What’s all this about?

Our Thanks for Life blog holds details of what the clubs in Rotary International District 1020 (Southern Scotland) have been doing around the week of 20-28 February 2010.

What’s Thanks for Life?  What’s Rotary Day or Purple Pinkie?  Why End Polio Now?  For answers why not look through the pages on this blog, read some of the posts, make comments and get in touch!

1 March 2010 – I have just received a handwritten note from an elderly local farming widow which says

Please accept this cheque in aid of your polio campaign.  My daughter had polio which has left her quite lame, but with sheer determination has coped with it well over the years.

Alastair Davies, District Governor 2009-10, RI District 1020

Purple Pinkie Day 12 March (Peebles)

The Rotary Club of Peebles will be holding a Purple Pinkie Day on 12 March – more details to follow.

Tesco Collection (Kilsyth and Cumbernauld)

The Tesco joint collection undertaken by Kilsyth & Cumbernauld Clubs over the weekend of 27 / 28 February raised a total of £1039.10.

 

Given the poor weather in Cumbernauld – a very good outcome.

Thanks for Life / End Polio Now Buffet Dance (Whitburn)

Raffle at Whitburn Buffet Dance

We held a buffet dance at the Hilcroft last Saturday and despite 20 cancellations due to the weather raised £1910.

Raffle at Whitburn Buffet Dance

Roger Harper, Whitburn

Job Done! Brilliant! (Annan)

Here is what The Rotary Club of Annan has been up to celebrate Rotary Day and raise funds for the “End Polio Now” campaign

 

February 16th onward:

• Major Shop window display in a premises in Butt Street -very central - very successful –  lots of interest. Promoted both the Polio Campaign and the Club
• Poster Display in The Corner House Hotel and other shops/businesses in the town.
• Included the Town Hall and the Library and ClipIct(inside and out)

 

Friday, February 19th:

•   Article and photograph in the local Annandale Observer
•   Item on the www.annan.org.uk and on the club’s own web-site

 

Tuesday, February 23rd – Rotary Day:

• Sandwich Board and Rotarians on the High Street from 10 in the morning, finishing at 4
• Collecting at Co-Op and Costcutter and local businesses
• Purple Pinkie event at Annan Academy, organised by Rotarian, Frank Davis
• Visit of Rotarians from Dalbeattie – which  was a lovely end to the day.

 

Thursday, February 25th:

• Collection at Annan’s brand new Tesco – sandwich board present too!!

Friday, February 26th:

Photograph of SJL,IR & DS plus description of the events on the 23rd – includes a picture of Kirkpatrick Fleming

Also included a banner headed letter of thank -you’s - very difficult to miss!!!

 

Saturday, March 6th:

• Collection at Gretna Gateway

 

Thank you to all those who have given up their time and to those who will do so on SATURDAY

I think we managed to raise both the profile of Rotary in the town and raise money/ understanding of polio.

JOB DONE!

                                                                                                                                               

BRILLIANT!

 

 

Sharon Ledger

President

The Rotary Club of Annan

Tesco Collection (Musselburgh, Tranent, Longniddry and District)

On Saturday 27 February, by kind permission of Tesco ltd,  members of the Rotary Clubs of Musselburgh, Tranent and Longniddry and District joined forces and collected funds in aid of  “Thanks for Life”, Polio eradication worldwide, totalling in excess of £500. These Rotary Clubs wish to thank all those residents of the town and those who contributed to the collection for this most worthwhile cause.

Brunton Hall Rotary Information Display (Musselburgh)

Rotarians Jim Raitt and Julie Douglas manning the stall at the Brunton Hall

Musselburgh Rotary Club set up an information stall in the Brunton Hall in Musselburgh on Tuesday 23 February displaying Thanks for Life posters and handing out leaflets to display the action the Rotary movement was taking and have taken to eradicate Polio worldwide. In addition information leaflets were available describing the service opportunities available both locally, nationally and internationally through being an active Rotary member.

