Service Projects

Ref:0001

Aims: For the members of the club to provide the content of an Aquabox as a first charitable activity

Ref:0002

Aims: To raise funds for Odyssey through charity casino tables at our club's charter night celebrations. The event raised £650

Ref:0003

Our club is part of District 1120 and this year they organised a large 'Fun Day' held at the Detling Showground near Maidstone. Even though our club was just forming we played our part, setting up and running a stand with two Wii games consoles. The money raised from our stand went to Odyssey, a charity that enhances the quality of life for people with cancer through imaginative programs of challenging and dramatic activities using the outdoors. Read more about the fun day here We raised £163 on the day.

Ref:0004

Aim: To collect donations to be sent to Eastern Europe (Clothes, bikes...). Collected at a central location and given to BHA in one lot.

Ref:0005

Aim: Raise funds for the Sea Cadets' new building in Canterbury, increase fellowship between the different service clubs in Canterbury (Canterbury Lyons, 41 Club, Canterbury Round Table, Soroptimist, Rotary Clubs of; Canterbury, Canterbury Forest of Blean and Canterbury Sunrise)

Our club formed just in time to join in with this event, a cocktail party held at the Canterbury Cricket ground. In total £4,830 was raised from ticket sales and an auction.

Ref:0010

Playing for Success Kent helps give the children of Kent the best chance in life. The initiative is targeted on those children who are not achieving their full potential. The charity helps young people improve their self esteem, motivation, numeracy and literary skills using the medium of sport. A Rotary grant enabled the charity to run its first ever Sports Leaders? Young Leaders Award programme for 16 children aged between 9 and 13. This two day programme has been developed by the charity the British Sports Trust as part of their Sports Leaders ? "Pass it on" programme. In highly practical and fun sessions the Award participants acquire valuable leadership and life skills. They study the role of leaders in history. Then learn the key skills of how to develop empathy with their team and 'lead from the front'. A key feature of the Award is "Pass it on". The Award participants learn how to develop leadership, team working and communication skills in others as well as raising the self motivation and self esteem of each team member. The programme also raises the self confidence of youngsters and inculcates in them a willingness to volunteer and take responsibility for helping others. They gain an invaluable insight into how best to communicate with others, work with them and inspire them to give of their best. The whole focus of the Award is "Pass it on". Through this one course hundreds of Kent children will potentially benefit. The participants were then able to go back into their schools and lead simple sports activities, under the supervision of an adult, during playtimes and lunch breaks. Such activities help to enhance the motivation, self esteem, communication and empathy of those to whom the skills are "passed on" as well as the Award participants. Also becoming involved in sports is proven to increase feelings of well being and help prevent obesity.

Ref:0012

The club held an extremely successful garden and games party on Sunday 5 July at the home of John and Penny Morgan in Kingston with the full proceeds of £2,240 going to Clic Sargent charity, with some donations still coming in which will increase this figure. Clic Sargent (cancer and leukaemia in children) has one simple aim: to ease the burden of childhood cancer on children, young people and their families. Around 150 guests enjoyed the delights of the garden, participating in croquet, boules, table tennis, badminton, garden chess, swimming in the pool or just relaxing with a Pimms Live music was provided by Emily Yates, one of our younger members who played the keyboard and sang most of the afternoon. The party was catered for by a combination of food supplied by Azuma restaurant and John cooking sausages, potato salad etc. John and Penny would particularly like to thank the people who could not attaend the party but sent generous donations for Clic Sargent as well as all the Rotarians who helped on the day taking the cash at the gate, serving food and drinks and cleaning up at the end of the day. We chose Clic sargent as the benefiting charity as in January this year Penny's seven year old niece Caitlyn was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, having previously complained abut a sore knee. Since then she has been having extensive chemotherapy at the Royal Marsend Hospital followed invariably by blood tranfusions at the William Harvey hospital. She is in hospital for two weeks out of every three and her operations to replace her thigh bone and hip joint were carried out recently at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore. She will need chemotherapy for another six months after the operation. All in all a very sad case for a stunning young girl who has a wonderful character, heaps of courage and is highly intelligent.

