Dear all,

Well we are already 1/6th into 2013 and so far the year has been very busy for Swellendam Rotary.

The weekend of the 22nd February Swellendam Rotary hosed 9 members from Claremont Rotary, Cape Town. The weekend started off with a Potjie at Andrew Fraser - Jones's farm. Saturday amoungst other activities a visit was made to the high School to see the  Sports Pavillion that has been renovated as a Rotary Project and then a visit to Huis Adalia, which we have as one of our projects. Claremont Rotary gave a cheque for R25000.00 to Elsabe Esterhuizen for Huis Adalia and we on behalf of the Swellendam community give our warmest thanks to them for this generous donation. (More on Huis Adalia will follow)

On the 23rd of February we held a garden concert in the garden of Bukkenberg Gallery, featuring Marcus Adams with Hoot n Anny and then Derek Grippper gave an acoustic guitar recital. The concert was enjoyed by more than 100 people. We were pleased to have some members from Claremont Rotary to join us for the weekend and the concert.

On the 3rd and 4th March Swellendam Rotary held an Art Exhibition in the Oefeningshuis. We showcased some wonderful artists from Cape Town and the surrounding area and we thank these artists for their generous time and effort.

The concert and the art exhibition was staged to raise money for The CANSA Relay for Life and from the concert we were able to raise more than R14000.00. We would like to thank Stephen Young, Inger Duits and Anelma Koch for organiizing the Art Exhibition and Stephen and Noelene Cole for organizing the Concert. (more about these events to follow).

On the 9th March Rotary Swellendam will be taking part in the CANSA Relay for Life.

15th March to 17th March Swelllendam Rotary will be serving a variety of mouth watering eats at the Agricultural Show in Swellendam.

All the Rotarians visiting the area, please make contact and feel very welcome to visit us.

Our involvement in the past, with the  CORONATION DOUBLE CENTURY was a huge success and our Club has  been invited by the Cape Town Cycle Tour Trust, to partake again this year.  The race will take place on 24 November 2012. 

This year, Swellendam Tourism  Organisation will be coordinating accommodation. Contact details:  028 514 2770 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

We will also again be offering camping facilities.

 We received some wheelchairs from the Rotary Club of Kirstenbos for distribution to disabled persons.   Our gratitude to Richard Browne and the Rotary Club of Kirstenbos.   It is greatly appreciated.   Watch this space for follow-up articles of the handovers.

We must help save this beautiful historical building which is the hub of Swellendam.

Swellendam is the third oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch) and named in honour of Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel and his wife Helena, nèe Ten Damme.
In order to apply control over farmers who had moved away from the settled areas the Governor decided to place the territory across the Breede River under the jurisdiction of a local court and in 1747 the Drostdy was built as the seat of the Landdrost (magistrate)

The The Drostdy Building

This is essentially a Cape Dutch building, except it no longer has the façade gable. The original Drostdy was a small T-shaped building with a front gable. Between 1812 and 1825 the Drostdy was extensively renovated and enlarged to almost twice its original size.

The present plan of the building, based on an H-plan, is unusual in that the main entrance was not retained in the centre of the transverse wing, but moved to the middle section between the two wings when the building was enlarged.

The Drostdy now looks as it did in 1844 and has a thatched roof which is merely raised in a gentle curve above the front door to allow the inclusion of a dormer window to light the loft.

The Drostdy was built using clay and unbaked brick in earth mortar. In later additions stone, or a mixture of stone and soft-burnt brick, was used. This produced the thick walls, that were then plastered with clay or lime mortar and was regularly whitewashed.

Nearly all the timber used in the construction of the building is yellow-wood. These trees grew abundantly in the indigenous forests in this district and Knysna. This wood is not a durable wood and it had to be protected with several layers of paint. The customary colour at the Cape and throughout the colonial world was dark green.

 An interesting feature of the Drostdy is the painted lime-plaster floor in the parlour, made to imitate tiles or marble. The interior walls were painted with a tinted lime wash.

The wine-cellar was the last major addition made to the Drostdy while it was still an official building and is the only section with decorative plaster-work.

The Drostdy was the most important building in the town for many years.

(Extract from Drostdy Museum Website)

A group of Rotarians visited the museum on 12 March to present a donation to the museum.

A group of Rotarians from Swellendam travelled to Simonstown to perform duties as marshals.