Thanks for Life Events (Duns)

Fresh from their fantastic fund-raising of £7,000 for Mary’s Meals at the club’s recent Sportsman’s Dinner the Rotary Club of Duns will be holding two events to support the Thanks for Life / End Polio Now campaign.

Tesco Collection (North Berwick, Dunbar, Haddington)

On behalf of our holidaying (in warmer climes!) President Syl may I advise you of the joint efforts of the Rotary Club of Dunbar, the Rotary Club of Haddington along with our own club in the collection on Saturday 26 February at the local Tesco store. We collected in total £618.07 which in fact was fairly evenly spread between the three clubs in the various sessions of 6 members collecting from each club with North Berwick providing the logistical backing in addition. There were photos taken – to follow on in due course. A cheque will be sent to the Assistant Treasurer for the full amount but recorded as divided equally between the 3 clubs.

May I also thank AG Ian for calling past and speaking to members it was greatly appreciated by all concerned.

I am sure RIBI will be thanking Tesco directly but I will on behalf of the 3 clubs send a letter of thanks to the local store manager. I will also attempt to get an article in the local newspaper for this week.

Ian Donald, President Elect
Rotary Club of North Berwick

Rotary Day Events (Polmont, Falkirk, Denny, Vale of Carron)

Provost of Falkirk Pat Reid supporting The Mile of Coins event along with Harry Johnston from Falkirk and Brian Sharp from Polmont

A résumé of what went on in and around Polmont to celebrate Rotary Day and to raise funds for the End Polio Now campaign.

A Polmont/Falkirk idea to raise a ‘mile of coins’ on Falkirk High St went ahead on Saturday 20th Feb. We did this with the help of The Rotary Clubs of Denny and Vale of Carron. On a very cold day we were pleased to raise £694. This amount is being split between the 4 clubs and going towards our 5 year targets.

The day was helped by a half page article in The Falkirk Herald on Thursday 18th Feb. This featured a large photograph of Polmont and Falkirk’s Foundation convenors and in it they explained how Rotary are fighting to rid the world of Polio with the help of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Both members (Brian Sharp and Bob Spiers) were also interviewed on Central FM and this was played several times on the run up to the 20th.

3 schools and one further education college took Purple Pinkie on and we still have one school to present to. From these efforts along with the mile of coins and member donations we have raised £1265 at The Polmont Club.

We are involved in talks with Forth Valley College with the hope of forming a Rotaract Club. We were delighted that they took on Purple Pinkie and were able to use the project as a membership tool for the club.

Graham Smith, President, Rotary Club of Polmont

Well – what a week!! (Linlithgow Grange, Linlithgow Bo’ness)

Well – what a week!! Last Saturday 20th Feb, we held a coffee morning which raised £750 for club projects – this does not include the sale of the “Colourful Song Quiz” which we think will raise around a further £150. Our street collection in conjunction with Linlithgow & Boness Rotary Club, raised £709 for End Polio Now and Haiti.

We achieved a full centre spread article on Rotary and the two Linlithgow clubs in particular, in our local paper – “The Gazette” – on 20th Feb. It detailed a range of our activities and past achievements relating to local, national and international Rotary projects. Further publicity was achieved, and is still on view in the local library showcase and “The Gazette” offices, located in the centre of Linlithgow. Posters, photographs, banners, balloons, the Rotary Wheel(s) are all on display. Our free competition – Odd-Item-Out – has been a resounding success with shopkeepers and the town business manager delighted with the response. Footfall around participating shops has apparently increased, with the competition posters vividly displaying the Rotary Wheel, and competition entry forms full of Rotary information including membership, on the reverse side. Rotary presence is everywhere in Linlithgow.

On Tuesday 23rd Feb. I presented the Jim Clark Memorial Trophy to the winner of our schools essay competition. The winner also received a certificate of achievement, and a book token for £35, with all runners up in participating schools receiving a £20 book token. The winning school was presented with a cheque for £200 for school funds. The local press photographer attended for publicity pictures – as did our own PR convenor.

