Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Week 34 Olympics in the frame?



Rotary Engagements since July 1                              221

No, I’m not talking about hours lost watching the curling from Sochi!  Just that I went to a couple of meetings this week which brought the summer of 2012 all back again.  Monday Joan & I were lucky to be invited to Maidenhead Thames, not because we were there officially but we wanted to go and hear their speaker, Dr Katherine Granger, the most be-medalled female rower in Olympic history.  Really lucky to sit on the same table at dinner and discover what a super lady she is – wicked sense of humour – there are real perks with this job!

Tuesday we took our District Executive Committee all the way up to Bicester – continuing our policy of seeing the corners of the District in force.  Much to discuss this meeting with the updates from General Council the previous week and looking forward, in projecting our budget for 2014-2015.

Wednesday it was back to 2012 again – this time for the Paralympics.  Mike Reilly, CEO of Goalball and Michael Sharkey, a visually impaired competitor from the GB team, talked to my club (RC Elthorne-Hillingdon) about the sport and their ambitions to start 5 Goalball clubs in the London area this year, the first of which has started in Ickenham, just round the corner from where our club meets.

And Friday we were both off to the Metropole Hotel in Birmingham for the annual RIBI Assembly where we start to prepare for the 2014-2015 Rotary year (lasting thru Sunday).  In some ways this might be seen as a step back, as I’m helping out by acting as Assistant Governor for the clubs in Burnham, Slough, Langle, Windsor & Maidenhead but I see it as a challenge to focus on a great area and see where we can increase our Rotary service.  Great fun weekend including meeting incoming Rotray International president Gary Huang from Taiwan (seen with RI Director Mike Webb) and after launching the World’s Greatest Meal 2012 District 1140 Governor Mukesh Malhotra, with his Dsitrict 1090 counterpart Niall Blair offered advice to our incoming DG Tim Cowling – not sure how Tim’s taking the advice judging by his expression!



No comments:

Post a Comment