New presidency is Rotary Club first

GILLY Rushton has been elected as the new president of Stratford-upon-Avon Rotary Club.

Gilly, a retired NHS manager, is one of just six female members of the 70-member club. She is the first woman to head the club she joined only four years ago.

Gilly told the Herald: “There are not many lady members, so it is quite an honour. I didn’t just put myself forward for the role, there is a nomination process that the club goes through when choosing its president so the club’s members had to accept me as a woman!”

There is something of a shift in tradition within clubs such as the Rotary and Lions, with Shakespeare Lions themselves announced their first female president, Anne Turner.

But Gilly said as far as the Rotary Club was concerned, her aim during her presidential year was to continue its ongoing efforts to recruit new, younger members rather than to put too much focus on being the first woman at the head of the club.

“My husband was in the Round Table many years ago, but my job didn’t really allow me to get involved until I retired,” she said.

“Stratford Rotary has made great strides to increase membership and get younger people involved, with the evening group as well as the lunch club. To be inclusive we have to be flexible and not as rigid as the club may have been.”