On Friday 26th Feb, our club ran a Primary Schools Quiz Competition with 6 out of 8 local primary schools taking part- (the missing 2 were already committed elsewhere). Teams of four primary 7 children fought it out for the newly acquired “Presidents Cup”. The winning team will represent Linlithgow in the District Quiz Competition. It was an excellent morning with excitement and a highly charged atmosphere – that was just the Rotarians! You should have experienced the tension when the teams entered the arena!! Again, the local newspaper was present for photographs and PR. The winning team was presented with the trophy, then immediately asked to return it for engraving. Our club team who prepared this event, will accompany me, to once again present the trophy to the winning team at the school assembly in the near future.

On Monday 1st March, our club evening has been re-designated a “Membership Extension Evening”. We have around six people attending with a view to finding out more about Rotary and possibly becoming Rotarians. We have invited them to share a meal, hear about Rotary and our club activities, and then have a chance to talk to our membership who will man activity/information stations for each committee. Our objective is to recruit at least one, possibly two new Rotarians. I shall keep you posted.

Apologies for the long blog post. I am off now, to lie down until Monday evening!!

Jim Rae
President
Rotary Club of Linlithgow Grange

City Zone 23 February

We had a really successful day on Tuesday 23 February – raised about £500 between the Gyle and Ocean Terminal, plus 2 enquiries about joining Rotary. And the meeting in the evening at Hibs stadium hosted by Leith club was attended by 128 people and was a great night for fellowship.

Assistant Governor Kate Keter

Edinburgh Waverley Station

The Rotary Club of Edinburgh Waverley have utilised an empty window space next to the Left Luggage section of Edinburgh Waverley Station in Edinburgh to display End Polio Now poster information. Thanks to Cross Rail staff for allowing this.

Polio Awareness and Fund Raising Events (Tranent)

Rotary Day coincides with our weekly meeting, so we are having a special raffle where all members bring along a prize, plus showing the Thanks for Life DVD.

On Saturday we are helping Musselburgh with the RIBI End Polio Now collection at Tesco Musselburgh and have organised a Rotary’s End Polio Now awareness & fund raising at Civic Square Tranent.

Shop Displays, Rotary Publicity and Tesco Collection (Kilsyth and Cumbernauld)

We have arranged to gain access to a vacant shop to use its substantial window space to display “End Polio Now” material and Rotary. We have use for the entire week so we will have good publicity. On Saturday 27^th we are setting up outside the window display and hope to have some form of entertainment and show the Polio DVD. We will have about 6 Rotarians on duty from 10.30 through till 3.30 collecting for “End Polio Now”

Furthermore we are assisting neighboring club at Cumbernauld to cover Tesco bag packing. We have 2 stores in Cumbernauld and one has made Saturday 27th available and the other Sunday 28^th. We are providing 50% of the manpower for the bag packing both days.

So all in all a very busy and hopefully productive weekend for Kilsyth club .

Future events (Portobello)

• Week Commencing 10th May – Royal High Primary School – we will do a repeat of the Parson’s Green day at Royal High during their Health Week, except there will probably be only 1 showing of the DVD at Assembly.
• September or October 2010 – Duddingston Primary School – we will arrange a further repeat of the Royal High day.
• I expect we will also do a further ‘late’ day at Portobello High School probably at a suitable date in the next Academic Year
• Other possibilities include involvement at 2 other primary and 2 other secondary schools later in the year.

Duddingston Primary School Spring Fair (Portobello)

Saturday 30th March – Duddingston Primary School Spring Fair – we will man a stall at their fair. We hope to provide Purple Inkpads for kids to get Purple Pinkies if they and their parents wish. We will advertise End Polio Now and Portobello Rotary Club and all monies collected will be given to the End Polio Now funds.

Purple Pinkie at Parson’s Green Primary (Portobello)

Tuesday 23rd February – Parson’s Green Primary School – Display in entrance hall; DVD is expected to be shown in every class at some point during the day; 2 members of the Rotary Club will attend the school during the morning to answer questions and to collect donations. We will also have the Purple Pinkie Inkpads with us and expect to allow the kids to stamp their pinkies.

