Rotary (RGBI) Club Number 1576 – District 1070
Meetings are held on Tuesday evenings (except following a Bank Holiday) – 7.00pm for dinner at 7.30pm at:
St Neots Golf Club
Crosshall Road
St.Neots,
Cambridgeshire
PE19 7GE
Tel No: (01480) 472363
Donate to our causes and help us help local Charities
If you are interested in attending a meeting, please contact the Club Secretary:
Mike Matthews -Tel No: 01480 472183 E-mail: The Secretary
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PARTNERS EVENING AT THE VINO TAPAS AND WINE BAR
A total of 41 members and guests enjoyed an excellent evening at the Vino Tapas and Wine Bar which has recently opened on the Market Square. Alex and her team served up a tremendous array of varied tapas with great efficiency and the ambience in the room showed how much everyone was enjoying the food, the chatter and the laughter. Another very successful evening and once again the club members were please to support a relatively new business in the town.
Our thanks go to the staff for all their hard work during the evening especially those unseen working so hard in the kitchen.
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OFFICIAL OPENING OF ST NEOTS TENNIS CLUB’S NEW FACILITIES
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NEW MEMBER WELCOMED BY PRESIDENT MALCOLM
President Malcolm was pleased to induct new member Norman Hart at a recent meeting. Norman spent his career in the Prison Service and is keen to be part of the Rotary family and has been attending club meetings getting to know all the members who have welcomed him.
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ANOTHER SUPERB SPORTSMAN’S CHARITY LUNCHEON
The Club held another very successful Sportsmans Lunch on Friday at St Neots Golf Club, the 37th event held since it started in 1989 The audience of around 80 members and guests were richly entertained by ex BBC broadcaster John Inverdale who had stepped in at the 11th hour as replacement for the advertised speaker Andrew Murray who was indisposed. John told many anecdotes covering a range of different sports that he had been involved with over his 30 year career.
Once again the club is very grateful to Kevin Hull and Premier Plus Ltd for his continued sponsorship and also to Jack and Ross Pirie of Pirie Homes, sponsoring the event for the first time, as well as the generous support given to the raffle by those attending and the local businesses who donated prizes.
The event looks to have raised in the region of £6000 for the Club’s Charity account.
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SPORTSMAN’S LUNCH – FRIDAY 6TH MARCH 2026
Tickets now available for our 37th Sportsman’s Charity lunch- only 80 tickets available on a first come first served basis, get your order in NOW to Alan Hurst.
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40 YEARS ON
On Tuesday 18th November the club held its 40th Charter Night, to c
elebrate the formation of the club and presentation of its C
harter on 20th November 1985, attended by just over 50 members and guests including representatives from several neighbouring Rotary Clubs. Guest speaker Ged Dempsey kept everyone amused with tales of his career in business and as a judge in the local courts plus his involvement with the three Pillars Feeding the Homeless Charity locally. During the evening our District Governor Moira Penney presented President Malcolm Watkins with a citation from the Rotary Foundation acknowledging the regular donations made to ‘the End Polio Now Campaign’ that Rotary has been partnering with Unicef and the Bill Gates Foundation amongst others. The club has donated between £1000 and £2000 each year for well over 20 years and this enables millions of children in third world countries to be vaccinated each year against the disease.
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36TH SPORTSMANS CHARITY LUNCH
The Club held its second Sportsman’s Lunch this year on Friday when Jeff Probyn the former England Rugby Union prop forward addressed just over 80 attendees at St Neots Golf Club. The event was very kindly sponsored by Kevin Hull of Premier Plus Ltd.
Jeff spoke of his many experiences with the England team and of his disappointment at losing the 1991 Rugby World Cup final due to a very debateable refereeing decision and also spoke amusingly about overseas tours for which he was selected and included many anecdotes about the characters in his era of the game such as Brian Moore, Will Carling, Mickey Skinner, Wade Dooley and many others.
The event will have raised around £6000 for the club’s nominated charity East Anglian Air Ambulance plus other local charities supported by the club. Our thanks to all those who supported the event and their generous support of the raffle
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ANNUAL CHARITY BIKE RIDE
This year, St Neots St Marys President Malcolm Watkins teamed up with past Presidents Nigel Appleton, Alan Hurst, and Steve McCallion for our Annual Charity Bike Ride from Doncaster to St Neots. Covering 150 miles over three days in late September.
