Week 43 Daffodils & Leeks?

Rotary Engagements since July 1                              291

Well it was Easter this week wasn’t it?  So that explains the daffodils, although with Easter being so late this year the rhododendrons in the garden are now blooming nicely.

 

As well as Easter, Wednesday was St. Georges Day for those of us who are proud to be English (as well as British).  And what better place to celebrate St Georges Day than with the Rotary Club of Windsor who did us proud with a dinner complete with bunting and roses, not to mention their speaker, the excellent Phil Packer who took us through his personal journey of recovery from devastating injuries in Iraq through to his support for many charities concentrating on young people – a remarkable man.  It also seems to be a tradition for the club that they present Paul Harris Awards to deserving recipients, both Rotarians and non-Rotarians.  It’s always a delight on these occasions to watch as it dawns on the recipient that the person about whom kind words are being spoken is actually them – see the pictures below for an example!!

 

 

Thursday saw me off to participate in RC Princes Risborough’s Golf Day for the Princes Centre, a community project writ large, with an eventual target of over £300,000.  In company with PDG Tony Bacon and Conference Chairman Jean’s husband John we enjoyed the day out in kind weather (you may notice that I’m not talking a lot about the golf – there’ll be a reason for that!).  As I say, a great day on which over £5,000 was raised and some people clearly played pretty well (but not me, sadly!).

Friday through to Sunday we were away with our club for our President’s Weekend.  This year’s venue – Cardiff.  Haven’t been to Cardiff since District 1090’s conference there in 2003 and as ever, we didn’t actually see much of the city then.  So this was a great opportunity for a good time with our fellow club members.  Saturday morning we had a private tour of Cardiff Castle, which was a surprising delight, probably at least partly due to our guide, Sam.  We followed that with a quick tour of the Davis collection of Impressionist art at the Cardiff Museum.  Sunday we congregated for drinks with former club member Dan Evans who recently moved down just outside Cardiff.  All in all, a very pleasant weekend.

Week 42 On the influence of Social Media (and other matters)

Rotary Engagements since July 1                              285

Been a fairly busy week really – nothing spectacular on Monday, but on Tuesday I went to RC Reading for lunch – plan was to hear our Peace Scholar, Amardeep Kainth, speak – she’s back from studies in Japan for a brief trip – she’s having a very exciting time and learning lots.  Also delighted to be there for Rotarian Peter Warner’s 90^th birthday celebration – I commented that I’d be very pleased to be looking that good if I get to 90 – thanks to Peter Webb for pointing out that I don’t look that good now!!

Tuesday evening off out to Oxford – to the University Club for Assistant Governor Katy Goodey’s meeting with the Presidents and Presidents-Elect in the Maroon Area (the seven clubs based in and around Oxford.  Useful time with talking about what they’ve achieved and what their successors are hoping to do.

At our regular club meeting on Wednesday our speaker was unable to come along so I stepped in with my suitably biased take on the previous weekend’s conference – seemed to do down quite well.

Thursday and a pleasant outing to the other end of the District and the home of my successor, District Governor-Elect Tim Cowling and his wife Linda.  We spent most of the day running through things we both have to get done before the end of the Rotary year and then some time with the things I’ve found most helpful during this year to date.

Worked out on Friday that one of the tweets I sent out last weekend was seen by 1.4 million people!  Helps to have been picked up by Sarah Brown (wife of former Prime Minister) who in turn is followed by Sex & the City’s Kim Cattrall (me, name-dropper?).  Between the two of them accounted for 1.37 million people – oh the potential influence of social media!

Saturday morning with grandson Edward to RC Maidenhead Bridge’s Easter Fun Day – we enjoyed it anyway, but just full of admiration for this exciting new-style Rotary club – getting loads of people from their target demographic to the event – just so nice to go to a Rotary event and be the oldest person there by more than 20 years.  Well done to Lisa and the team – keep it up!

In non-Rotary news (is there such a thing?) had a splendid afternoon at Vicarage Road for the defeat of Ipswich 3-1 – still a faint possibility of a play-off place – all depends on how we perform against QPR Monday afternoon really.

