THE new president of Whitchurch Rotary Club says he will embrace the challenges that Covid-19 has put on the organisation.

Ian Fawcett was made new Rotary president at the club's annual general meeting, held over Zoom on Tuesday, June 16, with his wife Sue also taking over as president of the Inner Wheel.

He takes over from Peggy Mullock, with long-serving Rotarian Dave Simcock moving up to senior vice-chairman.

Ian says his year will be challenging, with many planned events being cancelled or altered because of the coronavirus.

"My year is rather different in that we've got the coronavirus to deal with and that has forced us to cancel many events," said Ian

"The demographic of the Rotary Club is quite older, with most members being retired so lockdown comes into effect, but we've managed to get them all on to Zoom with regular meetings.

"We had our AGM the other night and we had 38 people in the meeting which is a bit of a miracle!

"I officially take over on July 1 from Peggy so we have a few things to sort out before then."

Ian acknowledges the challenge the club faces over the coming months.

"It's going to be quite a challenge," he added. "Unfortunately we've had to cancel a couple of events because of lockdown regualtions.

"Normally in May we would have held a big concert in town where we would bring people from care homes and elderly people in.

"It normally has about 250 to 300 people but obviously that wasn't possible this year.

"Instead we had a virtual concert with around seven or eight acts and we've done a DVD. We're giving these out to care homes and a few other places and that is doing quite well.

"We're in a virtual world at the moment, but were doing different things to keep ourselves involved in the community.

"The foodbank is something we are supporting, with donations and deliveries, but we've always got our ears open for how else we can help."