Westcliff Rotary Club

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What is Rotary?

Rotary is a volunteer organisation of 1.2 million business and professional leaders united worldwide to provide humanitarian service and to build goodwill and peace. There are about 32,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries top conduct projects to address today’s challenges - including illiteracy, disease, hunger, poverty, lack of clean water and environmental concerns - while encouraging high ethical standards in all actions.

Founded in 1905 in Chicago USA, as the worlds first volunteer service, Rotary as quickly expanded around the globe. Today club members meet weekly to plan service projects, discuss community and international issues, enjoy fellowship and speakers. All clubs are non political and are open to all irrespective of gender, race, creed, culture or religion.

Polio Plus is Rotary’s flagship program. By the time Polio is eradicated, Rotary Club members will have raised and contributed more than $850 million and countless millions of volunteer hours to immunise more than 2 billion children in more than 122 countries.

And what about Westcliff Rotary?

Well we raise, on average, £20,000 per year for local, national and international charities. Our main fund raising event is our Pop Concert, held each July. We also collect at Tesco one weekend before Christmas, collect door to door with our sleigh, set and run events (pamper evenings, Choir concerts and Golf Days).

Our money goes to a number of different charities that have included in the past (and we are always looking for more) :-

Locally - Southend Hospital, St Martins Care Home (Southend), Balmoral Centre (Westcliff), Havens and Little Havens, St Christopher’s School and Southend Hospital Radio.

Internationally – Burma flood relief, Tsunami relief, Australia Fire relief, Mercy Ships and Polio Plus.

But that’s not all! We also provide help for projects; St Martins Care home we helped paint, we have worked on Gardens for people, taken part in Kids Out, provided helpers for St Christopher’s School.

Finally we also have fellowship - that is fun together with events like a Treasure Hunt, Pub night, Christmas Dinner and games evenings.

Rotary International is a global network of service volunteers. It is the world’s largest service organisation for business and professional people, with some 1,210,905 members operating in 168 countries world-wide.

There are some 58,000 Rotarians in Great Britain and Ireland in 1,845 clubs, helping those in need and working towards world understanding and peace. Its a fulfilling role, and Rotarians can get involved as much or as little as their time will allow.

But there is much more. Clubs meet on a regular basis, which allows members to build firm friendships. Every Rotarian has a right to attend any Club meeting anywhere in the world, so there is always somewhere to go, and people to meet, wherever business or leisure travel may take you.

Various Clubs have different emphases, which can reflect differences in size. A small market town may have a Club of perhaps 20 members, whereas in large centres the number can be closer to 100. Some concentrate on local community or vocational projects. Others link up with a sister club in another country to undertake an international project. Each Club decides how it wants to use the resources it has available