Snow Rotary 2023

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Madonna di Campiglio in the Dolomites was Snow Rotary’s 2023 destination and what a good choice it was! Wall to wall sunshine throughout plus good snow conditions ensured a happy time for both walkers and skiers. Walkers Three (as they came to be known) meticulous walk planning enabled them to explore most of the area’s winter walking trails; including mastering local bus routes for maximum flexibility. Skiers Four happily hurled themselves, in some style, down the resort’s myriad of blue, red and black ski runs. Come the evening, the day’s adventures were recounted (and probably embellished) in the hotel bar and excellent restaurant. This year there was none of the nonsense of “early nights”! The party managed to keep going to 9:45 pm on several occasions (10:00 pm once) thanks to some excellent card and dice games. As has become the tradition skiers and walkers met on the penultimate snow day. for a lovely late lunch. Indeed a happy and fulfilling trip. No significant injuries either!

It’s likely there will be a Snow Rotary 2024 – why not join us!

Brue Valley ride to the rescue

MHA Live at Home having been granted an exit collection at Wincanton race course were faced with a dilemma since the collection clashed with their own weekly event serving the isolated in Wincanton.

Faced with such a situation “who you go-na call?” – Brue Valley Rotary – of course!

Thus, we spent a rather cold couple of hours at the exit gates of the race course rattling the MHA buckets.

If a museum is worth visiting….

…it is worth visiting time and again.

And so it was with the new Wincanton Museum – team Brue Valley returned for a second trip to continue the decorating started last week.

Once again our efforts were much appreciated.

Whilst there are no exhibits yet on display, one or two relics were to be found….

Rotarians paint the museum white

On Wednesday, 25 January 2023, three Brue Valley Rotarians descended on the new site of the Wincanton Museum:

There we were met by Chris Forester who had been doing the preparative work ready for us to arm ourselves with paint brushes and rollers and set about transforming the previously vacant premises:

In true Rotarian style, time was found for a tea break kindly provided by Chris:

Now for the bad news – we were only able to get the first coat of paint on the walls and woodwork leaving us with the difficult decision: do we go back or leave it all for Chris to do single handedly? An RSVP will follow!!!

This is what it looked like as we left – which I assure you is very different to the look when we arrived!:

Foundation Race Night

On Saturday, 21 January 2023 we teamed up with our fellow Rotarians from Yeovil to host a race night raising funds for Rotary Foundation.

The well oiled machinery rolled into East Coker for the event, whereupon the new up-rated projector was revealed, plugged in and, some 15 minutes later, unplugged to be replaced by the old faithful Benq! Another projector now to be returned to the vendor and back to the drawing board.

An enjoyable night was had by all (we won’t make mention of the the jokes employed to fill a hole left by a frozen DVD – oh, sorry, I just did!) and over £1,000 was raised for Rotary Foundation.

Loud & Lusty

The event was promoted as a”let your hair down” post-Christmas Christmas meal for the wider Brue Valley Rotary family where other halves, children and other hangers-on were very welcome. Having said that the afternoon commenced inauspiciously with just three of the seventeen registered pre-meal walkers reporting for duty. This dereliction of duty will be the subject of a far reaching Presidential enquiry. Subject to this it can be fairly said the event was true to form including much loud and lusty choral contributions from those who it probably best not to name. Suffice it to say the songs from Abba, Elvis and many more were sung with gusto. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” though proved a bit of a vocal challenge. The balloons performed aeronautic antics to the background of party poppers and a visit from the President of Kingston-upon-Thames Rotary (who said a very few words) was the icing on the cake of another successful Brue Valley Rotary post-Christmas Christmas. RW