Library Window Display (Portobello)

Monday 22nd Feb. – Sunday 28th Feb. – Portobello Library Window – display advertising End Polio Now and Portobello Rotary Club.

Asda Collection (Portobello)

Friday 19th February – Collecting at ASDA Superstore, The Jewel, Edinburgh from 12.00 – 16.00. We will have 2 shifts of 2 or more people just inside both entrances along with a pull-up board and other advertising boards for both End Polio Now and Portobello Rotary Club. All monies collected are for End Polio Now.

Purple Pinkie at 3 High Schools (Dalkeith, Loanhead and Roslin)

Our Purple Pinkie efforts were kicked off on Friday 5 February when we arranged a photocall with the local paper at one of our three participating High Schools. Present at the “shoot” were two representatives from the Charities Committee of each school who will be facilitating the collections in Rotary week and the presidents of Dalkeith and Loanhead Rotary Clubs. The photo and an explanatory article are due to appear in the paper in the week preceding the Purple Pinkie event with a view to heighting awareness and encourage donations.

Two of the High Schools are collecting every day during Rotary week although one Headmaster has suggested that, depending on the collections, he may allow it to run for a second week. The third school is focussing on 23rd February with a dress down day to coincide with Purple Pinkie.

What does Rotary Do? (Dalkeith)

At Dalkeith for Rotary Week we have taken over a shop window in the local High Street for the whole week where we will be be displaying details of Rotary International activities including a shelter box and providing contact information for those interested in learning more or wishing to join. In addition we have also been given access to a display case in the local library, again for the whole week, where we will have on show pictures and artefacts relating to the club and will again provide local club contact information.

Purple Pinkie in 6 Schools (Coatbridge & Airdrie and Monklands)

The Rotary Clubs of Coatbridge & Airdrie and Monklands are working with six local schools to support Purple Pinkie.

Fellowship Games Night (Biggar)

The Rotary Club of Biggar is hosting as an initiative in Rotary fellowship a games night on 23 February to which neighbouring clubs have been invited to compete.

Musselburgh Tesco Collection

The Rotary Clubs of Musselburgh, Longniddry and Tranent will be collecting at Tesco Musselburgh on Saturday 27 February.

Wear Purple to Work Day (Longniddry)

We have a number of wear purple to work days arranged on the 23rd February with a collection for End Polio Now.

Publicity during Rotary Week (Linlithgow Grange)

Article on Rotary and our club to be published in the Linlithgow Gazette – written by Jackie Mitchell, Chief Reporter, incorporating information passed on by our club PR. Published during the week prior to Rotary Day to maximise PR opportunity.

Rotary window displays in the Library, Street Showcase, and Gazette office windows to run for 1 week. (Library showcse to run for 1 month ).

Odd Item Out competition – Rotary posters located in participating shop windows, where an item is placed on view that bears no relation to the normal selling stock – eg a ball of wool in the bakers window, or a tin of paint in the computer shop. The competition is aimed at children in conjunction with their parents inspecting all the shop windows with Rotary logos on display. The entry form gives facts about Rotary on the reverse with a contact number should the parents wish to find out more about Rotary. The shop keepers are happy as they get footfall in front of their shops, with possible sales materialising. Prize draw from all correct entries – two prizes on offer. Competition runs for the full week with 28 shops participating in Linlithgow High Street.

Jim Clark Memorial Trophy Presentation – 23 February (Linlithgow Grange)

Jim Clark Memorial Trophy Presentation (Essay Competion – subject “The Future is in Your Hands) – at Springfield Primary School – 9am – Gazette photographer present for local PR. Book token to value of £25 to winner and a £200 cheque to winning school funds. Further book token prizes to runners up in various Linlithgow Schools

Linlithgow High Street Collection – 20 February

Public collection on Linlithgow High Street – 10 collection buckets in aid of Rotary Foundation – labelled “Polio Eradication” and “Haiti Earthquake”.

Rotary information leaflets and End Polio Now stickers available to be handed out by collectors.