The Presidents’ chosen charity is the ‘East Anglia Air Ambulance’ (EAAA), and we are raising funds for this cause as well as other local charities and organizations supported by our Rotary Club.
The EAAA is a community-funded charity that provides a life-saving helicopter emergency medical service to the people of East Anglia. With two helicopters and two rapid response vehicles based in Norwich and Cambridge, each crew is made up of two pilots, a doctor, and a critical care paramedic. They deliver advanced critical care directly to patients facing life-threatening or life-changing accidents or medical emergencies
It is hoped that once all donations are collected, over £2000 will have been raised—a fantastic effort by everyone involved!
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The club were pleased, with the help of a Rotary District Grant, to fund the refurbishment of a classroom at Longsands Academy for the benefit of RISE Youth Coaching. This followed a presentation given to the club by David Duker which greatly impressed our members. Click this link to see the Video
Further information can be found on www.riseyouthcoaching.co.uk
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ST NEOTS MAYOR’S CHARITY GOLF DAY
The club was pleased once again to organise the St Neots Mayor’s Charity Golf Day in partnership with the Mayor. The 26th event was held recently at St Neots Golf Club with a good entry of 22 teams of four competing for prizes as well as raising money for the Mayor’s Charity fund and the charity account of the Rotary Club of St Neots St Marys.
The event first started in July 1998 and has been held annually apart from the ‘Covid’ years and has raised more than £100,000 since inception. This year’s event raised a further amount of just under £3000 which will be shared by the Mayor’s fund and the Rotary Club.
On a blustery day, but fortunately with no rain, there was keen competition on the course with competitors having the ability to keep track of their own team score and individual scores, as well as all the other teams via the real time scoring system provided by Competition Golf a system we have used for the past four years and which adds to the excitement of the competition.
This year’s winners were a team from Black Cat Radio, the St Neots community radio station, with a score of 125 points, followed by local companies Finaids with 119 points and Suction Excavator Solutions a close third with 118 points.
Another very successful event for the club and the town, monies raised will go via the Mayor’s Fund to St Neots Hockey Club, St Neots Cyclin Club and New Saints Boxing Club and the Rotary Club’s nominated Charity East Anglian Air Ambulance.
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ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL CHARITY DRAGON BOAT EVENT
The club was pleased to support St Neots Town Council and the St Neots Dragon Boat Team once again at this year’s Charity Dragon Boat Event. On a slightly overcast summer’s day, 17 crews did battle on the River Ouse at Regatta Meadow.
A large crowd was once again in attendance, enjoying the keenly contested races over the 200-metre course. The eventual winners were local company Coveris, with DHL finishing in second place and Young Guns 3 taking third in a fiercely fought and very close final race.
In a departure from previous years the club’s involvement was passed on the the next generation of paddlers as this year the club was represented by Club President Malcolm Watkins and long standing club member Bob Silverthorne’s families with sons, daughters and grandchildren paddling to keep the club’s connection with the event. 
Paddling under the name of the Silvawats they have taken over from the Last of the Summer Whine who finally had to accept that anno domini had caught up with them after 10 successful years representing the club, so over to the new kids on the block.
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CLUB SUPPORTS FOREST SCHOOL IN BARFORD ROAD POCKET PARK
The club’s help at the Forest School in Barford Road Pocket Park has recently been acknowledged by the siting of a sign shown in the photo, thanks to the help of Steve McCallion, Etch Tech Ltd and Paxton Sheet Metal and organised by Rotarian Craig Edwards.
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LIFE EDUCATION QUIZ RAISES JUST OVER £1600
FLEC (Friends of Life Education Cambridgeshire) organised a quiz night in conjunction with our club on Friday evening at St Neots Golf Club to raise funds to support the mobile classrooms which are in so much demand by primary schools in the county. Fourteen tables of 6 quizzers keenly contested the evening with the winners in doubt until the very last round.
Thanks to the generosity of those present supporting the raffle, all prizes were donated to the event by individuals and local businesses and organised by members of the FLEC committee, plus some other generous donations the profit made on the evening amounted to £1615.
The Rotary Clubs of St Neots St Marys, St Ives and Huntingdon have supported Life Education for many years and each club was represented at the quiz.
The committee members worked very hard to make the evening a success and thanks go to them, the golf club staff, Louise and Richard the question masters and to everyone who supported the event.