The Big Bottle

This was the brainchild of Past President Bill Best, our then International Chairman, in the Rotary Year 2002/2003. As the name suggests, it is a large plastic bottle which is produced at our weekly meetings and the initial idea was that Rotarians would put in any surplus change from "buying a round" with a goal of £300 set for the year with the Rotary Project to benefit being Water Aid. The club welcomed the opportunity so much so that the Sergeant At Arms became particularly active, "fining" members for all sorts of minor (and not so minor) transgressions such as forgetting to turn off mobile phones, not wearing their Rotary badge, cars not parked straight in the car park, falling asleep?!! and any other worthwhile bits of scurrilous gossip that somehow managed to reach his ears. This was all done in a sensitive (not) and humorous way and Rotarians (including visitors and yes, they did return!) were always generous in putting something in the bottle to pay for their sins. 

So frequent were these transgressions that various targets were easily succeeded resulting in a total of £1,020 from "The Big Bottle" being passed to Water Aid.

This figure was exceeded in 2003/2004 with the beneficiary charity being Radios for Africa.

The nominated project for 2005/2006 was The Niall Mellon Township Challenge

The project which this will fund in 2006/2007 is IMPACT

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