Catherine Bailey

If you are connected with Tavistock Rotary, the Sensory Garden, the Memory Café or Tavistock Dementia Action Alliance, you will almost certainly know Catherine Bailey - for despite living and working in Plymouth she has made Tavistock her home.

She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa and travelled to the UK in 2001 to visit her father’s family in Plymouth and find some temporary work for a year before heading back. After joining GA Solicitors as a secretary she caught the legal bug and decided to train as a lawyer. Working full-time alongside her studies, she spent two years at City College before undertaking a three-year correspondence course. She says that while juggling work and study was quite a challenge, the long-term reward of this commitment has been partnership in the firm.

Catherine’s father was a prominent member of a Rotary Club in South Africa and she grew up very much a part of the Rotary family. Having completed her studies, Catherine decided to join a local club and on the advice of a business contact she applied to join the Tavistock Rotary Club, a thriving group of warm and welcoming men and women which now boasts over 40 members. She has been with the club for five years and last year completed a very successful year as president.   

Rotary is an international charitable organisation which works to raise funds for local and international communities. It is family orientated and welcomes new members who can bring professional expertise to complement the group’s mix of experience and knowledge. Tavistock Rotary has been working in our community for over 70 years, raising funds and awareness of those in need. Through the many fundraising activities hosted by the club such as quiz nights, golf days, and a twilight walk, plus the fabulous support of local businesses, the club raises around £11,000 each year. The club also takes part in Dickensian Evening, music concerts and Goose Fair, and hosts Santa Claus’s annual visit to Tavistock. Tavistock is affiliated with Rotary clubs throughout the world; working recently with Catherine’s hometown club, the Wynberg Club in South Africa, the two clubs raised over £30,000 for ‘Ground Up’, an innovative project which trains unemployed people as baristas so that they can find employment. Catherine is really proud to have been able to bring the two clubs together to support this fantastic project, which has already helped 15 young people. 

Catherine speaks passionately about Tavistock Rotary: “Each year, we select a charity to support and, for the last two years, we have chosen the Plymouth & District Leukaemia Fund, a brilliant organisation dedicated to supporting Derriford’s Haematology Unit. Working with PDLF, we have already raised £6,000 to buy three state-of-the-art chemotherapy pumps for Derriford Hospital and by July we will have reached our target of £10,000. But we’re about more than fundraising, we also get great pleasure from working with local young people, many of whom perform superbly in our ‘Youth Speaks’ and ‘Young Photographer’ competitions.”

Catherine is deeply involved in Tavistock’s commitment to delivering a ‘dementia friendly town’- one of the first in the country. A member of Tavistock Dementia Action, she is part of the team which has helped to create the Tavistock Community Sensory Garden in the Meadows, recently opened by Angela Rippon. As if that wasn’t enough, Catherine is also a trustee of Tavistock Memory Café which meets every second Saturday and supports people living with dementia and their carers. She regularly holds informal legal clinics with question and answer sessions to support families who need advice on issues surrounding dementia.

Catherine tells me that there is a large social element to the club with weekly meetings and many events which are great fun and raise money for good causes. Catherine was described by Graham Parker, the successor to her role as president, as ‘a very hard act to follow’ and I can see why. She is passionate about social responsibility and has given a great deal of her time to our community. Plymouth may be where she sleeps, but her heart belongs to Tavistock. Oh … and did I forget to mention that, at the same time as doing all of this in Tavistock, this tireless young woman was also voted Plymouth’s Young Lawyer of the Year in 2016?

Nichola Williams