Hindley club present vocational award to BETA
Hindley rotary club held a special presentation dinner for two extraordinary ladies. BETA (Better Education and Training for Adults) was set up by Eileen Bithell and Eileen Walsh in 1991. Over the last 18 years the two ladies have dedicated there life to helping others. The ladies where presented with the Rotary vocational award for outstanding work within the community. Since 1991 the two Eileen’s have helped over 700 adults through there education project and they also set up the country’s first charity internet café based on King street, Wigan – The BETA Netc@fe.
The café provides free tutor help for anyone who needs it as well as providing valuable work experience and opportunities for people with disabilities. The two Eileen’s have helped students of all abilities, including those who have never been able to write their own name; people needing help with entrance tests for the police, armed forces, as well as those who are studying for GCSEs, A levels and university.
Eileen Bithell said: “We are proud of all our students, past and present and of what they have achieved. We have always thought of BETA as a ‘stepping stone’, helping people to gain the skills they need to advance educationally, professionally and personally.”
The Hindley club has supported of BETA for over 10 years but it has been a real struggle for the ladies to find funding. The two Eileen’s pledged never to put personal gain before the good of their students. This has meant that much of the time the duo has worked unpaid and even took out personal loans to keep the project going.
Eileen Walsh said: “It’s disheartening that we are constantly searching for funding, but we are prepared to carry on at BETA even without salaries. We are always applying from grants and are hopeful that we will secure at least some funding to pay our running costs
The two ladies truly deserve this vocational award as recognition for all the good work they have achieved within our community. The service has helped hundreds of people learn basic skills and introduced many thousands to the wonders of the worldwide web. The Hindley club would like to wish them all the luck and susses for the future.

Hindley Rotary rally to the call
We received a letter from St Johns Methodist church of Hindley.
The church was asking for a possible donation towards the cost of a new church roof.
The current roof was in such a poor state of repair that all worship was being held next door in the community hall
After visiting the church and talking with its members it was soon apparent what they really needed was somebody to redecorate the church hall. The hall is quite large and plays home to various other community groups, which include weight watchers, karate classes, and two very popular local youth clubs.
We took the painting idea back to the club and our members agreed to support the project.

Two weeks later our team turned up armed with rollers, brushes, ladders and scaffolding to take on this sizable task. We received a very warm welcome from the church and we especially would like to thank Jo for keeping us going with her constant supply of bacon butties, tea, coffee and jacket potatoes. A few of our members who, where seeing the hall for the first time looked a little overwhelmed by the size of the task And the hall seemed to have got a whole lot bigger since we last saw it.
But regardless, we set about the task and over the next 6 hours various members of the club turned up to do there stint, and by 3pm the whole hall had been covered from top to bottom with two coats of magnolia emulsion.
The entire hall required 60 litres of emulsion and 20 litres of white gloss to cover it. I would like to thank all the members of Hindley rotary club for funding and supporting the entire St Johns project.

Ladies evening 2008/09
This years ladies evening was held at Brookfield House, Westhoughton. The evening was a huge success and raised over £300 for the charity Wheelchair aid. £150 of this was donated by the Hindley rotary inner wheel.
The evening commenced with a prize raffle, followed by an exquisite 5 course meal.
Charlie Bleakley was the evening’s Master of ceremonies and did a superb job.

The mini pops quiz proved to be controversial with various interpretations of the characters but unfortunately the quiz masters answers where final.

Our President Vas Kamath gave thanks to the ladies and entertained us with some jokes, but he was them upstaged by his better half. Shambhavi treated the audience to a 10 minuet comedy routine to rival Peter Kay.
The evening was rounded off with a highly entertaining parlour game devised and hosted by Derek Clawson. The game proved to be the highlight of the evening and provided a fitting end to another successful ladies evening.
Tom Hall seemed unimpressed by winning the Wash and Go shampoo. Looks like this prize was a few years too late!! Sorry Tom.