The Rotary Club for Mid Hampshire
Webmaster: Hans Wustefeld
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF ROTARY IN ALRESFORD
FORTY YEARS ON
This year Alresford Rotary celebrates its Ruby anniversary! After initial local interest in Rotary had been established in late 1985 a group of about 25 (all men in those days) were by mid-1986 regularly meeting at The Swan on a Monday night, enjoying each other’s company and learning about Rotary’s past and its future potential, worldwide and particularly in mid Hampshire. An inaugural dinner of the interim club was held at Perins School on 2nd October 1986 and the official “chartering” of Alresford Rotary Club took place on 23rd January 1987, held at Winchester Guildhall, there being no location in or closer to Alresford sufficiently large to accommodate more than 300 guests.
From the outset Alresford Rotary has always prided itself on having somewhat maverick tendencies when it comes to following too closely the rules laid down by Rotary International, especially those with American traditions. Douglas Bader once said that “Rules are made for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men” and that has generally been the philosophy of Alresford Rotary. That started with the members of the Interim Rotary Club of Alresford casting tradition to the wind and inviting their wives (and their guests’ wives) to its chartering. These days Rotary is very much a dual gender organisation and in and around Alresford we are always looking to improve our diversity!
The traditional Rotary model was a weekly meeting and to maintain membership members were expected to attend 60% of the meetings. That tended to discourage interest from those with family and working commitments! Involvement was also discouraged by the view that all Rotarians should be “Professional or Business people” and the rule that each club should only include one member from any one profession! Fortunately those days have long gone. Alresford Rotary welcomes interest from anyone who has an interest in making a difference locally and internationally.
ROTARY CHRISTMAS TREE ST PETER'S CHURCH ROPLEY
Alresford Rotary wishes to develop its presence in local villages and to support local schools and their students. We were delighted to be involved in December’s Christmas Tree Festival at St Peter’s Ropley and in January to receive thanks and photos relating to the new Early Years space created at Cheriton Primary School, funded by a donation from Alresford Rotary
ONLY THREE, TABLES LEFT FOR THE QUIZ OF THE YEAR 2026
BOOK YOUR PLACE EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT
THANK YOU
Thank you for supporting the Christmas tree sale and all Alresford Rotary’s fund raising and community events in 2025. After a quiet start to the new year “Probably mid-Hampshire’s Quiz of the Year” 2026 will take place at Itchen Abbas village hall on Friday 27th March at 7.00 p.m. Always popular – book early to avoid disappointment. £15 per person (to include supper), tables of 6. The box office is now open. To book or for further details contact James Pinniger – wjrp@hotmail.co.uk / 01962 738788.
ROTARY CHRISTMAS TREE SALE 2025
Alresford Rotary’s busiest quarter ended on 6th December with the annual sale of locally sourced Christmas Trees in Broad Street. Sales were brisk from early on and as early as by 9.00 a.m. well over half had been sold.
President James Pinniger
MARCH NEWS UPDATE FROM JAMES
Helping and supporting Youth in the Community!
In December Alresford Rotary was delighted to learn that Perins Year 11 students had expressed a wish to be involved in community-based activities to enable them to give something to the local community while, at the same time, developing a sense of responsibility, teamwork and civic pride. Keep your eyes open! We anticipate Perins Students and Alresford Rotary will be working together for the benefit of the community in the coming months starting with the New Alresford Town Council litter pick on 7th March.
Weather permitting, Alresford Rotary will from 8.00 a.m. on Sunday 8th March be undertaking what has become an annual “spruce up” of Broad Street particularly clearing up the mud, rubbish and other detritus that accumulates along the kerbs and drains. Please join us! We are grateful to New Alresford Town Council for providing an appropriate bag in which to collect the “rubbish”.
In mid-March Alresford Rotary will be creating an outdoors educational and recreational space at Perins School. This will be a facility for students who have diagnosed social, emotional and mental health needs and/or who might otherwise struggle to access learning.
Later in the Spring we plan to improve and develop the outdoor area at Perins pre-school (adjacent to Sun Hill Junior school). That will include erecting a playhouse, clearing a bramble patch, relocating and refurbishing a small tool shed, preparing the ground for some fruit trees, dismantling an old large storage shed and erecting a replacement.
Alresford Rotarians are “People of Action”. Please contact us if you would like to be involved on a regular or occasional basis. We normally meet at The Swan in Alresford on the first and third Monday evening of the month. Why not come along one evening? You’ll receive a warm welcome. To help planning we ask that (ideally) you contact us on or before the preceding Friday. Alresford Rotary considers its patch to include not only New Alresford but also the surrounding villages. Help us to improve our gender imbalance and presence in the villages. Ticking those boxes our newest member lives in Cheriton and is female!
If you enjoy making friends, having fun and helping others, locally and internationally – regularly or occasionally, old or young, male or female – please let us know! We’d love to have you on board!
Further dates for your diary are the 10k road race on 21st June, Apple juicing at The Flower Pots Inn on 3rd October, Bonfire, fireworks and torchlit procession on 6th November, back to the Christmas tree sale on 5th December.
Where does the money go?
