Our club is delighted to be able to support a young and enterprising local cellist on her musical journey. She has been awarded a place in the National Scout and Guide Symphony Orchestra and will take part in a ten day residential course in the summer culminating in three performances in August 2022 in the Midlands, one of which will be in Coventry Cathedral.

On 12 April 2022 our Club met for a meal at the Maekong Thai Restaurant in Worcester Road Bromsgrove where we were hosted by the owners and Rotarians Tony and Mu Docherty. We were delighted to welcome our present Arkwright Scholar Adrian Fok whose interests and ambitions lie in aeronautical engineering. He spoke to members and spoke of some of his experiences and what he is deriving from the Scholarship sponsored by the Club and awarded through the Smallpeice Trust. In particular he spoke in some detail about hopefully viable rockets which he has built of which one is capable of carrying a camera. We wish him well for his forthcoming A Level exams and then progression to university.

The Rotary Club of Bromsgrove is pleased to be working with and supporting a local group of volunteers taking aid to Poland to help displaced Ukrainians. Donations to help fund future trips can be made through our Club or directly to the volunteer group at www.facebook.com/busaruk

Many thanks!

Our Club is delighted to have been able to support emergency repairs to the nave beam of St John’s Church with a grant of £7,000. Press coverage has been given in the both the Bromsgrove Advertiser and Standard newspapers. https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/friends-of-bromsgroves-historic-st-johns-church-beaming-after-grants-see-repair-work-completed/

Friends of St John’s Chairman Jo Slade said everyone was enormously grateful to the Rotary Club of Bromsgrove for their continued support and delighted to be awarded the Council’s Community Grant.

She added, “It was important the work was carried out quickly and that the problem didn’t get any worse. With the age of the original oak beams, and the height at which work was carried out, this was always going to be a costly repair.”

The church has reopened now that the beam is safe.

Rotary Club President Tony Docherty said: “We recognise the importance of St John’s Church to Bromsgrove as a heritage building and as a community asset, and so we were delighted to be able to help with the financing of the nave beam project.”

Rotarians in Bromsgrove have supported the Primrose Hospice in the first week of 2022 with a donation of £1500. We acknowledge the sterling work carried out by our local Hospice and its staff and we recognize that opportunities for normal fundraising activities have been curtailed severely by the ongoing public health situation.

Our Rotary Club is very pleased to be able to support our local Foodbanks again namely the Basement Project, Catshill Baptist Church and New Starts with a donation of £500 each to begin the New Year. As Rotarians we recognize that many people will be struggling to make ends meet after the festive period and given the ongoing problems caused by the public health situation.

Wishing all our members and Friends of Rotary a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year 2022!

It was a great delight to see Ken Pheysey presented with his certificate to celebrate 30 years of service in Rotary at our Christmas party held at the Maekong Thai Restaurant on 8 December. The event was the first time we have sat down together for a meal for a very long time due to the current public health situation, and everyone enjoyed the evening immensely. Very many congratulations to Ken as a role model for ‘Service above Self.’ Pictured left is Ken receiving the certificate from our President John Teece.

Great progress has been made on our joint venture with the Rotary Club of Uttara in Bangladesh, and we are pleased to record that five new family latrines have been built in a rural area using funds supplied by the Rotary Club of Bromsgrove and its members. We are very fortunate to have Rotarian Faisal Sharif as one of our members who has worked hard to make the project a reality and has made the communication process between the two Clubs very simple.