Rotary president praises ‘superb efforts’ of small team
A Rotary president has sent a special New Year message to members praising their ‘superb efforts’ in making the Christmas sleigh campaign one of the most successful in the club’s history.
But with such a strenuous workload, Johnathan Callwood, president of Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club, has advocated the need to recruit new members in 2026.
“I am concerned that the workload for manning the sleigh with Santas and elves was too high last month and fell upon the shoulders of our small but amazing team,” he said.
“By the end of the campaign it was clear that everyone was very tired and frankly we are being unreasonable to expect so much of so few.
“Next year we must introduce more help if we are to fulfil the sleigh obligations that we undertook last month.”
However, he had been encouraged that through the greater use of social media, and by adding some new routes, Rotary had made ‘positive progress’ with improving its fundraising capacity.
“But it is nonetheless very apparent that we must recruit new members this year and I am making progress in this direction – a prospective member will be attending our next meeting.”
He also felt the need for the club’s new corporate members to be encouraged to take more active roles. “I am sure that through inspiring some better planning and communication we can pursue this new avenue of support more effectively.”
The president added: “Building upon the projects that I have proposed and started will take me some time and I will need support.
“Having spoken with members, I agree that we need to reinstate some club committees to discuss and agree details of the various projects to which we are committed.”
