Our Latest Activities are listed here beginning with the most recent. More detail is available by clicking on the blue link for some of the items.

3rd May - Indian Cocid-19 Crisis

Our Disaster fund, helped by additional donations from members, has sent £1811 towards the appeal to help the supply of Oxygen for Covid-19 patients in India. More here.

26th April - The Kray Brothers

Today at our Zoom meeting, Mel Wall who used to be in the Metropolitan Police, gave us an interesting talk on the Kray twins and their elder brother. These notorious gangsters were active in the 1960s before being jailed for various murders. An interesting account of their rise and fall.

The Easing of Lockdown

has meant that our little group of walkers, orgsnised by Peter J, have been able to meeet in a slightly larger group for a walk. These are normally about 5 miles and in the last month or so we have visited an area to the South of Corbridge, walked round Acomb and visited the Allendale Chimneys. Any one interested in joining us should get in touch through adminsee the full story here.

12th April - Tonight we held our AGM

We elected Richard Thornton, Brian Massey, Ben Herdan and Rob Hart as ordinary members of Club Council and Tom Jobson as an Honorary member of the Club. Our subscriptions for 2021/22 were agreed and the President thanked everyone for their support during the past year.

7th April - Tonight we had our own Quiz Night.

This in house quiz was design as a fun social gathering on Zoom. The Quiz Master produced a range of 40 questions covering notable people, geography, the monarchy and Covid. The enthusiastic members took part and the eventual winner was Bob H with an excellent score of 36 out of 40. Well done Bob!

Although not designed as a fund raiser, the quiz generated £70 of donations which will gp to the West Northumberland Food Bank. Keep your eyes open for the next quiz, perhaps in May.

29th March - Catherine Bush - The Rotary Foundation

Catherine gave us anexcellent guide to the ins and outs of The Rotary Foundation - Rotary's own charity. She explained it is rated among the three best charities in the USA and has held that position for many years. Like all major charities, the details of the Foundation can be complicated but we were given an excellent talk that explained simply how TRF works.

15th March - Sue Campbell talked to us on "PR made Simple"

an excellent talk which not only described how to get stories into the local papers but also gave us many hints on how to manage our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

1st March - Ian Hughes gave a presentation on the "History of Electric Vehicles"

An interesting account of the early electric vehicles starting from 1850 to the 1930s. This opened the eyes of us all to the start of the use of electricity as a motive power and how it was superceded by petrol and diesel vehicles, mainly because of the weight of the batteries, during the 1920s. Now, of course, they are coming into their own again.

In February we also joined the scheme to provide laptops or tablets to children.

Hexham Rotary wanted to help children who could not afford a laptop to benefit from distance learning and joined in a project to find redundant laptops and tablets among their members and friends and family. This initiative was led by Rotarian Ben Herdan and we joined the Laptops for Kids initiative. Donations of unwanted devices will be renovated, repurposed and distributed to needy children through the Partnership scheme to their schools. Ben donated two of his laptops and dropped them off at the Co-op in Corbridge The manager told him that 24 laptops had already been donated and sent on from the Co op to the Partnership which is responsible for renovation and distribution – a lot of this will have been as a result of our activity. Our photo shows Ben handing over the laptops.

28th February - We donate 200 jars of hand cream to Hexham Hospital

Following a proposal, Hexham Rotary decided to make a small gesture of thanks to the staff at Hexham Hospital for their efforts during the pandemic. Consultation with staff at the hospital revealed that providing hand cream for the staff who were repeatedly washing their hands would be much appreciated.
Many of us Rotarians have had family members who have suffered from Covid and would now like to acknowledge the part played by the frontline Hexham Hospital staff. Club members contributed to the cost of the hand cream from money they would have spent at Rotary meetings including one very generous gift of over £500. This enabled 200 jars of hand cream to be purchased.

15th February - A Business Meeting.

We discussed how the club is progressingnad the way we want to operate in the future. We also decided to use the Pro Zoom for our virtual meetings. We also voted almost £3,000 to be spent from our Charity Account on good causes.

1st February - Chris Harding gave a spectacular talk on Photography.

He showed us some excellent pictures demonstrating his theme of "Moments in Time" and showed how digital photography could be improved magically by using the right software. A recording of his talk is available here

18th January - We learned more about Facebook.

Charlet Phillips from Darlington Rotary took us through setting up a Facebook page and answered members questions on all aspects of Facebook.

The New Year 2021 started on a warm note thanks to the Natural History Society.

The Natural History Society of Northumbria gave us an excellent account of their 2020 Bee Census on our first meeting of the New Year on the 4th January. Charlotte and Gordon enthralled us with their talk on wild bees and a number of members hope to join in their census work in 2021.

