40 years serving the community!
Taunton Vale Rotary Club is celebrating 40 years of community service. The Club with its motto ‘Service above Self’ was formed in 1982 and has just marked the 40th anniversary of its Charter with a dinner at Taunton Rugby Club. A number of former and founder club members returned to Taunton for the celebration. Taunton Vale Inner Wheelers marked the anniversary by presenting a bird bath which is now in place at Abbeyfield Extra Care Home.
Over the years the Club has been involved in hundreds of charitable and community initiatives, both at home and overseas. Taunton Vale Rotarians were instrumental in the building of the Abbeyfield Home in Bishops Hull, funding and delivering a purpose-built school for Taunton Opportunity Group at Wellsprings and are currently seeking to secure over half a million pounds for the Taunton East Development Trust.
“But it’s not just fundraising,” says this year’s president, Phil Greenway. “Rotarians continue to be actively engaged in the management of all three projects and others in town, around the area and internationally.”
Despite COVID the club has kept going. Many members supported the local vaccination clinics across Taunton. They became 'phone buddies' to many clients of Somerset Sight when those people could no longer have visitors and they donated heavily to the Taunton Foodbank in lieu of not being able to hold their own meetings.
A "Canal Challenge" fundraising event was organised for the summer but had to be cancelled when Covid continued to cause uncertainty.
President Elect, Richard Austin says: “Understandably there was a lot of reminiscing at our 40th anniversary dinner but we are forward looking. This week we are inducting 2 new members. The club has an interesting programme lined up and we are looking forward to supporting Taunton Rotary Club which celebrates their 100 years next year”.
Taunton Vale Rotary meets on the second and fourth Monday evenings of each month and holds Breakfast Meetings on the second Wednesday.