CHICHESTER PRIORY SPOTS YASMIN’S TALENT EARLY
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unior skier Yasmin Cooper has just returned from the training trip of a lifetime after receiving years of support from Chichester Priory Rotary Club. Yasmin’s talents were first recognised back in 2010 when she was a winner of an award and bursary, jointly sponsored by the club, at the Young Sports Achievement Awards in West Sussex. Yasmin has used the bursary to help fund her training and equipment costs, which have certainly paid dividends after winning no fewer than eight medals at the National Junior Championship in France earlier this year. The Winter Olympic hopeful has just returned from Chile, where she was able to experience some of the best training conditions of her career to date. Yasmin was also competing in Chilean National Championships and the South American Cup where she clocked up five personal best times in 11 races across three different disciplines: Downhill, Alpine combined and Super G. Yasmin commented, “The club has followed my progress since giving me the award and has helped provide me with amazing support for my recent training trip to Chile and my upcoming season.” Rotary clubs have a long tradition of unlocking the potential in young people, including in a variety of sporting disciplines with many athletes reaching the pinnacles of their sport thanks to Rotary clubs’ support.
ATTENBOROUGH’S SEAL OF APPROVAL
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Sir David Attenborough, one of the country’s most beloved broadcasters and naturalists, was on hand to cut the ribbon on the Rotary Club of Leicester’s huge community fundraising project. The club has raised a staggering £170,000 for a new visitor centre, which was unveiled in Bradgate Park, one of the county’s most popular public spaces, and looks at the rich natural and geological history of the area, dating back over 4.5 billion years. The centre is expected to attract half a million visitors per year, giving young and old the chance to be educated and inspired by what nature and the great outdoors has to offer. As you would expect, Sir David, who had many memorable visits to the park as a child, was delighted at the park’s new addition, “The park is surrounded by the city and villages and has remained wild and wonderful and it's a place I came to often as a boy. It can only remain as such if people living in the city, towns and villages continue to treat it as the precious resource it is. “We can only learn so much by observation, and a place like the visitor centre is vital to fill in the gaps, with information about the plants and wildlife that live here.”
Sir David’s association with the club goes way beyond when he initially launched the fundraising campaign two years ago, as his father was once a president of the club, which opened the centre as part of their celebration of serving the community for 100 years. The club’s current President David Brunton was extremely grateful for Sir David’s support, “We were delighted to have Sir David there at the start of the appeal, and when we asked if he would come back when it was completed, he said he would if he was invited - so we did. "The Rotary Club of Leicester has a long association with Bradgate Park and we are delighted to have built on that relationship by providing the new visitor centre to celebrate our centenary.”
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