New Rotary organisation comes to Oswestry

A new Rotary club is opening in Oswestry and is taking its ethos from the very first club formed.

Get the latest headlines delivered straight to your inbox with the Shropshire Star’s free newsletter

The Rotaract club means ‘Rotary in Action’ and is a partner of Rotary International.

Called The Oswestry Business Collective, the new Oswestry Rotaract club takes Rotary back to its 1905 roots in Chicago in the US where the very first Rotary club was formed by four businessmen that had the unique idea of the time that business should give something back to its community.

Their meetings rotated round their four offices and Rotary was born. There are now 33,000 clubs with 1.2 million members in over 180 countries. At the time it was only businesses that could join Rotary so this Rotaract club

The new Collective will overcome the feeling of isolation by Oswestry independent business people by particularly looking for the many residents that run their business from home, sole traders, budding entrepreneurs, shopkeepers and small business owners. Membership is less than the price of a coffee per month with meetings once a month unless agreed differently by the group and will be ‘group lead’.

Organiser Mike Lade said: “I have 18 businesses signed up and committed to join. A number more were unable to attend the first inaugural meeting so I’m holding a second launch event.

“Any Independent Business is welcome to come along to the second information at The Sweeney Hotel, on the A483 just south of Oswestry, SY10 9EU on Thursday, May 7 for a 6.30pm start. Come along at 6.00pm and get a drink and start networking before the presentation which is exactly what happen at the first meeting.”