It was great to hear about some of the exciting plans for the year ahead under our upcoming President, Raj Dasan, during Club Assembly at Kent & Canterbury Club yesterday. The theme will be the Garden of England (and other gardens too) – but there will be a large variety of other things to learn about and get involved with as well.
“A little of something for everyone” would probably sum up the new Presidential year, when current President Elect Raj Dasan takes over from Maxine Blades. The year will include everything from a talk about development of the covid vaccine to a “friendly” Bat & Trap competition at Ye Old Beverley. There’ll be a black and white photo-themed fundraising quiz and promise of a “taste of Sri Lanka” in 2026. As usual, we will be holding our Innovation Competition at the end of June together with Canterbury Christ Church University – that will be Raj’s first official event following the handover meeting on the 17 June at Howfield Manor Hotel.
In September we will be holding our Annual Duck Race – coinciding once again with Canterbury’s Great Stour Riverfest. This is our biggest and most important fundraiser and we’re hoping that the public will join us as always for a fun event.
We hope to make the most of our links with Canterbury Sunrise and Forest of Blean Rotary Clubs, as well as with our cluster clubs, and will continue our activities with young people – including the Mini Group Study Exchange that we will be hosting this year for youngsters selected by Pentangular partners and ourselves. We will maintain our close links with local groups such as the Prince of Wales Youth Club, Thanington Neighborhood Resource Centre, Hersden Community Centre, The Salvation Army, Rising Sun, St Nicholas School and Porchlight. On an international front there will be support for projects via Rotary Clubs in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – in fact, Raj has already started collecting used spectacles to be sent out to the Rotary Club of Kandy. We will continue to support ShelterBox and Wateraid. We also hope to kick off a new project for the Club – more on that later, but for now let’s just say we hope it will be full of colour!
We were joined at the meeting by Assistant Governor, Vivienne Rose from Rotary Club of the Isle of Thanet Sunrise. She thanked Raj for outlining his plans and particularly welcomed discussion about Corporate Membership. She was delighted to hear that we’ve already been making some progress on that front – led by our new Corporate Membership team: Roger Hickman, Andrew Clague and Bettie Morton.
Finally, during the meeting we had our 100 Club draw, run by Rotarian Graham Bough. This is a draw in members can pay £12/year to enter. There are 4 draws/year with a prize of £100. The surplus is donated to our Pentangular Club host’s charity.
Picture: President-Elect Raj, pictured during a Rotary lunch in Harbledown. Picture credit: Rotary Club of Canterbury.