East Lothian News (North Berwick and East Lothian Clubs)

The East Lothian News is to publish an article during the week of 15 February on the activities on Thanks for Life / End Polio Now by all East Lothian Clubs.

The article will include the creative Purple Pinkie event run by the Rotary Club of Longniddry.

The article will major on the local interest story of Rotarian Kenn Wilson 1) heavily involved in the early days of Polioplus in Malawi where as an architect he designed the hospital in Blantyre Malawi where inoculations took place and 2)  his District Foundation role in End Polio.

** Deadline for club information to reach President Syl Caw at North Berwick is Monday 15 February. **

Longniddry Primary Schools Purple Pinkie

We have arrangements for our 5 local schools to participate in Purple Pinkie Day. The children at the Primary Schools will get a “purple pinkie” whilst those at our secondary will be involved in the collection.

End Polio Now Coffee Morning 20 February (Linlithgow Grange)

Coffee morning – 20th February
Guess the Malt, Chocolate Fountain, Baxter Bear Birth date, Jeely Jar Sale, Pre event quiz, Coffee & baking, Nail board. Rotary Membership information stand manned by membership committee, with posters, and information relating to new members and our open membership evening planned for 1st March 2010.

End Polio Now Dance (Whitburn)

The Rotary Club of Whitburn have arranged a dance to raise funds for End Polio Now which will take place on the 27th Feb at the Hilcroft Hotel.

Tesco Collection (Kirkcudbright, Dalbeattie and Castle Douglas)

The Rotary Clubs of Kirkcudbright, Dalbeattie and Castle Douglas are teaming up for a Tesco collection on 27 February for End Polio Now.

Tesco Collection (Dumfries)

The Rotary Club of Dumfries will be holding a Tesco collection on Saturday 27 February for End Polio Now.

Soup and Pate Lunch (Dumfries)

The Rotary Club of Dumfries will be holding a soup and pate lunch on Sunday 21 February.

Purple Pinkie (Annan)

The Rotary Club of Annan will be organising Purple Pinkie events in a number of its local schools during Thanks for Life / End Polio Now week.

Tesco Collection and Baxterbears (Lockerbie and District)

We will be following our Thanks for Life events up with a collection at Tesco’s store in Lockerbie on Saturday 27 February as well as selling two bags of Baxterbears.

Celebrity Endorsements (Lockerbie and District)

We have started our advertising campaign for Thanks for Life with the town’s library having a display and one of the local shops giving us one of their windows.

Alan McNeish the racing driver has endorsed our literature along with David Murdoch the World Curling Champion. We also have some local dignatories on board as well.

Purple Pinky in Lockerbie and Moffat

The Rotary Club of Lockerbie and District will be attending 8 schools in total, mostly primary schools for Purple Pinky but we have one secondary in Lockerbie doing a non uniform day. We are also hopeful that the secondary school in Moffat will also do this for us, the problem with them is they are moving into their new school on Monday 8th of Feb.

We have also been to several of the schools and showed the End Polio Now DVD to the kids.

Alan Bateman
President
Rotary Club of Lockerbie and District

Library Display and Aquabox Fill (Larkhall)

The Rotary Club of Larkhall are putting up a display in Larkhall Library in the Thanks for Life week and have six Aquaboxes on order which we are having filled by local Primary Schools.

We also did a mile of coins day when the weather was better and gave the proceeds to “End Polio Now”

North Berwick Tesco Collection

The Rotary Clubs of North Berwick, Haddington and Dunbar are collecting at North Berwick Tesco on 27/02/10

Antique Roadshow (North Berwick)

The Rotary Club of North Berwick are holding an Antique Roadshow – tho date has been changed from 21/2/10 to later because of valuers availability.

Tesco Collection (Lanark)

The Rotary Club of Lanark will be holding a collection in Tesco’s Lanark on Saturday 27th Feb and Sunday 28th Feb. We have a rota of 28 Club members to attend throughout those two days. This will be in front of a stand showing the Thanks for Life Posters. Money collected will be added to the amount raised in our schools’ Purple Pinkie project (see earlier post).

