The club recently made a donation of £250 to locally based overseas development charity Transform Burkina (www.transformburkina.org.uk)

Kevin Lawrence, the charity’s Chief Executive, who came to speak at a recent meeting, said:

Thank you so much for your welcome to the Club, your letter and the wonderful news of the donation of £250. 

We will use this, as requested, in our programme to offer small loans to individuals in Burkina Faso, helping them to start a business and become more self-reliant.

Typical of those that Transform Burkina aims to support is Isaac Gumbiou, a small scale farmer in Ratyiri, a village in the north west of Burkina Faso.  A small loan to buy chicks, feed etc. has allowed him to start a chicken rearing business.

There is a good market for chickens in the nearest town and the profits from their sale has allowed Isaac to repay his loan and continue to expand his business.  The family also now have some extra income which they can use to pay for items like school uniforms and books for the children or medical costs.

In Burkina Faso, 80% of the population rely on small scale farms to survive and the ‘micro credit’ programme run by Transform Burkina aims to offer many more farmers the chance to start a business and transform their future with small loans such as the one from which Isaac benefitted.

For more information about the project, please contact Transform Burkina on info@transformburkina.org.uk

I am pleased to say that today,our District Foundation Chair, Jane Cooper visited the last of our ‘Happy Schools’ Global Grant project to refurbish sanitation and toilet facilities, provide Elearning kits and instal water purifiers in 6 rural schools in villages near Bangalore.

The project is valued at $29,300. It was a joint project between the Wolverhampton and Bangalore Peenya Rotary clubs.

I had the pleasure of inaugurating the project at the first school during my visit in June 2018.

This is another great example of the great work that Rotary and Rotarians can achieve for the benefit of others.

PDG Richard Green.

On the 11^th September the Mayor of Wolverhampton, Councillor Clare Darke, hosted the annual Best Foot Forward Presentations. These took place in the Georgian Room at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery and were attended by The Mayor’s Consort, representatives of event Patrons, District Governor Brian Reilly, the RAF and ‘Centurions’. ‘Centurions’ are those who completed 100 laps or more at the event in July. President Richard Horrell thanked all those who make Best Foot Forward so successful. Particular thanks went to all the event Patrons. It is their generous contributions to the ‘Charity Pot’ that make the event possible. Major backers of the event are the City Council, the Express & Star, the James Beattie Charitable Trust and Wolverhampton West Magazine,

The Mayor presented Certificates to the ‘Centurions’ including our first two Junior Centurions

(under 15 years of age). The Mayor then presented a plaque to a trainee from RAF, Cosford representing the RAF team who did the most laps during four hours on the day. The nominated charities for this year’s event were the Wolverhampton MS Therapy Centre, the Wolverhampton Coronary Aftercare Support Group and the Rotary Charitable Trust. The Mayor presented a cheque for £4150 to each of the first two charities.

The event closed with tea and cakes.

Please put the date of next year’s Best Foot Forward in your diaries – Saturday 4^th July 2020 at Aldersley Stadium starting at 8 am.

Welcome Terry Walker

Wecome Susan Husband

Welcome Alvine Yolande Dongmo-Noumey

   As we approached the end of the 2018 Rotary year and started the new 2019 period, several new members joined the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton.

We look forward to the service and fellowship that being a member of the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton can bring.

And of course, being part of the World wide family of Rotarians is

Welcome Andile Siziba

extra special! Wecome everyone.

Welcome Sylvia

And its a special welcome too to a long standing friend of RC Wolverhampton- PP Sylvia Morgan who joins us from her previous club, RC Wolverhampton St Geirges- It’s great to have you with us Sylvia.

Pictured left to right; Wolves Legend PP Mel Eves, Rtn Peter Wright, Mayor Claire Darke and President Richard Horrell. Front; Paul Darke.

The Rotary Club of Wolverhampton welcomed the 161st Mayor of Wolverhampton to the club meeting on Tuesday 23rd July and, as is traditional the Mayor, Councillor Claire Darke was inducted as a member of the club. The First Citizen was accompanied by her husband Paul Darke. Paul’s father served with the RAF during the Second World War and he was presented with a book about the exploits of an ex president of this club, George Sidebotham, who flew Wellington bombers during that war. The book was presented by Rotarian Peter Wright who compiled it to commemorate George’s heroic

Thank you and congratulations Best Footers!
Over 500 runners and walkers put their best feet forward and stepped it out at Aldersley on 6th July,
and clocked up
14,481 laps.

Wolverhampton City Mayor, Councillor Claire Darke, Mayor Consort Dr.Paul Darke and RC Wolverhampton President Richard Horrell.

This was not only enough to release the charity pot donated
by the event Patrons,
but was 173 laps more than the event record, set in 2017.
As a result of this achievement, the sum of
£12,325 will now go to the benefit of the three event charities:
Wolverhampton Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre
Wolverhampton Coronary Aftercare Support Group
Rotary Club of Wolverhampton Charitable Trust

President Richard Horrel (L) and Rotary District Governor Brian Reilly (R) congratulate William Hughes (aged 9) on his magnificent achievement, completing 100 laps. Incredible.

In addition, other charities and organisations took part on the day to raise funds for their own causes.
The Rotary Club of Wolverhampton
extends its thanks to all those who contributed
to this remarkable lap count –
and to the Patrons who provided the funds
to make the event possible.

Medic Malawi provides support for medical care at St Andrews, in Mthunthama, a rural area just outside the town of Kasungu in central Malawi and through the AMAO orphanage, cares for vulnerable and orphaned children.

During our last Rotary year, our Club supported their latest project- the building of vital toilet facilities by sending £2,235. Their current ‘toilets’ were wholly inadequate and the risk to health was becoming a real problem.

As we were so key in establishing the chicken business, Medic Malawi chose to name it The Wolves Chicken House. How lovely.

I received an update from Stephen Drew of Medic Malawi:

Standing near the Wolves Chicken House in Malawi will soon be ……….the Wolves Toilets. Members may recall your generous sponsorship of a poultry project at the Medic Malawi orphanage, whic

h now produces 6300 eggs per month, feeding the children and generating 10% of running costs. As Mr Josiah Sonjo, the local Committee Chairman reported:

This poultry project has come with a good number of benefits to the orphanage, workers, as well as the general community at large. To the orphans; they benefit eggs for balanced diet; they took four meals with eggs per week and daily in the porridge ingredients among others. In addition to that the orphans are learning how to look after chickens. We also collect manure in these two houses which we use in the garden. On part of workers, the little they earn per month, they are able to run their families. To the general community; they do buy eggs which are readily available at our orphanage through Wolves poultry. 

And now we are digging the Wolves Toilets. There are 85 children in the orphanage, plus carers and visitors, and this is a much needed update on their facilities: the original orphanage was built for 50 children. The orphanage ‘AMAO’, meaning The Mother House is a vital resource in the District, supplementing the totally-overstretched expectation of care within families. The local clergyman, Father Petro, wrote “AMAO is a shining star to the whole of Kasungu: the only orphanage doing well in the entire District” (an area of half a million plus people). And it   will soon have proper toilets! So thank you for your Club’s donation, every penny of which will reach the orphanage, because Medic Malawi has no UK costs or expenses.

Thank you.

Stephen Drew