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The Rotary Club of Redditch Kingfisher was chartered
on June 3rd 1988. Well that's the official date but interest
in forming a club started earlier than that when a small
group of businessmen got together for an initial interest
meeting on Tuesday 8th September 1987 at the Foxlydiate
Hotel in Redditch. The first three people who came through
the door were Peter Williams, David Strain and Bob Matthews.
For this they were rewarded with the honour of being the
temporary Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary. Other local
businessmen attended that and subsequent meetings until
there were sufficient numbers to form a new Rotary Club
Our first President was a local bank manager, Peter Williams
and the Vice-President was John Crawford, a builder. Quite
apt really, someone who knew about finance and another
about building things. In the early days we got a lot
of help from Past District Governor Jack Frizzell and
Past District Governor Alf Spears together with support
from Gwynn Evans who was the President of our Mother Club,
the Rotary Club of Redditch.
We decided on forming an evening club simply because
our members had day jobs and long lunch hours were a thing
of the past, also we thought an evening club would attract
younger members
You may be wondering how we decided on our name. Some
believe it was because of the new shopping centre in Redditch
called the Kingfisher, or was it that little bird that
stole all the fish out of the ponds in our new houses
or HMS Kingfisher the warship that was adopted by the
town??
Some of our members disagree on how the name came about
but we have it on good authority that the Club was named
after the Kingfisher Hall which was subsequently demolished
to make way for the new Redditch Kingfisher Shopping Centre
and the Kingfisher which appeared on the official emblem
of Redditch. We liked the idea of having a Kingfisher
on our letterheads and paperwork and the Kingfisher Blue
Rotary Jumpers became famous within the District. We did
however have contacts with the HMS Kingfisher with several
members visiting the ship on two occasions when it was
in dock and we also had members of the crew attend one
of our Rotary meetings. Unfortunately the ship was decommissioned
a few years ago.
To celebrate our inauguration as a Rotary Club we had
a special first day cover printed and a painting of a
Kingfisher was commissioned which was then used as artwork
for some of our other Club souvenirs. We still have a
few of the first day covers left at a small price and
also some of the limited edition prints taken of the Kingfisher
Painting.
We are now in our 19th year, eleven of our founder members
are still with us and attend on a regular basis.
So that's the story of our club, if you are interested
in coming along to one of our meetings then please contact
us on rotary@redditch-kingfisher-rotary.co.uk
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Rotary
Club of Redditch Kingfisher 
