At the beginning of every Rotary Year an Assembly is held where the aspirations, ideas and plans are shared for the coming Rotary Year 2018/19. This page is our way to inform our membership, those who might be interested in connecting with us and just interested parties.

The President of Rotary International sets out his aspirations in the video below:

Our own President Janice highlights below our hope for the coming year, always remembering we are a flexible and innovative group for busy people:

Partnership Initiatives – we want to encourage the continued development of partnership initiatives with communities, charities and other Rotary Clubs, e.g.

• Let’s Hear (Hearing Link, Rotary Clubs, Portsmouth Together, Toucan Diversity, Portsmouth Disability Forum, Portsmouth Deaf Association)
• Dementia Friendly Communities (Alzheimer’s Society and Solent Mind’s Remind Service)
• work with Alabaré and support their Sky Dive
• work with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust

Theatre Innovation – build on the initial work we’ve already started, especially with the Kings Theatre.

Social Enterprise – continue to build awareness across Rotary and our communities, whilst encouraging the market place, e.g.

• continuing our work with Action Hampshire, Quench in Salisbury and all of our SE partners
• running L.I.K.E Meetings
• develop, in partnership, SOUP events
• running Unpacking Social Enterprise in different areas
• promoting Buy Social

Rotary International – ensuring we build members’ awareness about Rotary at District, RIBI and worldwide levels, help support the work of The Rotary Foundation, e.g.

• encourage members to attend Rotary Conferences e.g. District, National (next year themed on combatting Human Slavery) and RI Convention
• start a 100 Club and Easy Fundraising to support The Rotary Foundation
• ensure our website promotes Rotary International work through videos
• Be involved in a Service project to help refugees in the community
• Develop creative ideas involving young people through Interact and Rotaract to be the catalyst for change in the world
• work in partnership with other Rotary Clubs where possible

Development & Growth – we are still a comparatively new group, there is a need to nurture, build greater awareness and encourage relationship building, whilst trying to fit into an older structure, e.g.

• getting members to take on Group roles e.g. Treasurer, Secretary, Community Service
• continue to develop satellite groups in other areas e.g. South Wiltshire & East Hampshire
• making a video to help with public relations
• members themselves taking lead roles e.g. Community, International, Youth
• encouraging members to attend our engagement events and family days
• encouraging continued contact through Social Media

Supporting Youth – continued work with our Interact Club in partnership and exploring other ways we can develop programmes for youth within our communities that encourage Social Innovation, e.g.

• mathematics and music
• developing strategies for coping with stress and encouraging good wellbeing
• using cooking and food to build relationships
• developing community enterprise

Social Model of Disability – building our communities to be inclusive and accessible e.g.

• building awareness across communities about the Social Model
• working and supporting the work of Toucan Diversity and the Portsmouth Disability Forum
• working in partnership to highlight the need for greater wellbeing for all
• community led swimathon to help build inclusiveness
• working with Queen Alexander Hospital on the patient experience

Environment & Conservation –

• encouraging our members to personally re-cycle
• encouragement to join local initiatives
• some beach cleaning family days
• Community Garden project and growing own produce

Finally from our President Janice, “We are called to be the inspiration to our communities, we need to not forget we are Rotary for busy people in the 21st Century. To achieve our aspirations, I believe we need to:

• use our Social Media Skills to help promote and build awareness,
• share our ideas and skills to help each other in how we contribute to the whole,
• Buy Social or help Social Enterprise by our sharing of what they are and do,
• In our families support how we treat people inclusively in our communities and how we care for that community, both in respect of the people who live in them and the environment that surrounds us,
• through what we do, build relationships through our eCoffee Lounge, our face2face meet ups and through activities we do together.

Always remember the little time you give, together with everyone else, contributes to the way in which Rotary Social Innovation contributes to help build sustainable communities for us all and in collaboration with others we can achieve our hopes, vision and goals.”