Category: Branch news

We were blown away at our July monthly social meeting when Andy Blake made a donation to our branch. Andy had been president of the Rushmoor Rotary branch for the past year and in that role he did some fund-raising for a charity of his choice. We knew he had nominated us so we were expecting a donation, maybe £1500? maybe as much as £2000.

It was just over £3200 !!

Thank you Andy and all the people from your branch who contributed in some way to this fantastic total.

Many of us know Anita Dempsey as the excellent leader of our Move It or Lose It class on Thursdays. She is also a passionate gardener and she opened her garden to visitors in late June. It was during one of our heatwaves with very high temperatures forecast for the afternoon. Many people decided to avoid that by coming first thing. By 10 o’clock it was standing room only in her kitchen and her husband was kept very busy serving teas and coffees.

The garden is lovely and a great illustration of what you can do in an otherwise conventional long thin plot. It is full of interest and you feel as though you are going from “room to room”.

She donated the amazing sum of £507 to us – and the same amount went to her other chosen charity: Phyllis Tuckwell. Over £1000 raised altogether. Wow! and well done Anita.

On June 9^th , we were honoured to host Paul Mayhew Archer who presented his “Incurable Optimist” show. Paul is a comedy writer best known as the co-writer of The Vicar of Dibley. Paul was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2011 aged 58 and found that his way of fighting it was to find it funny. He has since perfected his one-man show and has performed it at numerous venues mainy around the South of England. Just in the past few months, he has performed at Preston, Exeter, Salisbury, Cirencester, Hereford and Aylesbury.

He first got in touch with us in January and here is what he wrote:

The way it works is that I bring the show and the local group brings the audience. So the local group finds a venue seating 150 – 200 people and sells tickets. I come and do the show for nothing except basic expenses – my reward is hearing people laugh – and the group keeps the takings.

Sounds simple! We thought we could do it and went ahead. We were hopeful of getting 150 people though with just a few weeks to go, that was looking doubtful. Then ticket sales took off, we stormed past 150 and had to declare the event Sold Out at 220. We had booked The Church On The Heath at Elvetham Heath, a lovely venue for the event large enough for our audience with a separate hall to serve refreshments and a space for the raffle.

It was a great evening with lots of complimentary comments afterwards. Paul said he would find the funny side of Parkinson’s – and he did. People were saying they hadn’t laughed so much for ages.

We took £3250 in ticket sales, £755 on the raffle and about £430 on refreshments. We kept our costs down to £724 mainly by getting donations to the raffle, leaving us with a profit of around £3700, far above our most optimistic expectations!

Special thanks to Annie Theaker for organizing everything about the refreshments and overseeing the hall on the night with help from Jill Thomas, Judith Rowley, Annie McCallum and Annabel Theaker.  Serving drinks to such a large audience was a major undertaking and they sportingly gave up the opportunity to see all the show as they were so busy, especially in the clearing-up.

Special thanks to Mavis Pocock also who ran the raffle. Annie had been busy beforehand getting donations from various businesses, including Badshot Lea Garden Centre, Cineworld and Wellington Country Park. Mavis has persuaded nearby Morrisons to donate two prizes.

It was a great team effort – well done everyone!

To mark World Parkinson’s Day in April, we held a Cream Tea at the Key Centre in Elvetham Heath. The idea of having a cream tea came from the Oxford branch. Not sure why it was chosen but it was certainly a good idea. We didn’t run this as a ticketed event so had no idea how many people to expect.

          We started with tables and chairs for about 24. They quickly filled up and by the end we had difficulty fitting everyone in! Many thanks to Annie Theaker for organizing it, including baking the scones which were lovely. It is unusual for us to run an afternoon event and it was good to see several people who do not often come to our other social meetings.

The empty plates say it all! Everyone enjoyed their tea.

What is the best compliment a group can get at the end of a concert? A member of the audience coming up and asking if they can perform at another event!

This is what happened when Kevin Manley brought a small ukulele group to our November social evening . It was one of the best evenings we have ever had and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. We were still buzzing about it weeks later. The key was the first song – if we sang along to that, the evening would probably be a success. Did we sing?! Too right we did … and we were still going strong 45 minutes later with the final song, “Sailing” complete with actions. Part way through came the big challenge : we were all to sing “Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag” followed by “It’s a long way to Tipperary”, then one half of the room sang “Pack up your troubles” again while the other half sang “Tipperary”. We did it so well, that we did it all over again, and loved it.