The monies that Alresford Rotary raises, thanks to your tremendous support of its fund-raising events, goes to good causes both locally and internationally.
Amongst those who have benefited from donations or sponsorship we can mention:
ShelterBox, the Emily Collins School in S W Uganda, the Alresford & Cheriton Scouts, the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, Alresford Town F.C. under 11 girls football team, benches in Cheriton, Alresford Guides & Brownies, The Rosemary Foundation, Perins MAT, St Peter’s Ropley Church Christmas Tree festival, Ropley Council Footpath Kissing Gates, the Thursday lunch club and the Christmas Day lunch at Makins Court.
Alresford Rotarians are “People of Action” as further evidenced by gardening etc works at the Sun Hill schools and at Perins, as well as planting 4000 crocus corms at the Flower Pots Inn which (all being well) will bloom for many years drawing attention to Rotary’s “End Polio Now” campaign,
ALRESFORD ROTARY FIREWORKS AND BONFIRE A GREAT SUCCESS
A CELEBRATION FULL OF FUN, BONFIRE AND FIREWORKS
Alresford Rotary has for over 33 years prided itself on organising the traditional Guy Fawkes Bonfire and Fireworks Night. The event is an important part of Alresford’s festive calendar and help to raise funds for those less fortunate in our local community and people around the world.
The Flower Pots hosted a fantastic day, with wonderful local craft stalls filling the barn, the team at the ‘Pots’ worked tirelessly. Rotary Alresford would like to thank everyone for coming along especially the craft stalls for making the day such a success.
CHRISTMAS SHOEBOXES APPEAL 2025
CHRISTMAS SHOEBOXES APPEAL
It is the time again to look forward to Christmas and support the Wessex Rotary shoebox scheme through which displaced and disadvantaged children principally in eastern Europe receive a box of small gifts which international Customs specify must be for “education, health and hygiene purposes”. Have a look at “Gallery” on https://wessexrotaryshoebox.org.uk/ to see the joy such presents bring. If you want to make a real difference to a child’s Christmas this year browse the website to see full details including suggested knitting patterns! Flatpack boxes are available now upon request from wjrp@hotmail.co.uk / 01962 738788. This is not just for schools. Will you or your organisation make a difference?
ROTARY HAS BEEN WORKING TO ERADICATE POLIO FOR MORE THAN 35 YEARS. OUR GOAL OF RIDDING THE WORLD OF THIS DISEASE IS CLOSER THAN EVER.
As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland plants purple crocus corms to flower in the spring. This year two million Ruby Giant (deep purple) corms have been available and (at the time of writing in early October) Alresford Rotary plans on World Polio Day to plant 4000 corms locally, some at the entrance to The Flowerpots Inn in Cheriton and some to add to the many previously planted along The Avenue in Alresford.
Filled with such good humour and gentlemanly kindness, there will never be another like him.
I won’t be alone is saying that Alresford Rotary has lost a piece of history, and a piece of its heart, that is our dear friend Stephen Pinch. We will miss him”.
IN MEMORIAM STEPHEN PINCH
I must have first met Stephen (never “Steve”) at St John’s when I moved to Alresford in the late 1980’s. Others can tell his life story until then, although I did find out some years later that when doing VSO in Vanuatu in, I think, his early 20’s he had met Alison who lived directly across the road from me in Thames Ditton in the early 1960’s and a lifelong friendship between them followed.
It wasn’t until I joined Alresford Rotary in 2008 that Stephen became more than a passing acquaintance. On Rotary alphabetical lists my name followed his and I suspect that is why I tended to refer to him as “Pinch” whereas, being more deferential than me, he called me “Mr Pinniger”! Alresford Rotary and its camaraderie and fellowship were very important to him. He was President in both 2008/09 and in 2019/20.
James Pinniger
Rotarian Kim Boog writes “Stephen knew the answer to practically everything! Always a story on offer, an answer ready, a memory for history, a joke to share and always there at the heart of supporting the community. He was a very trusted honourable friend, volunteer and companion.
The Rotary Foundation and the Emily Collins School
All members of Rotary are encouraged each year to donate a minimum of $100 US (currently about £75) to Rotary’s own charity The Rotary Foundation (TRF). Donations are entirely voluntary but if donations from a club reach a threshold, that club is entitled to apply for a grant from TRF to assist the financing of one of its charitable projects. Because of limited funds not all applications are successful but last year Alresford Rotary was awarded a grant enabling it to fund the construction of a toilet block at the Emily Collins School in the south west of Uganda, within 10k of the borders with Rwanda and DR Congo.