Ian Hodge
Rotary Club of Lanark

Purple Pinkie in 13 schools (Lanark)

Purple Pinkie will be promoted in 12 Primary schools in the Lanark area as well as the Grammar School, selling and distributing wrist bands. The idea is to show pupils getting behind a valuable project rather than the sometimes negative stories about young people in the press.

We are engaged with the Grammar school who are helping us run the event at the Grammar school, and in 12 feeder schools in the Lanark area. The school have asked their 5th and 6th year pupils to be our link, and to run the campaign with us. They are bursting with ideas.

The Deputy Head Boy and Girl have raised excellent enthusiasm for this project. They have now developed a programme of contacting the 12 “feeder schools” to the Grammar School in the area with the help of 12 former pupils of each feeder school. The programme will be to sell purple wristbands to pupils (with the correct permission) and they in turn will place the “purple pinkie finger print” on a map of the areas in the world where Polio is still rife. They will also sell these wristbands to pupils in S4-5 & 6 in the Grammar School, of whom there are nearly 500.

To help this promotion we will have a photo taken by the local Lanark Gazette Photographer, of the 12 pupils with the Deputy Head and our President Bob Russell. They will all be holding their “Purple Pinkies” in the air. This is aimed to appear in the Gazette on Wednesday 24th February. As this Newspaper is owned by the Johnson Group, attempts will be made to have it appear on Tuesday 23rd Feb (Rotary Day) in the Scotsman (same group of papers).

Ian Hodge
Rotary Club of Lanark

Inkpads for Purple Pinkie

Any clubs needing inkpads for Purple Pinkie events should contact Assistant Governor John Barbour.

East Zone – East Lothian Courier

At the East Zone meeting on 25th November I put forward the suggestion that the Rotary Clubs in East Lothian should band together and prepare a press release for publication in the week prior to Rotary Day on 23rd February and the Purple Pinkie – End Polio Now project. I am delighted to say that I have had a splendid response to my request for material for the article.

Over the last few weeks I have spoken with the East Lothian Courier, and a short article of around 500 words tackling the END POLIO NOW initiative from its inception in Malawi in the 1980s until now, will be prepared. 

It emerged during our discussions that there may be a possibility of an article entitled “Inside Rotary – East Lothian” being published at some later date and certainly within 2010.

Gordon Boyd

President Rotary Club of Haddington

Glasgow Phoenix Choir (Peebles)

The Rotary Club of Peebles is pleased to announce that the world-renowned Glasgow Phoenix Choir will sing at the Old Parish Church on Saturday, 6th February 2010.

The choir is a mixed voice choir of approximately 115 singing members ranging from teenagers to octogenarians. Founded in 1951 when members of the disbanded Glasgow Orpheus Choir decided to continue the then 50 year old tradition begun in 1901, it continues to perform throughout the British Isles, Europe and North America. With a library of over 1000 titles and over 30 albums recorded, the choir’s extensive and varied repertoire includes music from West End/Broadway shows and “easy listening” numbers through to oratorio, opera, chamber music, and sacred music from all the major composers and, of course, Scottish song.

The proceeds will be in aid of an International Rotary charity, which, jointly with the World Health Organisation, is working to eliminate polio throughout the world. Many millions of people have already been immunised and polio has now been contained to only a few pockets worldwide. Polio eradication has been Rotary’s top priority since 1985 with more than $1.2 billion contributed to the effort.

Tickets, priced at £7.50, from David Spencer on 01721 722195 or from Tony Storey, Optician, in the High Street or from Graham McGrath, outfitters, in East Gate. This is a must see event and a wonderful opportunity to raise a significant sum towards Rotary’s aim as every pound we raise will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has committed $255 million to Rotary International. Rotary Clubs all over the world are committed to organising polio eradication fundraisers annually for the next three years.

Edinburgh Exhibitions (City Zone)

All Edinburgh clubs are working together to have 2 exhibitions at the Gyle and Ocean Terminal. At the Gyle we shall be showing the Connie Huq Polio Immunisation Day in India DVD on TV and inviting the general public as well as children to participate with their purple pinkie.

