Welcome to Swaffham Rotary's club website.

Please do explore round it and in particular our programme for the coming year. If you see anything on the programme that you would like to join in with, then please do . Any Rotarians visiting the area are very welcome to come along to our meetings. The first Monday in the month is a lunch meeting at 1pm and normal meetings are Monday evenings 7 for 7.30pm. These are held at The George Hotel, Swaffham unless the programme says otherwise.

In the last year, we have raised a great deal of money for various charities, not least of which was the Haiti appeal. Our thanks go to the people of Swaffham for their generosity over the 2 days of collecting. You may be interested to know that District 1080 of which we are part, raised over £140,000 for the appeal resulting in Shelter and Aqua Boxes being sent to the stricken areas to assist. We intend to continue with our fund raising for local and international charities this coming year. My personal charity for the year is Canine Partners (Assistance dogs for the disabled) – a very worthwhile charity. Their website can be accessed and there are some short videos showing what these wonderful dogs do. They have to learn over 100 commands which is pretty impressive. It costs £450 to buy a puppy and a further £10,000 to train it. The charity receives no government funding at all. Donations can be sent direct to the charity or to Swaffham Rotary Club to be passed on.

We are a friendly club with a wide age range and would welcome new members joining. We have several lady members and I am privileged to be the first Lady President of the Club in its 41st year. We hope to have another Open Evening during Rotary week in February 2011 for prospective members to come along and see what we do. Rotary generally is notorious for not blowing its own trumpet!

You will see from our website what we do and how we raise funds to do it. We support projects both here and overseas and are still involved in the Eradicate Polio challenge now called Thanks for Life. Bill Gates challenged Rotary International to match his donation of $200 million and to date Rotary has raised $196 million – a magnificent achievement. Polio is a terrible disease and Rotarians have been working hard in all areas where it is still rife, vaccinating the children. Polio is now only in 4 small pockets in the world, Nigeria, Uttar Pradesh (India) and Afghanistan (2 areas). It is the intention of Rotarians worldwide to see the final eradication of this dreaded disease. We are also involved in Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, Young Chef, Young Musician of the Year to name just a few. These encourage our young people to stretch themselves and the RYLA scheme in particular has resulted in turning out confident young people who impress their employers.

I hope you enjoy looking round our website. You can also access the websites of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland and Rotary International for further information.

If you would like to contact me, then please do email me. If you have any suggestions also for improving our website, then again, do please let us know – we are open to ideas.

Yours in Rotary service and fellowship,

Dorothy Pulsford-Harris

President of the Rotary Club of Swaffham - 2010 to 2011