A GUEST at the last meeting of the Rotary Club was Karen Jones of the Marie Curie Trust, when she received a cheque for £1,000 for Holme Tower from Assistant President Peter Zehetmayer.

The donation was from the proceeds from the bottle stall that the club had run at the last Holme Tower Garden Fete, which had been rounded up out of its own funds.

Penarth Rotary has been raising funds for Holme Tower with the bottle stall for many years and will be there again this year on Saturday, August 1 when the club hopes to raise a similar amount with the usual generous support of those attending. The club is grateful for the bottles that are donated each year for this event by donors.

Running the bottle stall at the Holme Tower fete is just one of the many activities of fund raising and community service that Penarth Rotary undertakes each year.

Another is, of course, the Fireworks Fiesta organised in collaboration with Penarth Round Table and Penarth Rugby Club that has drawn increasingly larger audiences each year to enjoy spectacular pyrotechnic displays in safety.

At its last meeting, the club was able donate out of this event and other fund raising activities some £6,000 to various beneficiaries that included The National Coastguard Watch, Welsh Air Ambulance, George Thomas Hospice, the St. Lazarus Trust, Emmaus, the Children’s Ward at the Heath Hospital and the recent appeal in the Penarth Times for little Ollie Mould, who is in need of specialist equipment to help her deal with her illness.

Fund raising, however, is not the sole purpose of Penarth Rotary’s activities. Helping the community, especially the young, is just as important.

Thus in May, the club organised its Annual Schools Concert, where children from local schools were given the opportunity to show their musical talents in front of a large audience of families and friends. Incidentally, the money raised from the admission charge for adults enabled the club to donate £1,000 to the Vale Young Carers, who urgently need support.

And in June, the club participated in the national Rotary “Kid’s Out” programme by taking 32 children from Ysgol y Deri with their teachers on a day out at the Brean Sands Leisure Park in Somerset. The club also sponsored and supported pupils from the local schools in national competitions for Young Chefs, Young Musicians and Youth Speakers.

Reviewing the last Rotary year, President Val Kacal said that Penarth Rotary had enjoyed a busy and successful year.

Club meetings had been enjoyable and very interesting with excellent talks on a wide range of subjects. And other activities kept the Rotarians busy. His only regret was that the membership of the club was falling and that the club was failing to attract new members.

A busy life was often cited as a reason for declining to accept invitations to join.

However, the club now meets on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays instead of weekly as hitherto, which he hoped would make membership for busy people easier to accommodate.

The meetings at the Sully Constitutional Club start at 6.30pm and usually last no more than two hours. Anyone, man or woman, who would be interested in membership may contact Val Kacal on 07443 517 435.