many other regions of the world that have experienced conflict and pain, be that pain natural disasters or the pain inflicted by others. In our local community Abergele Rotary has donated over £800 to the foodbank in Pensarn, but most of all, we have given our time and money to for Rotary and Peace the World over.

Other Changes

Now, at the start I used the heading All Change, and indeed it is. My previous role of Club Secretary has passed to Mark Jones as you can see below:

Mark helps the club with many other things and does in fact provide support via the clubs Facebook account.

The task of miniting the clubs meetings is one that does take some time, the minutes are a reflection of what we have discussed in the meetings but more importantly, they remind members of what they agreed to help with (he wrote with a chuckle).

It is amazing how much time it can take transcribing your notes as any club secretary knows.

At the meeting last night, our host was also the recipient of a certificate that had been missing for a little while. Dr. David Gozzard received his certificate for 30 years of servic e to Rotary and the Community.

He is now one of 2 such certificate holders in our club, this really does demonstrate the kindness and generousity of busy people. Although David is retired these days, his service covers many years when he was already busy serving his community.

You really can’t keep a good man down.

Can you give oner or 2 hours a month?

There are about 31,536,000 seconds in a year, that is 525,600 minutes or 8,760 hours in a common year (not a leap year).

The average person sleeps 2,278 hours of the year and works for just under 2,000 hours a year totalling 4,278 hours out of that 8,760 hours.

That leaves 4,482 hours free time.

Can you spare 12 hours a year to help YOUR community to develop and become a more positive and caring one in YOUR TOWN, Abergele?

If you have children then you have an even bigger reason to join us and shape the community in ways that will benefit them and your grandchildren.

You can drop us a line and ask about learning more by clicking HERE, or you can just volunteer some of your time to help at a collection or in a project by visiting Friends of Abergele Rotary.

 

I look forward to working with you in 2025 and 2026.

 

Steve Richards