Come and see us anytime, you’ll always be welcome!!

The event is taking place at the Southwick Park Golf Course with the first tee-offs taking place at 09:00 am.

Two competitions are being run – a 9 hole Texas Scramble in the morning and an 18 hole Stableford in the afternoon. There will be a dinner in the evening with entertainment, golf and raffle prizes. All this for a mere £240 per four man team.

Why not sponsor a hole for £100. If you do your name will be on boards on the hole that you sponsor as well as being shown on the programme and the dinner menu. You don’t have to attend to be a sponsor.

To apply for this annual and very enjoyable day you can download an application form from HERE.

You can find out more about this enjoyable event HERE and about the current sponsors HERE.

We hope we will see you there.

Recently, we had a lady speaker on “Havant Womens Aid”, one of the charities that our President Elect will have as her charity in 2012/2013. During dinner our speaker confessed that she had not been looking forward to the evening as she had not expected to find such a friendly, fun loving and “raucous” group who were clearly intent on enjoying themselves and that the serious business of raising funds for charities would not get in the way of that fun. If she had attended our dinner on the 10 March she would have found that the night she attended was not just a one off – we are always like that!

Why not come and see for yourself…? You can find out how to join us on our “Why not join us” page.

He was a well known business man in Waterlooville, running three shops, Waterlooville Sewing Centre and Polyanna Retail. He was President of our club during the Rotary Year 2005/2006. In 2011 he was awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship, the highest honour a Rotarian can receive, for the many years that he was a staunch member of the Rotary Club of Waterlooville and for the outstanding contributions that he made in the field of:

• Fund Raising where he organised the Antique Fairs which ran for several years and raised a lot of money
• Community Service where he started the “Make a Wish Project” involving The News and resulted in a lot of good publicity
• International Service where he started the exchange visits with Waterloo Rotary Club of Iowa
• Fellowship where he organised numerous memorable social events and Christmas parties.

With his original thoughts and determination Frank ‘made things happen’.  He was always surportive of others, always had a quick quip and was an inspiration to us all. He was a shining example of  “Service above Self”, the moto of  Rotary.The contribution he made to our club and Rotary is immeasurable.  

He will be sorely missed.

The competition has been running for many years and is organised by a variety of Rotary Clubs across the UK. The winners of each Rotary District go through to the Regional Finals and eventually to the Rotary International in Britain and Ireland’s (RIBI) Grand Final which takes place on 28 April 2012 at the Glyndwr University, Wrexham, North Wales. This year’s theme was ‘The Olympic Spirit’.

All schools are invited to take part in the competition, which has two age groups for competitors, 11-13 and 14-17. Each team comprises a Chairperson, a Speaker and someone to give the Vote of Thanks. The Speaker gives their talk and questions are invited. The Judges mark the contestants on content, delivery and so on and eventually find a winner, no easy task when all teams have performed to such a high standard!

There were 5 schools taking part in the competition:

• Intermediate Level (1-13)
  • Brune Park Community College
  • Westhill Park School
• Senior Level
  • Portsmouth High School
  • Bay House School and 6th Form
  • Wykeham House School

The  intermediate level was won by Westhill Park School. The title of their talk was “Onward and Upward”. The Chairperson was Christopher Hurren, the Speaker was Phoebe Devonshire and the Vote of  Thanks was given by Rufus Briggs.

The Senior Level was won by Portsmouth High School. Their talk was entitled “The Reputation of the Young is Being Compromised by Ongoing National Events”. Their Chairperson was Isobal Printer, the Speaker was Lucy Wickham and the Vote of Thanks was given by Ellie Jones.

Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Councillor Cheryl Buggy, invited the winners into the Lord Mayor’s Chamber, where photographs were taken. A special award was given to Ryan Hesketh of Brune Park Community College for his outstanding performance on the night.

We would like to congratuate all the winners of our Group 7 round and wish them every good luck in the regional finals.

More photographs of the event can be found at http://www.neilsphotos.co.uk/?page_id=152. The password has been sent to all the schools which took part.

This year we decided to re-instigated our street collections using our sleigh, Joss’s big red tractor, father Christmas and his little (and not so little) Elves. This was greeted with considerable warmth from the residents who said how delighted they were to see us again after such a long break. We must do it again next year especially as the event was for the young children and enjoyed by all, young and old alike. 

Following the usual excesses of Christmas the club members met on the 27 December for our traditional “Boxing Day Walk” through the fields and shore line of Hayling Island. It succeeded in blowing all the “cobwebs” away before we finished at a local hostelry and undid all the good work of the previous couple of hours! Oh well, there’s always next year if we manage to keep our News Year’s resolutions!

