Another New Club Member!

At our club’s face to face meeting on Thursday 21 November 2019 we had the pleasure of inducting Maureen into the family of our club (we really are a family) and of Rotary. President Angela ran the proceedings with her son Scott and Maureen’s two lovely children present. The club is now 56% women which bucks the RI and our District’s trend of just 17% of women in Rotary.

President Angela and new member Maureen

Additionally there was further cause for celebrations as both Colin and Val had birthdays to celebrate and cutting their cake was obviously a hilarious activity.

Colin and Val cutting their birthday cake.

As well as the triple celebrations we did do a bit of business discussing our bike ride to France, the development and running a Santa’s sleigh next month (logistics permitting) and the success of the Mighty Magnus ball and auction where over £16,000 was raised.

Wildflower Meadow Project

We wanted to embark on a project that would involve a community and Steve and Val came up with the bright idea of an eco-project, in this case a wildflower meadow. Why a wildflower meadow you ask? Well, the "State of Nature Report" published in 2013 said;

The area of lowland meadow in England and Wales declined by 97% between the 1930s and 1984 - a total loss of 64,000 sq km. A huge number of wildflowers and insects were affected, including the once widespread scabious cuckoo bee (Nomada armata), which is now extremely rare.

Members of the club did some research to see what was needed to develop a wildflower meadow. Then we identified the site by the side of Hazel Crescent, got permission to go ahead from the Towcester Town Council (thankyou) and delivered flyers to every household in Hazel Crescent.

After our successful Sausage Sizzle fundraiser we were ready to go.  However, before we started the Town Mayor, Lisa Samiotis, came along to cut the first turf in the rain. What we hadn't anticipated was the amount of rain. We had planned to get all the turf up in the day however Mother Nature had other ideas the rain was so bad we managed to clear the first quadrant, then we called it a day.

But that didn't stop us. Work continued down the week with a final push on Sunday 20 October of clearing and raking the site and sowing the seed. We now just have to wait for it to grow. The fencing that has been put up is to protect the site until the seed has started to grow and everyone can then enjoy it. Hopefully it will be a very colourful spring and summer.

 Of course none of this would have been possible without the support of the Town Council, George Browns Ltd of Buckingham who provided the heavy machinery free of charge, without which this project would not have been possible. Finally, the support of the residents of Hazel Crescent some of whom came out to help work on the site. 

Our first visitor!

Wildflower Fundraising

As a club we thought we would take on a little project that would make a big difference to not only people but also the wildlife around us.

Steve and Val found a piece of land that could do with a bit of a transformation. A proposal was raised and agreed, leaving just one thing, some fundraising. We thought what better place to do it then on the site its self.

We held a sausage sizzle and cake sale to raise funds for the meadow.

Lots of local residents came out to see what we were planning and offered their support.

We had a fantastic day and even inducted two new members, John and Jo.