We held a ground breaking Zoom meeting thyis week with Shrewsbury Rotary Massachusetts. Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club, which meets in an evening, enjoyed a two hour 4 o’clock Zoom link up with members of Shrewsbury Massachusetts that has an afternoon gathering. Due to Covid-19, neither club has been able to meet in person for a year and there was a common bond amongst Rotarians of both that they cannot wait for their respective country’s pandemic restrictions to be lifted.
Shrewsbury Severn’s 34th President John Law, who arranged the link up, expressed thanks to the club’s US counterparts for the warmth of their Zoom meeting welcome. He gave a slide presentation which ranged from the historic features of the town to the Rotary club’s successful fundraising activities amounting to many thousands of pounds for local charities. In particular, members of Shrewsbury Rotary Massachusetts were told during the Zoom meeting how Shrewsbury Severn became the first in the whole of the UK’s Rotary movement to introduce the fundraising Tree of Light which has captured the imagination.
Members of both clubs enthusiastically exchanged ideas on a variety of fundraising activities as well as recruitment which each agreed was beneficial to them going forward. There was unanimous agreement that the two Rotary clubs should continue their ‘Shrewsbury connection’ with similar link-ups in the future.
Shrewsbury Massachusetts club secretary Cliff Gerber said he believed the town of 40,000 people was named after Shrewsbury in Shropshire and as Charles Darwin had been controversial they had had their own controversy as the birthplace of the oral contraceptive pill.
Added John Law: “We tried to give our friends across the pond an insight into both our town of Shrewsbury and also our Rotary activity and in return they outlined an incredible amount of community work they do in Massachusetts. As their President Owen Russell said, this is something we would like to do again – it will be really good for us to keep in touch.”
