ROTARIANS from North Cotswold Rotary Club celebrated its 50th anniversary with a dinner at Hyde Barn, in Stow.

Dinner was attended by national president Peter King, district governor Martyn Harwood, representatives from other clubs, past members, and widows of former members.

Following a welcome drink, photographs were taken as a memento of the occasion. Guests were entertained by master magician Sam Strange and there was dancing to The Occasional Big Band.

A display of photographs summarised the history of the club with copies of original documentation and pictures of founder members. The club was chartered on April 6, 1965 with 28 members and the first meeting was held on April 23. Today the club has 44 members and meets on Tuesday evenings at Stow Rugby Club. The first Rotary club was founded in 1905 when four friends met in Chicago to discuss how they could work together to help the wider community. In 1914 the organisation moved across the Atlantic and the British Association of Rotary Clubs was established. Rotary has since grown internationally to more than 1.2 million members across 200 countries.

The anniversary was an opportunity for North Cotswolds Rotary Club to celebrate its involvement in lots of projects and activities in their local community, including organising youth competitions to encourage young talent, blood pressure testing days, Christmas lunches for the elderly and those with disabilities, and various environmental improvements. The club also responds, with generous help from the public, to international disasters and has recently raised or set aside from its own funds over £5,000 for earthquake victims in Nepal. A flagship international project to which the club regularly contributes is the Rotary campaign to eradicate polio worldwide, for which Rotary International was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in what has been described as ‘one of the finest humanitarian projects the world has ever known’.

The club is always looking for new members and can be contacted by visiting the website: www.NorthCotswoldsRotary.org.uk

The club's new president is Graham Ogden.