A green-fingered approach to fund raising!
The Club held a Dinner for Garden Lovers at the Anchor Little Downham which was attended by 60 guests and raised over £750 for Rotary Charities.
Philip Laver
One of our Rotarians is fortunate in having as his daughter-in-law. Tamara Bridge, a RHS Gold Medalist and designer of the Radio 2 Scent Garden at Chelsea last year
Tamara gave a presentation of “Behind the Scenes” at Sandringham (winning Best in Show, Peoples Choice and RHS Gold Medal), RHS Tatton Park (winning Young Designer of the Year and— another RHS Gold Medal) as well as the garden at Chelsea.
Tamara, with her business partner are busy preparing for an artisan garden at this year’s Chelsea. She was joined after her presentation by her husband Alexander who is a Master Arborist for a Question session. They both appear regularly on Radio Norfolk Garden Club.
It was a new venture for the Club following a successful Call my Wine Bluff evening.
Earlier we organized a Quiz Night at Littleport Village Hall we ended up with over 20 teams from local businesses and organization’s — Raising over £1000.
Organizing events that give folk an excellent evening at a reasonable price. Coupled with having a grand raffle makes an excellent way at raising funds for our Charity account. As they say “If you don’t raise the funds you can’t donate to the good causes.”
Villagers in Littleport and Little Downham are eagerly awaiting some warm weather so they can enjoy the 80,000 — yes, eighty thousand, purple crocus that Rotary have planted in our villages as our part in the Purple For Polio campaign.
Fifty thousand were planted the first year followed by a further thirty thousand in the autumn.
Past President Clive Webber was the power behind our efforts, enlisting help from members of the community as well as fellow Rotarians. In Little Downham, it cost a Rotarian having to perform a morning assembly on Polio to have the staff, parents and children plant five thousand crocus in the grass in front of the school. A planting day was well attended in the village following an article in the Village Magazine on the work done by Rotary towards eradication the disease.
Areas of purple were seen on public spaces and along verges last spring and as I type there are the first signs of purple trying to survive a covering of snow. The message is being reenforced both on social media and in the magazines circulated in Littleport and Little Downham and we are looking forward to having more pictures this month to share.
Hopefully this year we get some response from the local press – it seems that the odd thousand planted in town gets coverage, but no mention of the work done in the villages.
This is not the end. The Club will continue working to eradicate Polio and seek support from our community.
If you want to have a chat about becoming involved in Rotary, call Ron Bradney on: 01353 864949
If you want to find out more about our Rotary Club. Take a look at our website: www.littleportrotary.org.uk