​Club member Carol Jones very generously hosted a supper party at her apartment.  Guests were asked to bring groceries/ toiletries as a donation for the Trussell Trust Food Bank.  As well as produce several kilos of groceries and toiletries, the evening raised almost £500 for the Food Bank.  The head of the local food bank, Pauline Hennessy, spoke to us about the important work of the food bank.
 
The Trussell Trust is a charity which runs food banks all over the country.  The food bank it runs local to us located at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea.  The food bank operates as an emergency food service for local people referred to it by Social Services or local doctors.  People can often find themselves unexpectedly short of money due to illness, the death of a breadwinning partner, unemployment, reduction of hours worked, benefits cuts, benefits delays etc and if they have no savings to fall back on, they don’t have money for food.  The food bank can provide them with 3 days’ worth of food on 3 occasions over 6 months.

Katie is studying Population & Development at the London School of Economics.  Her host club is the Rotary Club of Federal City, Washington DC.  Katie’s presentation focussed on her 2 years work as a community health worker in Burkina Faso. Development in West Africa remains her prime interest.  We wish her all the best.  

​Each year RC Kensington invites all the Rotary Scholars to a networking evening.  It was a buzzing evening as everyone presented themselves, where they came from, and what they were studying, as well as a tip on a Must See/ Do in London.   We wish all of them a very successful academic year in London, and also a very enjoyable year socially.

Guest speaker: The chief librarian of the Royal Borough of K&C

Angela Goreham and Karen Ullesperger gave a comprehensive presentation about the services offered by libraries in the Royal Borough.  The libraries do lot more than simply lend books ! – they have become community centres. 
 
This was a joint meeting with our sister club, the Rotary Club of Chelsea.

The Rotary Club of Kensington is participating in Rotary’s annual ‘plant a crocus to remember Rotary’s work to eradicate polio’ campaign.

President Jeannie planted several hundred crocus bulbs with the pupils of the Chelsea Academy – most of whom, being inner city kids, had never planted bulbs before! Jeannie explained to the pupils that Rotary is working to eradicate polio worldwide, and that the purple colour of each crocus is meant to remind people of one child who has been immunized against polio (since health workers who immunize children against polio in India mark a child’s finger with purple ink to indicate that that child has received the medication).