Visit out new website

We've retired this blog and will no longer be updating it but there are still lots of ways that you can keep up to date with the activities of Tettenhall Rotary Club:

Join Us - there's no better way to keep in touch with what's going on than by taking part yourself and we'd love to welcome you either as a Club member or volunteer

Visit our new website at www.tettenhallrotary.org.uk

Follow our social media accounts on:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TettenhallRotary/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tettenhallrotary/

Threads - @tettenhallrotary@threads.net

Twitter - we're @TettRotary - https://twitter.com/TettRotary

Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/tettrotary/

Supporting the Good Shepherd

We’ve pledged £1,000 to the Good Shepherd, as part of the Big Give Christmas Challenge.

The Christmas Challenge is the UK’s biggest match-funded campaign and over seven days starting on the 28th November supporters of participating charities have the opportunity to double their donations – doubling the value of our pledge to £2,000.

The Brothers of the Good Shepherd have been supporting the most disadvantaged people in Wolverhampton for over 50 years in their mission to end homelessness, support recovery, and create pathways out of poverty. 

The charity provides a range of services to people in need, including food and clothing banks, homelessness prevention services, and support for people with mental health problems. The donation from the Rotary Club of Tettenhall will help Good Shepherd to continue providing these vital services to our community.

Good Shepherd need to raise pledges of at least £3,000 by the 1st September in order to take part in this years Big Give so please follow the link to pledge a minimum £100 to help them – https://community.biggive.org/s/pledge?campaignId=a056900002RGLO5AAP

Great Job Dicky

We’re proud to see Club member Dicky Dodd receiving recognition for the tremendous work which he does with The Haven Wolverhampton and with other local good causes.

Dicky was nominated for the Unsung Hero Award at the Wolverhampton BID Excellence Awards and was Highly Commended for his work by the judging panel. Thank you to all of the team at The Haven who put Dicky’s name forward and many congratulations to all of the nominees and award winners.

End of Term Gifts

As the school year comes to an end we’ll be visiting school assemblies at the Royal, Claregate, St Michael’s, Palmers Cross, St Andrew’s and Woodthorne Primary Schools to present leaving classes with Dictionaries as part of the Rotary Dictionaries 4 Life programme.

Promoting literacy is one of Rotary’s main causes due to the massive impact it has in improving children’s opportunities in life and strengthening the communities they live in.

Since the Dictionaries 4 Life project started over one million dictionaries have been donated to children by Rotary Clubs around the country.

Supporting Education in The Gambia

Earlier this year we heard from some of The Royal School students who have been supporting the work of Project Gambia, a UK based charity which has been working in The Gambia since 2007 to build and repair schools, to provide scholarships and equipment to help children from poor families attend school and to provide teachers with training and support.

Fundraising by the students as part of the school’s Lenten appeal has enabled the charity to complete building work on new premises for Omega Nursery School, a small school which is giving 194 poorer children in the Serrekunda area of The Gambia an opportunity to attend school.

The Royal students visited Omega School earlier this year to see for themselves the progress that had been made and during the visit helped to decorate classrooms and distributed equipment to the pupils as well as having the opportunity to hear how important their school was to them.

We were all impressed by the commitment of the Royal School students and with the work of Project Gambia helping to provide Gambians with better opportunities in life. We’ve now made a donation of £1,000 to help the charity with their work and this has been match funded by a further donation of £1,000 from one of our Club members.

You can find out more at - www.projectgambia.org.uk

Tettenhall Rotary Club Donates £1,000 to Birch Thompson Memorial Fund

The Rotary Club of Tettenhall has donated £1,000 to the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund to help support the fund's work in maintaining and developing Gelliwig, a residential centre in Porthmadog, North Wales which offers low cost residential accommodation for young people from Wolverhampton and the wider West Midlands.

Gelliwig has long been a popular destination for school groups, youth groups, and other organisations from Wolverhampton and its a great base for activities such as hiking, canoeing and rock climbing.

The Birch Thompson Memorial Fund was formed in 1981 in tribute to Colton Hill School teachers Graham Birch and John Thompson, who both died in 1980, and has helped thousands of young people to develop their skills and talents and to experience the outdoors. The importance of the Funds work was recognised with the award of the prestigious Queens Award for Voluntary Service in 2020.

The £1,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Tettenhall will help the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund to continue its work in supporting Gelliwig. The money will be used to refurbish an external paly area for the use of the young people who visit Gelliwig each year.

If you would like to find out more about the Birch Thompson Memorial Fund and its work at Gelliwig visit their website at www.gelliwig.org.uk

The Royal School Interact Club Raises over £1,800 for Turkey/Syria Earthquake Relief

We’re looking forward to welcoming members of The Royal School Interact Club to our meeting on Monday. Their Club recently raised £1801.25 for the Turkey/Syria Earthquake relief through a “Wear your own clothes” day and by making and selling Valentines cards at the school. The fundraising events were a great success, with students from all year groups coming together to show their support for the victims of the earthquake.

The Royal School Interact Club is a group of students who are passionate about making a difference in the world. They are always looking for ways to help others, and were eager to do something to help the victims of the Turkey/Syria Earthquake - with the money that they raised helping the British Red Cross to provide relief to those who have been affected by the earthquake.

Interact is a youth organization affiliated with Rotary which aims to encourage young people to develop leadership skills and to participate in service projects for the benefit of their communities. The Royal School Interact Club is one of over 14,000 Interact Clubs worldwide with members meeting every week to discuss service projects and to plan events and its a great example of how young people can make a difference in the world – contact us to find out more about how your school can make a difference in the world with Interact 

Wolverhampton Young Citizen 2023

Nominations are now open for the Wolverhampton Young Citizen of the Year awards 2023, which recognise the achievements of young people aged between 13 and 25 who live or go to school or work in Wolverhampton.

