As a Club, we have recently supported the following local charities and organisations with help and/or donations:  

Barnados

The Prince’s Trust

Kid’s Out, Paultons Park (link to photos)

Leven House

Young Mums’ Group at Henry Brown Centre

Elmrise Breakfast Club

Pets as Therapy

Chest Help

CP Sport Development Day

Life Education Centres, Dorset

Victoria School

Langside School

Bournemouth Scouts (Jubilee Centre, Butcher’s Coppice)

Town Centre Youth Project

CODA Fiddle Orchestra

Youth Cancer Trust

Julia’s House

Dorset Mind (Oakmead School)

Boscombe Voluntary Lifeguard Unit

Age Concern

Help and Care

On the international front, we have supported the following projects:

Niger Famine Crisis Appeal (including Bournemouth street collection)

Pakistan Earthquake Shelter Box Appeal

Shoe Boxes (sent to Tanzania and Montenegro)

Africa Mercy Project (floating ophthalmic operating theatre)

A Million in Africa – Shelter Box Appeal

Shelter Boxes (sent to various countries)

Wateraid
Tibet Culture Trust
Aquaboxes

A Ferndown student teaching in Namibia

…and also entertained 10 young international students from the Richard Language College, and met with international Rotarians from a number of European countries (Trappist Clubs) and from our twin club, the Rotary Club of Deauville, in Normandy, France.

We have also supported Rotary Foundation, Rotary’s own humanitarian and educational charity. In particular, we are currently supporting the project of Rotary International, working in conjunction with the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, to complete the eradication of polio from the world. This is made all the more exciting by a challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Rotary International to match a $100,000,000 grant.
We also support other projects financed through the Foundation Charity including:

• Group Study Exchange - an educational program designed to provide young business and professional persons opportunities for studying another country, its people, institutions and culture through an organised visit.

• Ambassadorial Scholarships - sponsoring scholars to study in a country other than their own where they will also serve as unofficial ambassadors of goodwill.

• Grants for University Teachers - designed to sponsor teachers from the UK to spend 3 to 10 months teaching in a developing country.
  
  
  

The Youth Opportunities Committee continues to promote existing Rotary programmes for young people, with the objective of discovering new talents and develop leadership and other skills.
The committee has organised the group 2 (Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch) Young Chef competition for the last 3 years. The local finals are held at The College in January each year and last year, six schools were represented by 9 finalists. Our winner went on to come second in the District finals and reached the Regional Finals.
We nominated Talbot Heath school to represent us in the Youth Speaks competition, again held annually. 
It is the intention next year to formalise the schools' chess initiative and the make nominations for the Youth Leadership awards.

Finally, the Club's Fund-raising Committee was established in late 2007 and held its first event ("Magic of the Violin" concert in St Peter's Church) in February 2008. This raised over £1100 which was donated to Water Aid and to Langside School, Poole.

The Committee's plan is to hold a fund-raising event broadly once a quarter and the main focus for the remainder of 2008 is to raise funds to purchase Shelter Boxes for use in Burma and China in particular.

In early 2009, we are likely to hold another concert - programme and venue yet to be determined.

See more pictures of our activities in our Photo Gallery.

For more information about joining the Rotary Club of Bournemouth, please click here and/or contact us.