Polio Plus Film Night (Langholm)

The Rotary Club of Langholm is holding a Film Night with a Steak Pie Supper prior to the film on 23rd February. The film being shown is Last Chance Harvey on the big screen in the Buccleuch Centre, Langholm. There will be a Purple Pinkie stance to raise money for Polio Plus. The cost is £12 per person for supper and the film. Starting time 6.15pm for the Supper and 7.30pm for the film.

Shop Displays (Kirkcudbright)

The Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright have had a massively positive uptake to the idea of End Polio Now posters being displayed in shop windows in the town centre and have just picked up further posters and leaflets for distribution.

Joined up Rotary in the South West

The Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright is teaming up with Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie to promote joint Rotary awareness. The clubs will be visiting Primary Schools taking a local Polio victim with them, and enlisting local Radio and newspapers

Pinkie School (Musselburgh)

The Rotary Club of Musselburgh is having a stall in Brunton Hall, Rotary awareness flyers, covering membership, activities and Rotary Day.

There will be posters, banners around town, plenty of photo opportunities, and of course our key card – Pinkie School, where the Headmaster is a Rotarian.

Mile of Coins with Local Schools

The Denny club,  along with Polmont, Falkirk and Vale of Carron are doing a “Mile of Coins” in Falkirk High Street on Saturday February 20th for End Polio. The four clubs are asking one or some of the local schools if they could get the children to do A4 posters about End Polio to display on that day.

Wallacestone Primary School Purple Pinkie Day (Polmont)

Wallacestone Primary School Purple Pinkie Day

I’m delighted to report that Wallacestone Primary School hosted a ‘Purple Pinkie’ day on Friday 22^nd January to coincide with their health awareness week.

Children wore something purple on the day and brought in £1 to put their stamp on where they would like their money to go to help immunise a child.

They raised a fantastic £600 and raised awareness of the disease with 500 children.

Graham Smith

President, Rotary Club of Polmont

Joined up Rotary (Linlithgow Grange, Linlithgow Bo’ness)

We have an eventful week planned for the Rotary Day period, and have invited our mother club of Linlithgow Bo’ness to participate in ‘joined up Rotary’ with us, which they have agreed to do.  Events will comprise coffee morning, schools quiz, School Essay competition prize presentation, street collection for Rotary Foundation UK to cover Polio Eradication and the Haiti Earthquake, PR via the local newspaper with a full Rotary article including a PR display in their office windows and the same in the local library.

Our PR and Communications Team have also produced a Rotary Day edition of our club magazine – “The Blether” – to highlight our plans and committment to Rotary Day.

Jim Rae
President
Rotary Club of Linlithgow Grange

Purple Pinkie at 9 Primary Schools (Denny)

We spoke to all the schools at school cluster meetings and we are now visiting each one doing a wee presentation on Rotary in general, Denny club in particular and End Polio, at the request of the schools. The plan is to have a “purple Pinkie day” at the schools and/or a “wear purple to school day” and the children will pay 50p/£1 for the privilege.  Some of the schools are planning to do this on Feb 23rd, others will do it at a different date. A couple of schools have already had a collection for End Polio, using their End of term service at Christmas to collect.

Also I have involved my local church where they have already had a collection at the Christmas Eve Service and nominated End Polio as the “charity” to receive this. I will be doing a wee presentation in the church sometime during February on End Polio and our campaign.

So far from the 2 schools and my church, we have a sum of just over £500 in the coffers for End Polio. Hopefully we can double that with money from the other schools.

We also have just recently had a meeting with our local High School and it looks like they wish to be involved but it won’t happen until after the summer term as they have already all their charity stuff in place for this year. We’ve been asked to come back to the school in August and present to the pupils and they then take this on to raise money during the full academic year, which means more will be raised than just from a one day event.

We’ll be submitting a bit for the next magazine on all these efforts.

President Lachlan McGowan
Rotary Club of Denny