The work was largely undertaken during the school’s summer break and it is hoped that the new toilet facilities will be of great benefit to all attending the school. The grant met about 50% of the cost of the project with the other half being funded by Alresford Rotary from monies raised from your support of its activities in recent months. Thank you! For much more information about the Emily Collins School have a look at https://emilycollinsschool.com/
FEBRUARY 16 Rotary meeting Swan Hotel
MARCH 2 Rotary meeting Swan Hotel
MARCH 16 Rotary meeting Swan Hotel
MARCH 30 Rotary meeting TBA
APRIL 13 Rotary meeting Swan Hotel
APRIL 27 Rotary meeting Swan Hotel
ALRESFORD 10k ROAD RACE 2025
Photos by courtesy of Robert Wesley and Stuart Martin
AND THE WINNERS ARE
PEOPLE OF ACTION IN THE ALRESFORD COMMUNITY
Alresford Rotary carried out what has become a regular annual attempt to spruce up Broad Street. In just a couple of hours gutters and kerbs and drain covers were cleared with the mud and other “arisings” collected filling two large “grab bags” kindly supplied by New Alresford Town Council.
In the past few years Alresford Rotary has done “outdoor works” at both Perins and the Sun Hill schools. Last month a day was spent at Sun Hill including tidying up the nature pond and its surrounds (created by Alresford Rotary some twenty years ago) and installing a water feature. Further work will be carried out later this year..
Right now, over 120 million people around the world have been made homeless by disaster and conflict. ShelterBox is working to change this.
By providing emergency shelter and tools for families robbed of their homes by disaster, we’re transforming despair into hope.
We want to see a world where no family is left without shelter after disaster.
END POLIO NOW
Alresford Rotary marked the start of Spring by planting Ruby Giant (deep purple) crocus corms in Alresford. For the last nine years Rotary internationally, as a member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, has planted spring flowering purple crocuses to raise awareness and to raise funds for the End Polio Campaign. A major benefactor of such initiative is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has written that “The world’s progress in fighting Polio might be one of the best kept secrets in global health”. The relevance of the purple crocuses is that in developing countries millions of children are vaccinated in the course of a few days in frequent, mass polio vaccination campaigns.
It is important that children do not receive duplicate vaccine. Once the child has received two drops of vaccine (by mouth) their left little finger is painted with an indelible purple ink. Vaccinators always check a child’s finger before administering polio vaccine. If it’s purple they do not vaccinate. In 1988 Rotary made a pledge to the children of the world that Polio would be wiped from the face of the earth and since then the number of cases has been reduced by 99.9% There is no cure for Polio but it is preventable by vaccination and until it is eradicated every child is at risk. For further information please look at https://www.endpolio.org/
At the Sun Hill Junior School the nature pond and decking was replaced and tidied up and more purple crocus corms were planted for a good show this Spring.
For many years the local community has generously supported the Wessex Rotary shoebox scheme through which displaced and disadvantaged children principally in eastern Europe receive small gifts which International Customs specify must be for “education, health and hygiene purposes”.
Have a look at “Gallery” on the recently updated website https://wessexrotaryshoebox.org.uk/ to see the joy such presents bring. If you want to make an early start to making a real difference to a child’s Christmas this year browse the website to see full details including suggested knitting patterns! Flatpack boxes are available now upon request from Alresford Rotary.
Contact James at: wjrp@hotmail.co.uk
Alresford Rotary raised £4,500 for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.
The Alresford Rotary 10k road race and children’s fun runs raised the money last year, and on January 20, Alresford Rotary treasurer Peter Kidman handed over a cheque to Judith Stephens, a support engagement officer for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (HIOWAA).
The money will help fund the charity’s life-saving missions, which cost an average of £3,500 each.
The charity relies entirely on voluntary donations.Alresford Rotary treasurer Peter Kidman handed over a cheque to Judith Stephens, officer for Judith also provided an update on the charity’s work and its move from Thruxton to Southampton Airport, which will improve response times and efficiency.
Since the first Alresford 10k road race in 2008, the annual event has been organised by the same project manager with the support of Alresford Rotary.
However, due to other commitments, a new project manager is urgently needed if the event is to take place this year on June 15.
The ideal candidate should have some knowledge of the local running scene and experience in event organisation..
If you feel you could take on this role, contact Alresford Rotary at indri50@me.com or 07743 698841.
Thanks to all our wonderful customers for supporting us through what was probably our worst ever weather christmas tree sale. Thanks also to all our helpers…The Scouts as always supported us with moving the trees to cars. Town traders were hugely supportive – Tesco so generous with warm croissants, The Swan and Alresford Linen Co doing rounds of coffee, Paul and Pat for the sausage rolls, the Toyshop and D&G hardware helping with surplus trees… not forgetting George with his trumpet! Despite the weather it was Rotary at its best in the heart of the community once againxxx
As a celebration of all your activities in the past Rotary year, I wanted to offer my thanks on behalf of ShelterBox for the amazing fundraising that you have carried out with your community and as a club. The Rotary Club of Alresford has raised a total of £8,000 in Rotary year 2023/2024.
Congratulations on becoming a Gold Partner Club!
Sanj Srikankanthan, CEO ShelterBox
As a humanitarian organisation ShelterBox must remain neutral and a-political. We go wherever in the world the shelter need of civilians is the highest, right now that is in Gaza“.
If you would like to learn more about ShelterBox have a look at: https://shelterbox.org/ and international support – Alresford Rotary (alresford-rotary.org)
The modest contributions that Alresford Rotary has been able to make over the years to ShelterBox have only been possible because of the support the local community has given to its events and Alresford Rotary is most grateful for that.
