Folkestone Rotary Clubs Support the NHS

Hero Of The Week

 FOLKESTONE ROTARY CLUBS COMBINE TO SUPPORT THE NHS WITH VOLUNTEERS AND LOGISTICS FOR FOLKESTONE VACCINATION CENTRES

 

In anticipation of mass Covid vaccination, the 1700 UK Rotary clubs had been mobilising to support the NHS.  On Wednesday January 20th Joe Sullivan of Folkestone Channel Rotary Club received a request to help with volunteers for the centres at the Civic Centre (drive-in) and Debenhams (Folca walk-in) in Folkestone.  In addition to Channel Rotary members, Joe’s first call was to Barry Pluck at the Shepway Sports Trust based in the local Three Hills Sports Park who in turn contacted 43 sports related clubs asking for volunteers. The response was immediate and massive.  Within an hour emails were flooding in.  Derek Harris OBE, another Channel Rotary member, started combining all the emails into a database and before the end of the day nearly 100 volunteers were signed up as marshalls.

Dr Terry Cook-Davies, President of our friends in Folkestone Rotary Club and an internationally respected expert in project management, agreed to join the Channel Rotary team to establish the vaccination booking system.  People kept volunteering and in only a couple of days Derek and Terry had built the necessary systems to manage the 250 volunteers. The team was also joined by another Channel Rotary member Bill Flavell, a very experienced businessman, who supervises the volunteer rota which is hosted on the Channel Rotary website.  The two vaccination centres sites are now supported by 35 volunteers every day as part of this great, national vaccination effort.  The satisfaction is enormous.

 

As a result of this immense coordination with the NHS, the Civic Centre vaccinates 500 people a day and Debenhams 1000 people a day working 12 hours daily, 7 days a week.  Our volunteers are thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to help with this enormously valuable community project.  They tell us how much they like the experience of being marshals and the whole positive atmosphere of the vaccination centres.  They are buzzing with excitement.

 

All this coordination has been established on the invaluable links developed between Channel Rotary and the local civic and business communities in making the Folkestone Channel Triathlon into a major sporting attraction http://www.channeltri.com . Even during the pandemic, the Triathlon raised £11,000 which was donated to local mental health charities, school hardship funds and technology to help school pupils with on-line teaching at home.

Our sincere and grateful thanks to the Shepway Sports Trust, Jenner Construction, Folkestone District Council, Sainsburys, the Clifton Hotel (for coffee at the Civic Centre) and to all our volunteers for their help so willingly given.

You are able to keep up to date with our articles, news and publications by following us on our social media channels below:

Facebook logoTwitter logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logoYouTube logo HOME

Tags: , , , , ,

News Categories

Trades

Business Directory Search