 It just leaves me to say that all at our Club wish you and yours a very prosperous and healthy New Year.

One guy at the party was celebrating a special birthday and treated us all to wine to celebrate – how lovely!

The Denmead Brass Band came in and played Christmas Carols for us after dinner and we all sang along, well, we called it singing anyway!!   The band was really good, much better than we were at singing!!  It really makes you feel that Christmas has arrived when you can sing carols!!

We were then treated to a ‘Muppet style show’.  The puppetry was magic and the characters sang along to some opera.  They were very mischievous and kept everyone in stitches because of their antics!!

The next piece of entertainment was really the high spot of the evening.  A wonderful rendition of YMCA by a group of Rotarians who looked suspiciously like the Village People!  I for one haven’t laughed so much for ages! 

They were fantastic and received a standing ovation!!  I don’t think they’ll ever be viewed in the same way again!!

It certainly was a fantastic party, one of those nights when you leave feeling much better than you did when you arrived!! A truly riotous evening – who said Rotarians can’t let their hair down!

If you get a few minutes to spare on Thursday, Friday or Saturday this week, please come along to Asda Waterlooville and see us, we will be there with the Christmas sleigh between 10 am and 6 pm each day. We’d love to see you!

May we all wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year!

Kelly Wren, a student at South Downs College, won the Waterlooville and Havant round of the Rotary 2011 Young Chef competition held at South Downs College on Saturday 19^th November 2011.   As well as a cup, certificate and a cookery book, Kelly was presented with a fabulous Kenwood Multi Pro food processor kindly donated by the manufacturer, Kenwood de Longhi.   Kelly was also offered a day’s work experience in the kitchens of local, award winning Portsmouth restaurant, Restaurant 27, by the owner and a judge of this competition, Kevin Bingham.

The runner up was Sophie Stafford-Way from Park Comprehensive School.   In addition to a certificate and a cookery book, Sophie was given a Kenwood Tri Blade hand blender, again kindly donated by Kenwood de Longhi.

In total there were 9 contestants from five local educational establishments all of whom produced dishes to the very highest of standards according to the Chairman of the judging panel, Helen Kimbell. She went on to say that it was a pity someone had to lose, as the standards were so high.   The third judge was Margaret Taylor.   All contestants were given certificates and  cookery books as prizes.

The Rotary Young Chef competition is an annual event organised by the Rotary Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland and aimed at encouraging and supporting youngsters who wish to progress in the catering profession.   Local clubs organise local rounds and the winners go through to a series of ever expanding regional competitions until a grand final produces a national winner.   In this round the contestants had to prepare and cook a two course meal consisting of a main course and dessert but, in later rounds the demands placed upon the youngsters increase in scope and complexity.   For Kelly the next round will take place in January, again hosted at South Downs College.   To assist our entrants the local Rotary Clubs give each contestant the sum of £12 to cover the purchase of provisions for the event and a further £25 to help defray the costs of earlier practices.

The prizes were presented by the President of Havant Rotary Club, Shirley Varnish, and Neil Clifton, the President of the Rotary Club of Waterlooville.The other contestants were Ben Adams and John Harries from The Hayling College, Paige Roberts from Park Comprehensive, Ben Colley and Will Faulkener from Crookhorn College of Technology and Daniel Campbell and Jacob Duffin from Horndean Technology College.   We wish them all the best of luck for the future.

This morning we were busy sorting out boxes for the Shoebox Appeal.  Each year, Rotarians across the country collect the shoe boxes from schools and other organisations, check their suitability and compliance with the charity and customk’s guidelines, transport them abroad to Tanzania, Montenegro, Albania and Romania where they will be distributed to children who would otherwise have no presents to open on Christmas morning.  Several local schools and organisations took part this year and donated 632 boxes, up on last year.

The generosity of the people who fill the boxes is unbelievable, matching hats and gloves, toys, toiletries, games, pens, pencils, crayons and colouring books are just some of the gifts donated.  Imagine the look on a child’s face on Christmas morning when he or she receives such a lovely selection of gifts! 

Thank you so much to all those who took the time to fill the boxes with such lovely gifts and to everyone who helped sort them ready for transporting.  They will be dispatched soon and will arrive in time for Christmas.

There is a label on the front of each box where people can write their name or a message.  One label simply said ‘From a Grandad in England, with love’.  That says it all.