Ref:0014

Aim: to raise funds for the club charitable trust fund, by collecting unwanted bric-a-brac and taking them to be sold at a Boot Fair Raised: £200.15

Ref:0015

Aim: collect equipment left behind by vFestival campers and distribute to local youth groups Festival goers to the vFestival in chelmsford leave behind a lot of tents and other things every year. The local Rotary District 1240 invited clubs from other districts to help collect these things to distribute to their own local good causes. Rather than just Rotarians go from our club, we went with a group of Air Cadets and a group of scouts too. Depending on amount collected distribution of the tents would be primarily to Air Cadet and Scout groups, after that any other suitable group we can find. In all, around 50 tents were collected along with a similar number of camping chairs. After the Air Cadets and Scouts had taken tents useful to them, surplus tents were donated to a local Guide pack and Sea Cadet unit.

Ref:0017

For our first Christmas (Christmas 2008) as a new club, we joined with the local Canterbury Lions club and collected donations door to door with their Santa Claus Float. Over two nights, £450 was raised which is being split equally between the two clubs charitable trust funds.

Ref:0018

Sometimes the best thing for our Rotary club is to do is organise and event. Sometimes the best thing we can do is roll our sleeves up and get involved, providing Rotarian man and woman power to acheive a 'good thing'. The cathederal that forms our club's venue and prominantly features on our club logo is in dire need of repair. Over the next few years £50 million will be needed to repair hundreds of years of wear.

A campaign is underway to "Save Canterbury Cathederal" and one of the methods of raising the funds is the raffle of a new Mini donated by local company Barretts. Raffle tickets don't sell themselves though, so club members volunteered to sell raffle tickets in Canterbury's Whitefriars shopping area.

Despite periods of heavy november rain, £450 worth of tickets were sold over the two days

Ref:0019

The Rotary Club of Canterbury Sunrise recently found out about a local lady recovering from Breast Cancer. The lady continues to work in her job with people locally, making ends meet to support her family. The advice of her cancer specialists has been to rest her arm but having no washing machine at home and having a relatively low income has given her little choice.

Golfers from the Rotary Club recently won £100 and have decided to use this, with additional funds from the Rotary Club's Charitable Trust Fund, to provide a washing machine.

Ref:0021

This day was organised to teach essential campcraft skills to young people, including navigation, first aid, using camping stoves and other related skills. The day ran on Saturday the 14th March. Pictures and more information will be here soon.

Ref:0023

The Rotary Club of Canterbury Sunrise and Canterbury Lions Club have been enjoying a spectacular success entertaining children as well as parents with their annual Santa float this year. The float is actually a sleigh, completely rebuilt by club members this year, and is mounted on a trailer towed by a four wheel drive vehicle kindly loaned by Barretts of Canterbury. The sleigh is lit up like a Christmas tree and incorporates a pa system playing Christmas carols.

The first evening’s entertainment was on 1 December and by the last evening on 17 December the sleigh will have completed thirteen routes from 6.15 PM to 8.30 PM each night. Rotary Sunrise Members have manned it on the first nine nights and Lions members the last four. The routes covered were Sturry Road, Spring Lane, Thannington, Chartham, Barton Road Estate, Bridge, London Road Estate, Forty Acres Road area, Salisbury Road area, South Canterbury, Rough Common, St Stephens and Whitstable Road area.

All the routes were leafleted beforehand mostly by Sunrise members and by student volunteers from the University of Kent and Christ Church University. With this advance notice children have been flocking out of their houses to see Santa and collect their sweets. At the same time members of the clubs have been collecting donations door to door from the parents to support the various charities sponsored by these two clubs. We will expect to have collected around £3,500.00 in total which will go to the benefit of both the eradication of polio worldwide as well as worthwhile local causes.