Oh, and before I forget, our brilliant Vocational Team who went out to Uganda to train midwives (that’s Gillian, Jide, Jacqui and Aisha) have been busy putting some of their thoughts down on their blog since they got back (connectivity issues in Uganda were problematic).  Check it out at http://rotaryd1090vtt.co.uk/ for a flavour!

Week 41 Another Weekend, another Conference!!

Rotary Engagements since July 1                              279

Well, not too many photos for the beginning part of the week, but lots from the weekend.  Looking at my diary, it looks like I had a fairly easy week – so it’s odd that I spent most of the week following up on things that had already happened, making arrangements for events still to come and generally catching up &keeping up!

Monday we had our final Conference Committee 2014 meeting.  Naturally, given the way our public enjoyed the event the mood was celebratory.  Happily we managed to persuade people to come to Torquay & we were able to give people a great show of Rotary and external magic.  Well done Team!!

Wednesday at my club meeting we were treated to the experiences of Dr David Brodie, a member of RC Jordans, in visiting Nepal & being inspired to raise funds, from friends and from funding from our Rotary Foundation to provide Nepalese citizens with iodised salt to improve their health.  I was also delighted to be able to hand over cheques totalling £2465 as a first instalment of funds raised for the Hillingdon Mencap Jubilee Pool refurbishment.  Raised from our tombola at the conference, my golf event the previous Monday and other donations, it’s part of what I hope will exceed £4,000 in total.  Jean Lambert came and took the cheques – we’re told that work will start in July on the new “skin” – thanks to all who’ve contributed.

Thursday – an almost exclusively non-Rotary day! It being my birthday, (66 but who’s counting?), I signed up to play golf representing my club, Batchworth Park’s Seniors team against Hartsbourne.  Playing with 11 handicapper Derek Copeland, we were up against a 10 &17 handicap pairing.  Happily, we were never behind and held on to win 3&2, with yours truly having a brilliant 16^th (stroke index 2) to win the hole & the match with a par.  We then found that we were not alone – all six of our pairings won, completing a 6-0 whitewash – terrific stuff.  And in the evening a family dinner (minus son-in-law Alex, working in Las Vegas) was a delight – a rare evening at home and a rare treat!

On Friday Joan & I were off up to Birmingham for the RIBI (Rotary International in Great Britain & Ireland) Conference at the ICC (great venue).  We went by train which was pleasant, comfortable and quick (in both directions, no engineering work this last weekend).  Friday afternoon’s sessions were generally pretty interesting – the talk on the pictures in the Royal Collection was well presented,

Alison Wallace CEO of Shelterbox was informative and brought particular focus with survival stories from the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.  Jean Best brought a thoughtful angle on Peace in schools. 

The highlight was Peace Scholar Sharon Edington – I often wonder why we in Rotary focus heavily on Peace – Sharon justified the programme completely – a dynamic and passionate young lady with clear goals for improving her area.

Friday evening’s concert, celebrating 100 years of Rotary, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Treorchy Male Voice Choir was an absolute treat – the pieces played were undoubtedly populist – billed as the “Last Night of the Rotary Proms” it was bound to be - but it was clear that the orchestra really enjoyed playing them as much as we enjoyed listening.

Saturday morning I had the “duty” of hosting one of our speakers, ITV newscaster Charlene White, so I didn’t actually hear any of the other speakers that morning – I’m told that James Lovatt and Maj Gen Martin Rutledge were good, Lord Digby Jones was as opinionated & avuncular as ever and Martin Bell was good.  Our Annual Rotary Young Citizen, televised by BBC News included young Harvey Parry aged 8, overcoming the loss of his legs to be a potential Paralympian. 

But “my” Charlene was exceptional!  Bowel Cancer doesn’t really seem like a fun topic but Charlene took the stage by storm with her bubbly personality and personal connection.  So my “duty” turned out to be a super opportunity to meet a super lady. 

Oh, and I had the pleasure of accepting the certificate recognising the support given to Rotaract by my District 1090 – thanks to the ever enthusiastic Mike Ware & his growing band of supporting clubs!

