Club News

Once again Faversham Rotary has taken delivery of 4000 purple crocus corms for planting around the town to raise awareness of polio and Rotary’s continuing contribution to its eradication worldwide. When a child receives their dose of polio vaccine, their little finger is dyed purple, hence Purple4Polio and the purple crocus campaign symbol.

This year the Club has been supported in its efforts by several local groups.

The 1^st Faversham Scouts Beaver Pack will be planting their crocus in pots to take home with them. Then they can put them in their gardens, so they will be spread out across Faversham and some of the local villages. The Pack leader explains why they’ve got them, what they represent and how they help to End Polio Now. It gives the Beavers some responsibility as well, as they have to look after the crocus, which can also go towards their gardening badge.

Faversham Rotary is continuing to forge links with local schools. Club members have recently met the head teachers of Davington Primary School and St Mary of Charity Primary School. Both teachers were keen that their pupils should be involved in Purple4Polio and so crocus planting days were arranged at each school. Rotarians were invited to talk to the children about the campaign to End Polio Now and to explain the connection with purple crocus. Many of the children at St Mary’s school wore purple clothes for their Purple4Polio day and a collection at the school gates raised over £80 to help fund the immunisation programme. 

Faversham Rotary has also collaborated with other local groups, including Faversham in Bloom and Abel’s Acre, to plant up other areas of the town with purple crocus, adding to areas planted in previous years.

The Club will be planting the remaining few hundred crocus in small pots ready to ‘sell’ for a donation when we will be in Faversham Market Place in the spring promoting Rotary and its local and international projects.

Thank you to everyone who has helped Faversham Rotary in its campaign to help eradicate polio worldwide.

Look out for the purple crocus appearing all around the town in the spring!

Anyone can be a part of the fight to end polio and have their donation to Rotary matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Visit endpolio.org to learn more and donate.

The BIG Quiz held on Saturday the 19th November at Queen Elizabeth School Assembly Hall, was a great success. A huge thank you to all those who supported the quiz to help us raise the funds that enable the Rotary Club of Faversham to support local good causes, such as Faversham Young Carers, Age UK, Faversham Christmas Lights, Youth Leadership Awards, Lend With Care and many more.

If you would like to donate to the Rotary Club Trust Fund, please click on the link below.

At the Club’s meeting on 13th September members had a very interesting talk from Martin Wyatt, a local ambassador for Global Sight Solutions (GSS). Martin explained that GSS is an avoidable blindness charity, working in various countries to provide free eye care for some of the world’s poorest.

If the main bread-winner in a family loses their sight and is unable to work, then the family can very soon find itself with an ever worsening struggle to put food on the table or keep a roof over its head.

Very often all that is needed is a straightforward cataract operation. GSS can provide a complete cataract operation service in India, Africa and other parts of the developing world for just £15!

Global Sight Solutions strives to make blindness history.  It’s main focus is the setting up of Specialist Eye Hospitals in areas of need.  It also invests in Eye Buses to transport patients to the clinics.

It was registered with the charity commission in the 1990’s by members of Guildford Rotary Club, the aim being to work with Rotary Clubs in the developing world and together establish financially sustainable eye hospitals which can provide a full range of eye care, free to the world’s poorest.

The GSS website has lots more information globalsightsolutions.org