Andrew Davies the President of Brue Valley Rotary Club and humble Rotation Chris Ringrow spent a couple of very pleasant socially distanced hours helping to clear the paths of vegetation overhanging the paths.
The areas cleared by Andrew and Chris are shown in orange on the map below.
After two hours of weeding and pruning Andrew and Chris retired to Chris’s garden for a well deserved beer.
The Aasraa trust works towards empowering street and slum children through education, vocational training, nutrition, medical care and providing shelter homes. https://aasraatrust.org/
Assaraa sent the following message to the Rotary Club of Brue Valley:
Thank you for your compassionate and generous donation to Aasraa. With your magnanimous support, we will continue our work for the empowerment of marginalized special needs children with greater capacity and resources.
It will be utilised towards providing Teaching Learning materials, games equipment, play balls etc to the special needs children.
Amidst the pandemic, all our education centres are closed, and the children are learning through online classes. As virtual learning is not effective with children with Special needs, our special needs educators are visiting Shelter home as well as homes of differently-abled children to reinforce daily activities/tasks amongst them.
The staff from our special needs center, armed with appropriate worksheets, are visiting children to ascertain their condition/health & to personally instruct their parents/Aasraa’s warden on the way forward.
With the help of generous donors, such as yourself, we are raising our children with special care & guidance. They have grown out of their shell and have become more self-reliant.
We, and the children we serve, sincerely appreciate your generosity.
The meteorological signs on the evening of 23rd July were not auspicious. Nevertheless 13 committed members and friends gathered, socially distanced, at Castle Cary Primary School for a pleasant Simple Summer Stroll. The hair was longer, so one or two recognition problems it being the first physical “meeting ” for over four months. There was happy banter and chat prior to the 18:25 prompt departures of the two two socially distanced groups. Despite one or two initial problems we completed the almost three mile circular walk to the north west of Castle Cary in impressive style, and indeed pace. As is the way of things the inauspicious clouds released in much precipitation during the last ten minutes. Morale was not affected and remained high despite the bedraggled groups deciding to give the planned refreshments in the Millennium Wood a miss. A very happy evening despite that. No pictures due to bad light !
This year’s socially distanced Presidential handover of club regalia – Covid19 style 
. Andrew Davies took over the mantle of Club President from the 1st July with Elizabeth Stokes as President Elect with Outgoing President Mike Kew.
The Rotary Clubs of Brue Valley and Zanzibar – Stone Town have joined forces to raise funds for a project to provide ‘Taps and Toilets’ for a school and villagers in Kitogani Village in Zanzibar.
For the people of Kitogani it takes many hours and back-breaking effort to get water where it is needed – hours of queueing at a pump only on for a short period each day and very unreliable; miles of carrying jerry cans (weighing 20 kgs each when full) on your head, or several precariously balanced on a bike or in a wheelbarrow; tipping water into buckets outside the dilapidated long-drop toilets for hand washing, or to try and keep the toilets clean. Then there’s clothes washing and keeping yourself clean and, the next day, it all starts again, and the day after that, and the day after that…
The lack of easy hygiene is difficult at the best of times – people are more likely to suffer from diseases and students drop out to take care of siblings; the women in the community bear most of the burden of water collection and girls often stop attending classes because getting water takes priority; reaching puberty often has the same result because of the lack of private, hygienic toilets that preserve their dignity. But faced with a virus against which our only weapon is scrupulous hygiene, the teachers, students and villagers of Kitogani are desperate to get running water and proper toilets. Haji, a teacher at the Teachers’ Training Centre, is ready to manage the building project but needs your help to make it happen.
For further details on this project see Taps_and_Toilets_In_Zanzibar
To make a donation please see Taps_and_Toilets_Fund_Raising
Covid hand washing station
Like most clubs and organisations, Brue Valley Rotary Club holds an annual general meeting when officers for the forthcoming year are chosen. For us, an important role to be filled is that of president. Taking up this post, on 1st July, 2020, will be Andrew Davies.
Trained as a chartered accountant and having spent his early career in London, Andrew arrived in Bruton in 1989. He soon became involved with the fund-raising and charitable activities of Shepton Mallet Round Table. As a founder member of Brue Valley Rotary Club in 2010, he has used his accountancy skills to be our treasurer for three years and to act as a trustee for our Trust Fund and also of the charity organising the highly successful annual Classic and Supercar Show at Sherborne Castle.
Andrew has many interests including skiing, cycling, running, table tennis and singing with the Bruton Choral Society. Besides helping the club, he has participated in his own fund- raising ventures which, last year, including running the Yeovil Half Marathon and cycling the Prudential Ride London 100 to support Breast Cancer Now.
In 2013, together with four other club members, he travelled to India to act as an ambassador for Rotary and to assist the medical staff on their National Immunisation Day, a project where 172 million children are vaccinated in one day in an attempt to keep India free of polio.
As the club’s international officer for several years, Andrew organised yearly concerts in our local towns to raise funds for the Trussell Trust who were setting up the ‘House of Opportunity’, a home in Bulgaria where young people on leaving their orphanages could develop life skills and their independence. Local bands and choirs including the Wincanton Silver Band, the Bruton Choral Society, the Wincanton Choral Society, the Pilgrim Singers and many performers from our schools in Bruton, Castle Cary, and Wincanton all contributed to these performances.
There is no doubt that, under the current restrictions forced upon us by the corona virus pandemic, it will be difficult to plan future fund raising events and, without this, to support local charities as we would wish. However, Andrew Davies with his experience and energy will be the person to guide and re-invigorate us through the next year.
If you think that you would like to join our Rotary Club or you would like more information, please visit www.bruevalleyrotary.org or give me, (Roger Lowe) a call on 01963 34965 or Sally Hoadley on 01963 33335.
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