Professor Roy Stainton, or Prof as he is fraternally known at his Rotary Club of Hamble Valley, has professorily ‘discovered’ a way of charitable fund raising that, as he says, is quite painless.

Recognising the rapidly approaching day when the controversial Euro will be the only acceptable currency in the majority of European countries, Roy, like many of us, having a veritable hoard of unused and unwanted pesetas, francs, marks, escudos, and the like, sorted through same and concluded that within a few months they would be useless. In the main the value of the individual currencies only amounted to the equivalent of a few pounds and it was certainly not worth travelling hundreds of miles to buy a couple of bottles of wine.

He unveiled his plan to his fellow Rotarians which was basically to give him their unwanted foreign cash and he would ‘sell it’ to people who were soon to be off on holiday, or whatever.

Failing this he would take the less cost effective option of having, at least the notes, exchanged commercially, courtesy of a friendly Barclays bank.

The HVRC response was remarkable, as was that of visitors at the recent Curdridge Show who made pledges of donation against promotional leaflets that were handed out on the day, all of which were honoured in due course. Not only were European monies contributed, but also those of countries as far flung as from Australia to Zimbabwe, in all a total of forty-five countries, forty-six if you include Olde English pre-decimal coinage which included lovely old half-crowns and two-bob bits!

Stories abound at the efforts made to dispose of the somewhat less common currencies like the Czechoslovakian koruna, the South African rand, and the Finnish markka. One unsuspecting traveller to the latter country was presented with a bag of coins appropriate to his destination to find, on arrival, there was insufficient to buy a newspaper. However he did pay up the face value in ‘real money’of 37 pence on his return! The total Sterling equivalent of monies collected so far is close to £2,500, which is considerably more than was originally envisaged

The main beneficiary of the money raised in this painless and pleasurable way will be The Makaphutu Children’s Trust, a Rotary supported charity, which provides village style accommodation set up in KwaZulu-Natal, to provide a home for abused children in a loving, compassionate and caring environment. The plight of these poor children is, in the main, due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa and the resultant orphaning of many thousands of youngsters. An appropriate organisation that will also benefit will be AIDS Relief in Africa.

Pictured is Roy Stainton, a professor at Southampton University, at his counting table.