Over the weekend of August 14/15 at Clarks Village, the Rotary Club of Glastonbury and Street invited their daughter club, Avalon, to assist them in a collection in aid of the Pakistan Flood Disaster.

Avalon Rotary Club was formed in 1986 by members of both Glastonbury & Street and Wells Rotary Clubs to meet the requirement for an evening club – the existing clubs met only at lunchtime at that time.

A generation later, both Glastonbury & Street and Avalon Rotary Clubs now meet in the evening and at the Wessex Hotel in Street, so members have welcomed this closer working relationship.

At Glastonbury & Street's most recent meeting Philip Welch, the editor of this newspaper, addressed the club, giving a fascinating insight into the varied and often amusing aspects of producing a local newspaper. Another guest that evening was Mike Osborne, who is a Past President of Avalon and, currently, chairman of Rotary District 1200 International Committee. It was in this capacity that Mike willingly led a discussion attempting to analyse the disappointing results of the weekend's collection, which struggled to reach barely £450 in total.

The meeting decided that the reluctance of the general public to donate to yet another disaster might well stem from the perception that undue sums appear to be consumed by administration costs "en route" to the disaster site and worse still, material assistance is often "stalled" while the relevant permissions to enter the country are sought.

Rotary would like to assure the public the money it collects is not usually sent directly to the disaster site. Rather, the amounts collected go directly to the provision of such items as Shelter, Water Survival and Aqua Boxes that normally are distributed by Rotarians in field.

In this instance, both clubs have added funds from their respective charity accounts to enable Glastonbury & Street to send a Shelter box and Avalon to send five Water Survival Boxes.

Recently a further item has been become available: Life Straws are personal water filters that allow the user to draw clean water directly from the surface of any water source, and are being promoted by Brynmowr Rotary Club in Gwent.

Rotary International is the umbrella organisation that oversees the many thousands of Rotary Clubs throughout the world, and is divided into districts. Our clubs belong to District 1200 which covers the whole of Somerset and adjacent parts of the of Dorset and Wiltshire, and comprises some 56 local clubs.

For further information, or to make a donation, phone the International Committee Chairman of Glastonbury & Street Club, Hugh Berry, on 01749 890469 or email hugh.berry@btinternational. com, or for Avalon Club Mike Osborne on 01458 850693 and michael.osborne48@sky.com.

John Denning