Our Christmas Dinner

Should have been today, Monday 21sy December, but again the virus changed our plans and we had a celebratory Zoom meeting tasting various mince pies and cheeses followed by a Happy Christmas Toast to all.

Monday December 7th

Our SGM when we should have elected our future President. However because of the Pandemic our current President Miles and President Elect Max had offered to serve for another year. This was gratefully accepted by the Club with an unanimous vote. The two Johns were also elected to serve as Secretary and Treasurer for another year.

Tree Planting delayed !!

December 5th and November 21st should have been our days of tree planting to help the environment but this has had to be put back to 2021 because of the increased Covid-19 restrictions.

Lord Best talks on Rural Housing

On Monday November 30th, we had an interesting talk from Lord Best on the problems of rural communities and the need to supply suitable housing.

Flying on Electric Power.

Dr Peter Malkin of Newcastle University gave a talk on battery power and how it might be used in the future. He ilustrated how an aircraft might achieve carbon neutral flight using electric power and batteries. There is a great future in the technology but we have a long way to go although there are already aircraft flying using electric propulsion.

Music Bursaries

Hexham Rotary has made a grant of £5000 to Core Music. This money will provide bursaries to cover music lessons for disadvantaged youngsters who would otherwise not be able to afford them.

The money will provide 10 or 11 children with a course of lessons each year. This opportunity will continue to be available each year for the next 5 years. Details on eligibility are available from Core Music.

The Latest Lockdown

Read how the latest lockdown has affected us and what our programme is to the end of 2020 here.

November 5th

Some of us joined with the Kelso Club to their "Conversations Evening". We had a marvellous opportunity to listen to a talk by the President of Rotary International, Holger Knaack, talking from his home in Germany. He also made the point that we had to keep up with the times and that Covid-19 had made us all look at other ways of working. We need active Rotarians who are prepared for change. We need to lower our age profile and this might mean creating new clubs and different ways of working. We need to embrace social media and Facebook was perhaps the best medium to use. Using social media was a good way of finding new members.

November 2nd

Today we had Dave King, the editor of the Rotary Magazine talking to us. He emphasised the need to keep the club up to date and embrace the chamges made possible by Covid-19. see more here.

October 5th

Today Andy Hallington took us on a rail journey. He described the local railways that thrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s and described where they ran and what they were used for before going on to cover the history of Hexham station up to the oresent day. he demonstrated that the Newcastle - Carlilse line is used by the latest main line trains as a diversion when the main line North is blocked. An interesting talk available here on Zoom.

September 21st

Today we were delighted to hear about Borneo from Lauren Woodwiss who is stationed there with her husband. An entertaining and interesting talk recorded here on Zoom together with the results of our Babyface competition from Rita,

September 7th

Today Margaret Hales spoke to our Zoom meeting on the European Union of Women. A recording of the meeting is hereBe patient there is a long intro.

September 13th- Not the Great North Run

Today, we had our first Charity Event since lockdown. Our Not the Great North Run charity marathon took place on Tyne Green in Hexham in beautiful sunny weather. The event was started by Carol Malia from the BBC and the total of money raised so far is - £1,597.06.. A full report is here.

August 24th

We held our Club Zoom meeting today and Zahir Khan spoke from Pakistan on Cricket and the Earthquake. He also talked of the school we help to fund. The Zoom meeting was recorded and can be seen here

August 11th & 12th

On each of these days, we had a small working party on the river bank at Watersmeet helping the Tyne Rivers Trust remove Himalayan Balsam - a pernicious weed that stifles the native plant growth and contributes to river bank erosion. For the full story look here.

August 10th

Our latest Zoom meeting was a fun evening when the Limericks from our competition were read out. Surprise, surprise - President won!! Our zoom meetings are open to all - contact admin@hexhamrotary.co.uk if you want to join in. Our next meeting is at 12.30 on 24 August.

August 1st

Our members donated the money they would have spent on Rotary meals during April, May and June to our charity fund. This amounted to £1650 and was given to three local charities - Hextol Foundation, Tynedale Hospice and the West Northumberland Food Bank. £550 each.

July 27th

Almost a full house listened to account of how the House of Lords works during Covid by Lord Curry of Kirkharle at our meting via Zoom

July 13th

Our first stage of the Limerick Compettion took place with our President handing out first lines to members who will submit their full limerick for judging. Results on the 10th August.

July 10th - More Lockdown Donations.

Today we made two more significant donations to the Minerva Centre and Gateway to the Community both charities located here in Hexham. Read more