Community – and education

We organise a variety of initiatives within the local community and have a strong focus on youth including activities aimed at encouraging young people to participate and develop their abilities and self confidence. Several have become key annual events.

Young Chef

The Club founded this competition which has such a great formula that soon it was expanded to Rotary District level and has now gone national. We continue to organise the Aylesbury heat with the enthusiastic help of Hartwell House and Aylesbury College.

The competition is open to budding chefs at secondary school level throughout Aylesbury Vale, who are invited to submit a 3 course dinner menu for the first stage – food cost not to exceed £10. Six finalists are selected to prepare, cook and present their meals over 3 hours at Aylesbury College. The head chef from Hartwell House and lecturing staff from Aylesbury College observe them at work. They are joined by a local celebrity to judge to taste and judge the meals. The standard is always amazing. The winner moves on to the District heats and is coached by the Head Chef from Hartwell House in addition to their prize of lunch for them and three members of their family at the hotel.

Recent winners have been:

Technology Tournament

We run this tournament for secondary schools in Aylesbury Vale who can enter teams at three levels – usually we have 30 teams.
The task is the same for all age groups; however there are three levels of difficulty – Basic (for students at Key Stage 3), Intermediate (for students at Key Stage 4) and Advanced (for students at Key Stage 5). Teachers who attend the event with their students are joined together in teams of four to tackle the Advanced level task.

Five local clubs – Aylesbury, ourselves, Buckingham, Haddenham & District and Winslow – work together to organise and fund the task which is held annually at Aylesbury College to whom we are grateful for their continued support.
In the past we have benefited from sponsorship from Mitie Engineering Company, Jacobs Babtie, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Aylesbury Town Council.

The tasks are set in conjunction with school technology advisors to meet national curriculum requirements and students taking part gain academic merits for their schools and for themselves. Each team knows nothing about the task until they arrive at the beginning of a normal school day; they work as a team evaluating, designing, constructing and demonstrating the task set using a fixed amount of materials. At the end of the day each team has solved the problem and it can be guaranteed that not two solutions are the same but each has worked – some maybe better than others.
Certificates are presented to each student; prizes are given to the top three teams with the school of the winning team at each task level also benefiting from a cash prize. The teachers in their winning team are also suitably rewarded.

KidsOut

On the second Wednesday in June each year Rotarians from around our District converge on Whipsnade Zoo accompanied by disadvantaged children for a great fun day out. For many years we have taken children from Pebblebrook School in Aylesbury. Rotary has worked with KidsOut for many years – more details about the charity can be found on their website.

Pantomoine/Theatre Outing

Working again with Pebblebrook School we take about 70 children to the pantomime or another suitable production in the weeks running up to Christmas, either in Aylesbury or a short coach trip away. The children love it (oh yes they do!) and that includes the ice creams!

Young Photographer

An art form competition offering young people at junior and secondary schools, at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 levels, an opportunity to prepare a portfolio of four of their photographs to reflect a set theme. Using digital techniques those taking part can alter and adapt the photographs, should they wish, to create more than just the image taken with the camera.