Loughborough College has been highlighting its work in the community – including a growing collaboration with one local organization.
The Rotary Club of Loughborough Beacon and the College have developed close links over many years, supporting each other across a range of initiatives and fundraising ventures in the region.
Loughborough College regularly joined Beacon Rotary at its annual Bunny Run, with sport and hospitality and catering students providing massage and refreshments as volunteer supporters and there are plans for the College’s public services students to marshal at the rotary organisation’s forthcoming events. After being introduced to charity Melanoma UK by Beacon Rotarians, student hairdressers at the College’s Radmoor salon are set to incorporate valuable scalp checks into appointments with town clients and IT and media students from the College are meanwhile providing social media and website development to help enhance the organization and its networks to profile their activities.
“We are proud of our engagement with the community – and of the enormously positive and productive relationship we have with Beacon Rotary as part of that,” said Loughborough College CEO John Doherty.
“Our joint projects benefit our students in providing them with opportunities to build their skills and develop valuable contacts and they are able to offer a range of voluntary business and event support to rotarians and their networks. This enables all of us to really enhance the work we are doing across our local community.”
Several Beacon Rotarians have served on the College’s board, including Ian Sharpe, who brings high-level business and accountancy expertise to his work as an independent governor. “We at Beacon Rotary place great value on our connection with Loughborough College and its students. Their support is much appreciated in so many areas and wherever possible, as part of rotary’s aim to use our skills and connections to benefit society, we try to provide opportunities to students by sharing our expertise and introducing them to our networks. The hope is that this will contribute to the College’s work in helping the students gain real world experience.”
Rotarians have recently offered advice and guidance to students and their fledgling businesseses as part of the Young Enterprise competition and they have introduced the College to their youngest rotarian, 20 year old James McKevitt, who has been working with Space Engineering and A-level maths and science students from the College.
The Loughborough University space engineering student benefited from the rotary organization as a sixth former when he applied for and won funding from them to spend time at the Kennedy Space Centre in the US. “I wanted to give something back so I have now joined Beacon Rotary and have been spending time with Loughborough College students. It’s been great to be involved in them getting the chance to work on our rocket engine, to support their studies. I’ve also shared stories of friends on my course who are going on to do some really exciting things in the industry. Hopefully it will help them see what is attainable and it will inspire them.”
Pictured: Loughborough College CEO John Doherty (right) with Rotary Club of Loughborough Beacon member and College governor Ian Sharpe