Welcome to Abingdon Vesper!

My name is Astrid and I have the privilege of being Abingdon Vesper's President for the second year in a row. Together with my husband Ben I have lived in the UK for more than 30 years, and we raised our two daughters here. I work as a translator and I am passionate about languages, travel and aquarobics. I also love Rotary, the work that this worldwide organisation does and the principles it stands for . I was lucky enough to be a Rotary Youth Exchange Student to the USA when I was young and thanks to Rotary I have made new friends in Abingdon, in the UK and all over the world!

The Rotary Club of Abingdon Vesper is a small and friendly team of enthusiastic men and women of all ages, who live and work in and around Abingdon-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. We want to make a difference in our community, both locally, nationally, and internationally by taking action and giving back to our communities. As a team we organise fun activities to raise funds, and as a team we decide which worthy causes we want to support.

Despite the pandemic, we were able to do a lot last year:

• Locally we donated over £1000 to the Abingdon Food Bank, members of our club and Friends of Vesper made scrubs and other PPE for NHS staff, we donated no-touch-thermometers for the Abingdon CALM unit and DAMASCUS, we did a regular litter-pick in Abingdon and surrounding villages, we raised funds with an international Zoom quiz, we served refreshments at the Christmas Barn in Appleton, we held the Abingdon Advent Event run and helped fund and distribute Christmas hampers for Peachcroft Christian Centre, we supported SOFEA and the Community Larder and last but not least we marshalled the car park of the Clifton Hampden Village Hall where local people arrived to receive their coronavirus vaccinations!
• Internationally we raised over £1000 for Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign and we raised funds and publicised information about the constructions of dozens of eco-friendly cooking stoves in schools in Uganda. We are helping hundreds of farmers in Mubende in Uganda with our microcredit scheme and we also install water harvesting tanks.

The Rotary Club of Abingdon Vesper meets every 1^st and 3^rd Tuesday evening of the month. As soon as the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, we will be having a meal at 7.30pm at the Hilton Garden Inn on the Tesco roundabout in Abingdon, followed by a meeting, often with a very inspirational speaker. Have a look at the information on this page about our Upcoming Speakers. We will offer hybrid meetings, so that people can join us virtually as well. Please contact me so that I can send you a Zoom link or book you in for the evening.

This year the club has become a member of End Plastic Soup and we will be supporting environmental initiatives in Abingdon and in our Rotary District 1090. We support our own Interact club at Europa UK School for 12-18 year olds and we will be organising fundraisers so that we can continue helping people at home and abroad. Watch this space!

If you want to support us, please get in touch to enquire about membership or donate using the button on this page.

President, 2021-2022