Households have been very generous with their donations and the best night so far was one of the nights when it was pouring with rain and it was obvious that the parents felt very sorry for the bedraggled team of collectors. There has been an internal competition amongst the various teams as to which route donated the most appreciated give to Santa and so far it was a nice cold beer to ease his hoarse throat.

Photo: Jason Dodd

Ref:0024

One part of the object of Rotary refers to Vocational Service, the opportunity for members to share their vocational skills to benefit others. Two of our members organised an evening at the University of Kent giving us the chance to carry out some experiements and learn about the science behind them. We were all succesfull in extracting iron from breakfast cereal though only 25% of those attending were able to successful extract and sequence their DNA

Ref:0026

Following on from a previously successful night, we've booked the Black Robin in Kingston for 50 three course meals. The pub have agreed to a special price of £17.50 for a three course meal of which £5 will go directly towards providing a Shelterbox. There will be a short presentation given on how Shelterboxes improved life in Italy after the recent earthquakes and Rotarian Gary Robinson is putting together a fun quiz. Update: Another succesful evening, raising enough for a whole Shelterbox.

Ref:0029

On 16th July 2009 Richard Davis' wife Pauline took part in Antony Gormley's art project 'One & Other ' on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Between 8-9 a.m. Pauline completed a sponsored 'Sketch a Minute', raising over £500 for the Rotary charity Shelterbox. The Idea of the project is that a different person occupied the plinth for every hour of the day and night for 100 days starting from 6th July. The acrhive file of Pauline's stint on the plinth can be viewed on http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/pp

Pauline wishes to thank all her sponsers and supporters

Ref:0030

Valerie organised an African themed meal at her home as a method to raise funds for the Tagona Orphanage in Zimbabwe. Dishes representing the local meals in Senegal, Sudan and Ghana were served to 42 people. The event raised £400

Update April 2010
Locardia who runs the orphanage sent us a card to say the money was divided in two. Half the money went towards Christmas presents for the children's Christmas celebrations and the other half will go towards a chicken project which she hopes to start to sustain the orphanage.

She sends her gratitude to all who supported the effort saying "together we make a difference, no matter how small - let's walk together"

Ref:0034

The Rotary Club of Canterbury Sunrise had the privilege of organising the annual Neighbours Cup golf competition this year, a consequence of winning the event in 2008.

The Neighbours Cup has been running for around 50 years and is open to teams from rotary clubs in the east Kent district. This year the event was played on the 10th November at Boughton Golf Club, with a total of nine teams entered that were drawn from six different rotary clubs. All players enjoyed the course, which was in superb condition given the time of year and further from ideal (dry!) weather conditions.

The Canterbury Sunrise team of Jarle Tatt, Martin Warren Gary Robinson put up a spirited defence of their title, coming a close second to the winners, Folkestone A (Peter Bailey, Mike Simmonds, Steve Jones and Geoff Milstead). Furthermore, Jarle Tatt came second in the individual competition (The Dover Cup) with 39 points, being only narrowly pipped by Mike Simmonds with 41 points. Minor prizes were given to John Reid (Thanet B) for nearest the pin and Martin Warren for the longest drive. The players all enjoyed a fellowship meal afterwards and now look forward to playing in Folkestone next year.

The event also helped to raise over £380, which was presented to the District Governor for his chosen Water Aid charity.

Ref:0037

Summer Cycling season has begun with two of our fittest members taking part in the 70 mile Pilgrims Hospice sponsored cycle ride between their three hospices. Leaving early from Ashford they arrived in Canterbury in time to see 6 other members, along with their friends and families, preparing themselves for the 15 mile Canterbury to Whistable sponsored ride.

The 70 mile route travelled from the Pilgrims hospice in Ashford to the main hospice based in Canterbury and then continued towards the coast and a not so sunny Margate. The 15 mile route followed the 'Crab and Winkle Way', part of the national cycle route network that follows a disused railway line uphill out of Canterbury then downhill towards the well known seaside town.