Novel ideas :

A member of the RC of Easington and Peterlee is a professional violinist.  David Bierman, who studied with Alfredo Campoli, is their Junior Vice President and after a particularly successful recent concert in Durham, offered to record a CD with a colleague on piano and sell it around our District with all profits going to T4L/End Polio Now.  The CD has been recorded with 14 tracks (including the themes from Schindlers List and Ladies in Lavender) and should be on sale by Rotary day with a selling price of £5.

The Rotary Clubs of Durham, Durham Bede and Durham Elvet are running a Window of Opportunity in the ex-Jessops store in the Prince Bishops Shopping Centre, Durham City, from 23rd February to 27th  February.  Go to www.durham.rotaryweb.org and click on the Thanks For Life banner for more information.

Thanks for Life was launched at a Gala dinner on 19 February attended by 300 which raised over £4000. Our guest of honour was the Consul General of Pakistan in Bradford.

Novel ideas :

Knaresborough residents and visitors will be treated to rather different charity stand at 24^th February’s Market Day as part of the Rotary club of Knaresborough’s initiative to end the war against polio.

The Rotary Club of Knaresborough will be setting-up an amateur radio station with the special call sign GB0TFL and will be sending messages to Rotarians and many others around the world – come along, take the microphone and say ‘Hello’.

Novel ideas :

District 1050 Thanks for Life Competition Winners with Sir Chris Hoy

The winners of our District Thanks For Life Competition were given a behind the scenes tour of the Velodrome by the GB Team Coach Shane Sutton. The tour included a visit to the mechanics’ workshop, the cyclists’ gym and the Olympic 2012 Equipment store (although we didn’t get to see Chris Boardman’s secret room!).  The winners were given a GB Cycling cap and one of the special drinks that the Olympians have whilst racing.

We then went trackside and the winners were presented with signed cycling shirts, their certificates and met the Olympic Gold medal winning cyclists Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Ed Clancy, Jason Kenny and Paul Manning as well as some of the future stars.

After all of the excitement we then sat down to watch 3 ½ hours of fast and furious track cycling.

Massive credit to Shane Sutton the GB Track Team Head Coach and his PA Angela Haig. Shane has been a great help to us throughout and gave up nearly two hours of his time to take us round the stadium and got us track side to meet the stars whilst Angela was instrumental in getting the signed jerseys, tickets etc.

We may also feature on a Sky HD documentary about Chris Hoy and the Sky professional cycle team. The camera man was taking a lot of footage of the youngsters with the stars.

Ian Priestley, DGN 2009/10

Winners with Jason Kenny and Paul Manning

Winners with Victoria Pendleton

Winners with Ed Clancy

Click on the links to view the winning PowerPoint presentations in the District 1050 Schools Thanks for Life competition : Winner 1   Winner 2

Rotary Club of Hazel Grove – taking their Christmas float on the road with the strap line ‘Rotary isn’t just for Christmas it’s for (Thanks for) Life’

Rotary Club of Macclesfield Castle – a raffle for a £10,000 fitted kitchen

Rotary Club of Manchester Breakfast – James Bond Cocktail Evening

Thanks for Life website of the Rotary Club of Lichfield St Chad.

Visit our Thanks for Life website and view the activities the 3 Rotary Clubs of Rugby undertook during the End Polio campaign week during which we collected over £1300.

Presidents of the Rotary Clubs of Rugby

Very novel ideas :

District Governor Lorna Beedham is doing a tandem dive with the Red Devils on  27th May to raise money for the Thanks for Life project. If you would like to sponsor her please visit http://sponsor-me.org/tandemdive2010.

She says

“This is very scary for me as I have a fear of heights and really am not a keen flier but I decided I should do something different to end my year off with (as long as it doesn’t end my year full stop!).”

The Rotary Club of Leicester sponsored a Gala Concert in the De Montfort Hall, Leicester on Thursday 25^th February compered by Martin Ballard of BBC Radio Leicester. Over 300 musicians and singers took part, mainly young people, but with some of the not so young as well. Male voice choirs, and a combined school and community choir performed music from the shows and a classical pianist in a programme ranging from Black Eyed Peas and Take That to Schumann, Chopin and Liszt to entertain an audience of over 800.

Novel ideas :

A fundraising dinner and social evening in a local community centre with a menu of dishes drawn from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria. Recognise the PAIN!

We still have our bear dressed in an End Polio Now T-shirt and named Po Lio. The bear has been to many club functions already and on the trip to India to the NID. There is a diary record of all the events attended and an ever-open backpack for collecting.  The next sequence of appearances will be at our semi-final and final events of all of our Youth competitions that happen in the next month. Po Lio’s target is £1070 from 1070.

Novel ideas :

The 4 Ipswich clubs have opened a shop in the Buttermarket in Ipswich. Inside the shop is a sailability boat for the disabled which the clubs are heavily involved in, an opened-up shelter box and an aqua box. The Konnie Huq video is also continually shown on a loop.

Rotary Shop in Ipswich

Inside the Rotary Shop

Inside the Rotary Shop

The Club President of the Rotary Club of Sudbury, Tim McNeill has, with help from President Elect Richard Kemsley, organised a rather unusual TFL Grand Charity Dinner.  The dinner is unusual in that everything has been donated by local restaurants, caterers, shops and businesses without cost. Two different wine negotiants have donated the red and white wine and a local firm of accountants have agreed to sponsor the aperitif. The flowers for the table have been donated by a local florist and even the table linen which, like the flowers, will be in spectacular red and yellow TFL colours has been provided free for the night. It is possible to see just which top local restaurants and other organisations have contributed by using this link to visit the Rotary Club’s ‘Grand Charity Dinner’ webpage.

The event is limited to 140 guests, with as much as possible of the ticket price (£35) being donated to TFL – the only costs as such being for the waitresses and the speaker.  The Guest of Honour and Speaker is the Paralympic Gold Medallist Danny Crates.

Novel ideas :

The Rotary Club of Oxford Isis are holding two jazz concerts with proceeds to Thanks for Life; one is at St Hilda’s College Oxford on 20 Feb, and the other is with Kenny Ball on Sat 27 March at Radley theatre, Oxford.

The Rotary Club of Ascot are holding a “Casino Night” in aid of End Polio Now on 27th February.

The Rotary Club of Elthorne Hillingdon have a great spread of window displays

Novel ideas :

See Gloucester Cathedral lit up with “End Polio Now ” on Rotary Day, 23rd February. As dusk falls the projection will start.