Rotary Club of Ross-on-Wye have helped two organisations who work in the field of sight loss. A cheque for £1,000 was presented to Sightsavers who work in the developing world to provide surgery to remove cataracts. Sarah Sandon gave a talk on the work of a clinic in Kenya which serves a vast area and also provides workers to visit villages to assist adults and the education of children. The donation from the club started out as a bequest from the late Rotarian Percy Roberts and was added to by club events and personal donations. A second presentation of a video projector was made to Mrs Pat Dazeley, chief executive of the Herefordshire Association for the Blind. They recently suffered a severe cut in funding due to the financial state of the RNIB, with whom they had had a partnership agreement, and are being helped to provide a projector for the training of volunteers for the Home Visiting and Hospital Information services.

Rotary's boxing night on Friday, March 12, was again oversubscribed as more than 200 guests packed the Garden Room at the Chase Hotel. Fans and interested guests enjoyed a talk by guest of honour, Alan Minter. Alan was born in 1951 in Crawley and became Middleweight Champion of the World in 1979. For the Rotary Club, the importance of the evening is the auction and raffle. Proceeds go to the club's charity fund which makes donations to projects at home and abroad, for both young and old in the community. After some enthusiastic bidding, ably encouraged by the club's own honorary auctioneer (retired) Bob Chadwick, this year's event took more than £7,700. The evening also creates a stage for the enthusiastic youngsters of the Droitwich Amateur Boxing Club who, once their bouts were over, were queuing up to have their pictures taken alongside Alan Minter.

THE Herefordshire branch of the charity Victim Support has received a cheque for £500 from the Rotary Club of Hereford Wye Valley. The donation was from the proceeds raised by the club's foundation committee who compiled a quiz and invited club members and their friends to purchase question sheets and return them together with their answers. Prizes were given for the four question sheets returned with the most correct answers. President David Nowell of Hereford Wye Valley Rotary Club handed the donation to Sarah Ashton of Herefordshire Victim Support together with Rotarian Malcolm Foord, representing the club's foundation committee.