6th June 2026 Guildford in Bloom’s Bloomin Picnic.

Such a lot of work by the Guildford in Bloom committee (GIB), Sallie Barker, Sian Davies and many others, to set up the event in the  Castle grounds on Saturday the 6th June and Rotary Guildford Wey were only too delighted to assist with marshalling on the day.

Unfortunately it turned out to be not quite the Summer’s day the organisers were hoping for ! A grey start turned into a very soggy afternoon so due credit to the musical performers attending in the afternoon and to the Guildford Fringe for organising the entertainment.

An early dry spell allowed our Mayor, Jane Tyson, to open the event and also gave the opportunity for the Mayor and past Mayor Sallie Barker to visit our HexB project which was the brainchild of our Rotary member Andrew Day. The installation has been very well received by members of the public and local councillors who were very impressed and seen nothing like it – all said well-done Rotary for our contribution to the town.

We welcomed people at the entrance, encouraged people to go to see our HexB tiles, helped the flower stilts girl with her visit to Tunsgate, ran various errands, ran the raffle card reader and so helped collect most of the money on the day, plus generally chatting to people from the various organisations and the public.  We also helped with some of the packing up at the close down such as with gazebos for Guildford Fringe and GIB

Managing to brighten the day a little was the lovely flower girl on stilts !

At the opening L-R:

Guildford Mayor Jane Tyson, GIB Committee member Shirley West, GIB Chairman Sallie Barker & Sima Rostami Club Captain of the Castle Green Bowling Club

1-5 June 2026 Presentation of cheques for ‘Schools Got Talent’

Following on from this year’s successful GLive ‘Schools Got Talent’ production on the 10th March, we were very pleased to be able to pass cheques to our four schools that entertained us. The monies were for each individual school’s ticket sales. Overall a total of ÂŁ3,145 was distributed to the schools

26th May 2026 Bee Reading week

A little light on children to read to today but it is 32c so perhaps a town centre is not the place to be. We did have some visitors though.

We are at the Bee Aware Week at the Tunsgate Quarter also on Thursday 27th May for the Bee Brave Story for the young and to meet our Brave Bees. Afterwards visit our HexB homes for solitary bees in the Castle Grounds opposite the Tunsgate.

Tunsgate Quarter

Zero Carbon Guildford

https://rotaryinguildford.org/hexb-tiles/

Schools Got Talent 10th March 2026

Our ‘Schools Got Talent’ event on the 10th March once again proved to be an awesome display of the young talent at some of our local Schools. The Finale brought all 4 schools, Glebelands, Duke of Kent, Ash Manor and Prior’s Field, together for an amazing rendition of “Don’t stop believin” from Glee

The packed theatre gave a standing ovation !!

17th January 2026 Repair Café

17th January 2026 Repairs

A good start to the new year with 24 articles brought in for repair.

Summary

Item RepairedClassWeight Kg
Repairs handledTotal87.73kg
*unable to repair, advice given28.62kg
#=in progress10.00kg

Full details of repairs HERE

Those few items that we couldn´t repair on the day were returned to the owners with advice on further action to avoid them being discarded or where bespoke components could be purchased that we could use for repair at a future Repair Café date.

If you feel you would like to join our repairers once a month CLICK HERE

Merrow Junior School all Weather pitch

Merrow Junior School (formerly Bushy Hill) is proud to be a sporty and outdoors-loving school. They are lucky to have extensive facilities that enable this, including a large playing field, a trim trail, climbing areas and an all-weather MUGA pitch ( Multi use Games Area)

However, the all weather pitch was over 20 years old. It has been shut for the last 12 months as it has been too slippery to use. The consequences to the school have been dramatic – it meant the lunchtimes, break times and PE lessons have been restricted to the much smaller tarmac areas, which has caused significant disruption.

Costing of the project to renew the pitch is expected to total ÂŁ133,000. Through the amazing efforts of the school, they have managed to secure over ÂŁ125,000 from ‘Your Fund Surrey’, PTA fund raising, The Football Foundation, Governors’ Fund and Corporate sponsorship. Recognising the efforts already made, and to help get the project to its completion, Rotary Club of Guildford Wey were pleased to be able to help with a donation of ÂŁ500 towards the completion of the new all weather pitch.

Ancillary facilities are yet to be completed, however it has been possible to get the actual pitch installed in advance of the next phase which is to install toilets and portable floodlights.  It will be open for use for local community hire and access as well as for school use.

Rotary Club of Guildford Wey President, Andy Bowen-Ashwin, was pleased to be able to present the Club’s cheque of ÂŁ500 to the Executive Head Teacher of the Merrow Federation, Mrs Louisa Dormer

They are both standing on the new sand-dressed artificial turf surface.

Mrs Dormer has written to the Club to express her “… heartfelt thanks for your extremely generous donation of ÂŁ500 towards our All Weather Pitch project.  It is very much appreciated and has helped enormously with our fundraising. “

10 August 2025 ” The Fringe Festival Family Day”

On Sunday the 10th August we were pleased to able to help the Guildford Fringe Festival with marshalling duties in Guildford High St. The Guildford Fringe Co. had given invaluable help to facilitate the Diversity Concert held earlier in the year so we were pleased to be able to assist them on this occasion.