Week 4 – I can see for Miles & Miles & Miles (The Who – 1967)

Club Visits since July 1                                 10

Rotary Engagements since July 1                  35

Been a big travel week this week – almost 1,000 miles, most of it not within the Rotary International 1090 District.  So why so much and not within my patch – well……

 Monday I went down to Torquay.  Our District has a conference every year, attracts around 800+ people & in March 2014 we’re off to Torquay So from time to time I need to go down there for meetings to firm up what we’re doing (programme changes), where we’re doing it (like which room in which venue) & making sure we’re still on budget. http://www.rotary1090conference.co.uk/index.html And it was off to The Grand Hotel and the Riviera Centre for meetings Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

 

And then it was off up to North Wales.  Long hike from Torquay up to Bala on Tuesday afternoon – pop into the Rhos-y-Gwaliou Outdoor Activities centre to make myself known and an overnight at The White Lion Hotel, staying in possibly the smallest ensuite single room I’ve ever seen (mind the beam in the middle of the night!). 

 And then Wednesday – well Wednesday was interesting – the purpose of my visit was to see our RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) delegates in action, al 31 of them.  Split into four teams, two members of each group were taken off to learn a skill; navigation; waterborne skills; climbing and caving (the idea being that in their long overnight exercise they need to be able to do all these things).  I watched the waterborne group (dinghys and canoes) and then went to visit the climbing group – who were into abseiling.  Naturally the DG had to have a go on ropes and anchors set by the delegates (that's my team & me above R) after two hours of tuition (and no I didn’t think it through until it was all over and I wanted to do it again!).  On the way back I found myself apparently under attack by a fighter jet on low-level flying practice through the Welsh valleys!

 

 

 

Thursday a first meeting of our District Executive in Gerrards Cross – productive meeting I thought - and on Friday my official visit to the Abingdon club, where we were joined by visitors from the Rotary Club of Summit County, Frisco, Colorado.  Thanks to President Jes for hospitality and great conversation.

And at the weekend we transported our District Executive and their partners off to the Donnington Valley Hotel & Spa, near Newbury where we played silly games (but with a point) in changing teams for a couple of hours and then had a great dinner, after which we all felt we knew each other a whole lot better than we had before and learnt a lot about how competitive some of us are!!  Thanks to Adam & the on-site team for looking after us and to DG-Elect Tim and Linda for great ideas on pulling us all together.