As the end of the year draws to a close the Narberth and Whitland Rotary members will be glad of a two week break from their busy calendar.

At the beginning of December a huge effort was made to organise the first Santa Run through Narberth Town Centre and it is planned that this will be a repeat event in the future.

£1,000 was raised for the Trussell Trust Narberth Centre Food Bank. It has also been suggested that a run through Whitland Town Centre might also be equally popular with locals.

In the middle of the month the club hosted Doctor Anne Kelly MBE, wife of Rotarian Steve Kelly. She was accompanied by several of her friends and she gave an excellent talk on the subject of Modern Day Slavery.

It was for her work in this subject that she recently was honoured by the Queen.

Surprisingly, she revealed that there had been a case recently in Castlemartin where 11 persons were held in appalling conditions by gangmasters who were subsequently imprisoned for many years.

During the month many of the members joined the Narberth and Whitland Round Table Sleigh to accompany Santa and his elf on their rounds through the District.

Chairman Andrew Thomas had requested volunteers from Rotary and those who took part thoroughly enjoyed helping youngsters to meet Santa and receive some treats.

Bucket collections were generously supported by the residents of the various villages in the District despite the cold and sometimes very wet weather.

Secretary Sue Pridmore confirmed that Rotary is always pleased to assist Round table in their important charitable activities and next year the activity will be repeated.

At the end of the month the Christmas Dinner was held in the Hotel Plas Hyfryd. An excellent meal of traditional fayre was enjoyed by the gathering of 50 guests who were later entertained by singing due Gareth and Christine Davies local residents from Cold Blow, Narberth.

Gareth hails from Abergavenny where was previously a President of Abergavenny Rotary.

There were two other memorable aspects to the evening involving Rotarian David Haward.

At the beginning of the meeting he introduced Whitland builder Nigel Morgans and gave a brief history of his life before Nigel was then inducted into membership of Rotary by President Elaine Bradbury.

Finally, David Haward then invited Mr. Simon Moffett to receive a cheque of £750 from the President. This was made out to Prostate Cymru and Simon thanked the club for their continuing support of this worthy charity.

He commented that since its formation a few years ago the Charity has raised over £250,000 in this corner of Wales. Rotarian David had explained to the audience that the money was the result of the September Bike Ride call iL Giro de Pembrokeshire.

This is one of the established events in the Narberth and Whitland calendar and arrangements are already being made for September 2020. Watch this space!