Mel Eves with last year’s finalist Emma Falconer and Wolves defender Max Kilman
Photo credit - Express and Star

This years awards were launched by former Wolves player Mel Eves who is encouraging everyone in the city to recognise those young people who have gone the extra mile and whose personal courage, care for others, achievement or contribution to the community should be recognised and celebrated.

Anyone can nominate a young person for the award – just visit www.wolverhamptonyoungcitizen.org.uk and complete the online nomination form.

The awards were devised and are sponsored by the City’s four Rotary Clubs and are backed by the Wolves Foundation, the Express & Star, Wolverhampton City Council, Carvers Building Supplies, the James Beattie Charitable Trust, West Midlands Magazines and Wolverhampton West magazine.

The Great Easter Book Hunt

Promoting literacy is one of Rotary's core aims – good reading skills help to give children a better start in life – so we’re really happy to able to sponsor the 2023 Tettenhall Easter Book Hunt.

Starting from Thursday of this week and running through the Easter holiday children will have the chance to join the hunt and follow the clues to find one of 200 great Usborne books that will be hidden in and around the Tettenhall area.

You’ll be able to find the clues on the Tettenhall Look for a book Easter 2023 facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090491666753 - so make sure to visit and follow it today

Happy Easter and Happy Reading

Supporting Ukraine - One Year On

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the Rotary Club of Tettenhall together with Rotary clubs throughout Great Britain and Ireland have donated over £6m and given more than 100,000 volunteer hours to support Ukraine and its people.

Rotary’s impact ranges from supplying life-saving medical equipment and rebuilding bombed villages, to welcoming Ukrainian guests to our communities.

We continue to stand with the people of Ukraine and are committed to supporting the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

You can find out more about Rotary’s response by visiting: https://rotarygbi.org/ukraine

Look out for the purple crocus this Spring

 As you walk around Tettenhall Upper Green over the next few weeks keep an eye out for all the purple crocuses lifting their heads towards the sun – symbols of Rotary’s work to rid the world of Polio - a terrible disease that can kill or severely disable children.

For more than 30 years, Rotary and our partners have driven the effort to eradicate polio worldwide. Our PolioPlus program was the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale.

Rotary members have contributed more than $2.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. When Rotary started the campaign to eradicate polio, there were cases present in 125 countries worldwide, now cases have been reduced by 99.9% and just two countries remain polio endemic; Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tettenhall Rotary together with  Wolverhampton’s other Rotary Clubs has been working with local schools and community groups to plant thousands of purple Crocus corms around the City to highlight the project. Why purple? – the colour symbolises the purple dye used to paint the little finger of each child after they receive the vital vaccine to protect them against this awful, crippling and life threatening disease.

The eradication of polio is tantalisingly close and we want you to get involved and help us finish the job. 

Contact us to find out more about joining or volunteering with Rotary to help make a difference on this and our other projects.

You can help us to continue to protect children around the world from this horrendous disease with a life-changing vaccine - which costs just 20p - by Donating now. Every donation to Rotary will be trebled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so every £1 will become £3.

Happy Rotary Day!

On the 23rd February in 1905, Rotary International was formed by Chicago-based lawyer, Paul Harris. 

118 years later Rotary now has 1.4 million members in over 35,000 clubs in over 200 countries and is one of the world’s largest and most successful membership and humanitarian service organisations

Give yourself the gift of Rotary this year by joining us. Joining Rotary gives you the platform to make a difference through volunteering. If you’ve got a cause you’re passionate about, or a project you want to get off the ground, Rotary is the place to turn your ideas into action.

Show your Support for Ukraine on Friday

Friday marks the first anniversary of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and we'll be joining with the Ukrainian community in Wolverhampton to show our support for their resistance

Everyone is invited to the rally hosted by the City Council outside of the Civic Centre in Wolverhampton starting from 10:00am on the 24th February. 

The event will include the raising of the Ukrainian flag at 10:45 followed by speeches from members of the Ukrainian community and the Mayor of Wolverhampton before taking part in the minute of silence which is being held across the country at 11:00am.

Can't make the rally? You can still show your support by wearing blue and yellow on the day, flying a Ukrainian flag and by posting your support on social media.

Supporting Ukraine

Tettenhall Rotary Club has received special recognition for the humanitarian assistance which it’s members have given to the people of the Ukraine.

As we mark the anniversary of the Russian invasion Wolverhampton’s Ukrainian community presented Rotary Club President Mark Heywood with a certificate of thanks from the citizens and soldiers of the Ukraine.

Working with its supporters and with other Wolverhampton based charities and voluntary groups the Tettenhall Club has donated power generators, gas stoves, drones and power banks all of which have been delivered to the areas of greatest need with the help of the City’s Ukrainian Association who have shipped more than 500 tonnes of aid to the country.

Club President Mark Heywood gratefully received the award from Ian and Slava Madylus – members of the local Ukrainian community who have worked tirelessly to ensure that aid reaches those in need

Ian and Slava also made a special presentation of a Ukrainian Mace to Club member Chris Kraushar who has led the work of the Club in support of Ukraine 

The  anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminds us of the continuing need to support the people of the Ukraine who are fighting for their very existence, against a vastly more powerful attacker and who  are desperately in need of humanitarian assistance