Week 17 – Around & About

Club Visits since July 1                                                         54

Rotary Engagements since July 1                                         127

Official Club Visits with Chicken dinner since July 1                 8 !!

Monday saw Joan & I off to Badgemore Park Golf Club for the annual “Meet the Scholars” evening.  Great to see all 13 scholars there, this year our Oxford & Reading contingent being supplemented by students at LSE and Westminster (but sadly no Brunel this year).  As ever a super evening, brilliantly organised by David Barnett & his team, with special mentions to all those who have become counsellors for our visitors for their time here.

Double bill on Tuesday – RC Bracknell for lunch – pretty close to a full turnout of members, a club punching well above its’ weight with a full programme of Rotary service funded by their terrific Three Counties bike ride.  President Alan leading the team again this year with Club Visioning completed and all set for a great future.

Out to RC Eynsham in the evening – great example of a new club (just a couple of years old) but already entrenched in the heart of community action and a breathtaking portfolio of local involvement combined with a very clear eye on leading an international global grant project involving other clubs.  President Harold has his work cut out keeping up with his members!!

When I first joined my own club we had a tradition of yearly exchange visits with my Wednesday evening hosts, RC Cookham Bridge.  For some reason these seem to have fallen away, but many of us commented on my visit how good it would be to revive that tradition.  President Steve leads a thriving club with a focus on solid achievement.  Good to see RYLA participant Laura reporting back to them as well.

 

Thursday lunchtime at RC Marlow, always a pleasure.  You can tell a great Rotary club by the level of good-humoured banter directed at anyone who might be seen to command any sort of pretence of authority and this was no exception.  Also great to see a club that’s built up a good idea into a teeming horde of 2000+ Santas closing the streets – so looking forward to December 1^st!!  Oh, and while they’re having all this fun they’re also raising huge amounts for charity!

Come Friday, once we’d corrected the problem that the satnav caused trying to get us there (Reading has some of the NARROWEST roads to have to reverse back down!) we really enjoyed RC Reading Maiden Erlegh’s Art Festival.  You know that feeling when you think you’re going to something much smaller than it turns out to be – well this was certainly one; with an overspill into a second hall, the number of artists and the variety of work on show was tremendous – great show, trust that it sold as much as it deserved to!