FRIENDS OF MARRAKECH

 Join the club have some fun,be a source of collective information, and do some good and help educate children.

 World Change Starts with Educated Children

As many of you will know over the last few years we have occasionally got together to enjoy a meal, a drink, share friendship and occasionally do business.

A few of us have thought that perhaps it is time to formalise (only slightly) our gatherings, the purpose would remain the same and perhaps also be an informal source of information for those living and working in Marrakech/Morocco.

It is always nice when there is a definite benefit that accrues to someone less fortunate than ourselves so we have come up with the following formula for membership of our informal dining club.

1.There will be an annual membership fee of 100 Euro -  70 Pounds, this in the first year will go to the very solid charity “RoomtoRead  www.roomtoread.org” many of you will know the good works they have down through the donations you made earlier this year after the Tsunami.    

2. A monthly dinner (members can regularly bring 1 guest and occasionally more) will be arranged, it was decided at our first meeting held on 12th January at La Maison Arabe that generally this would take place on the first Wednesday of each month, the charge for this will be 500dh per person.  Lynn Perez from Riad Farnatchi has kindly agreed to arrange the venue for these dinners so we anticipate great evenings.  It is hoped that through a mixture of arm twisting and generosity the actual cost of these events will be less than the sum collected and the balance of funds will be able to be donated to the charity.  

It has quite rightly been mentioned that we should have a Moroccan charity, it would be our intention to discuss what this might be in our second year.   We are looking into the possibility of getting Room to Read to start a program in Morocco. We are pleased to say that Room to Read has agreed to look into the feasibility of this happening.    We have no doubt that many of us have a piece of Morocco in our blood .  If we could collectively make this happen it would be a major accomplishment and a legacy that we could rightly be proud of.  

So that’s about it come and join our club have some fun, be a source of collective information, and do some good and help educate children.

World Change Starts with Educated Children

Join the club by donating your 100 Euros - 70 Pounds minimum donation on this site now. 

www.justgiving.com/marrakech 

A sister site www.justgiving.com/morocco has just been created for people who want to donate and help make this happen but do not want to join the Marrakech club.

 Please give a brief introduction about yourself and an email confirmation will be automatically sent out to you.  The joy of this site is that it effectively looks after the administration and accounting of the membership and better still if you’re a tax payer the government donates an extra 28%.   This seemed the best/easiest way of getting started and having totally transparent open all hours accounts and membership register.  We can discuss how we might continue in the future.   Room to Read as you will see from their website www.roomtoread.org is a desperately focused organisation and has just won for the 3^rd successive year the Social Capitalist Award, so you can be assured that your donations are being used wisely.

We are pleased to say that the membership of “Friends of Marrakech” is growing and even some non Marrakchis have joined.   We have no doubt this will be a useful forum to join and some pleasant evenings will be had.   Please come and join us and pass on to any of your friends who you think might be interested.

From the Members Friends of Marrakech