Saturday afternoon we had the Annual Business meeting of our the Association that is RIBI – it’s our opportunity to change the way we do things – sadly very little of what the General Council for 2013-2014 (the DGs for the 29 Districts) proposed to take the organisation forward met with favour – probably the less I say about the proceedings and the outcomes the better!! 

Saturday evening’s entertainment – “The Backbeat Beatles” provided a tonic after the disappointments of the afternoon – all those songs you remember every word of from you youth (well I do anyway).

For me Sunday morning provided the real

 highlights of the weekend.  Roy Lilley – part stand-up, part serious on the subject of the NHS he made a number of points about how we need to adapt our approach as patients – his words could equally have been spoken about our Saturday afternoon!  Sarah Brown moved us with her passion for promotion of women’s education and then surprised us by bringing on stage Malala Youssefzai, the teenager from Pakistan shot by the Taliban for promoting education for Girls.  Such poise, such authority at 16 – really humbling.

Almost equally humbling was Jane Walker MBE relating her work with the Philippines Children’s Foundation.  From being a “throwaway child” to finding herself compelled to work for the children of the slums of Manila.  

Finally, suffering from “Imposter Syndrome” (being mistaken for Richard Hammond, Bear Grylls, Ben Fogle, frequently) Dallas Campbell took us on a memorable journey of some of his more bizarre exploits investigating our super-sized world.

Week 40 Zipping Around - Hither & Thither

Rotary Engagements since July 1                              271

(Very few pictures this week, sorry – must do better!)

Another busy week started with the first of my Charity Golf Challenges with a very pleasant foursome in the company of RC Gerrards Cross & Chalfont St Peter members Desmond Hall, Reg Larman and Des Legg.  As I said the company was good, which it has to said was more than my golf!  However, the most important thing was that the event raised almost £500 in aid of the Hillingdon Mencap Jubilee Pool!!

Following that spent an interesting couple of hours with our Conference Treasurer, Terry Ruby going over the preliminary numbers for the outcome from the conference.  Pretty pleasant reading and able to report to our District Council that this year we won’t be going cap in hand to the District for subsidy from our reserves, which is great news.

Tuesday a meeting of our Leadership Development and Training Committee where all the talk was of events that either relate to the next Rotary year starting in July or will take place then – it’s really quite odd that the year has disappeared so rapidly!  But as of the end of Week 40 there are still 85 days to go!

Wednesday and our District Council, this time in Henley.  This is one of three events where our District Officers report back to our membership and they have the opportunity to question us.  It’s our version of democracy that is peculiar to these islands – they don’t have such things elsewhere in the Rotary world.  I like it – it’s open and fair. Was the final one of my year in office as District Governor - tiem is justing flying away!

So on to Thursday and a meeting with Conference Chairman Jean looking at how much we can donate to our generous conference speakers (generous in the sense that they all gave their time for nothing but the hope that we might donate to their causes).  Happy to say that we don’t think that anyone will be disappointed.

But then on to the funeral of Wantage Rotarian Peter Cecil.  Have to say that the more I hear of the things that our members have done in service of their communities either through Rotary or elsewhere the more proud I am to belong to our movement.  And Peter was clearly no exception – his service was marked with testament to his goodwill and service to others.

On Friday Joan & I were over to Henley again (same venue as Wednesday’s District Council) for RC Henley-on-Thames Big Band concert featuring the Roy Bailey Band (and fish & chips).  As ever the music brings back memories – super stuff.   

Evening was only slightly marred by my backing my car into another XF – oops!

Saturday morning we were out in the streets of Eastcote with our own club members and those of RC Pinner encouraging members of the public to “Know your Blood Pressure” a Rotary joint effort with the Stroke Association.  It has to be said that the weather was ever so slightly chilly(!) and we were glad when our stint came to an end.  But we did manage to keep our Pharmacist busy – always a good thing.

A diversion Saturday afternoon, having almost forgotten they were playing at home – Watford FC v Burnley.  Deserved the lead for most the game, should have had a second, paid for it in the last two minutes giving away a goal and yet another 2 points.  Story of the season really, but a good result against a very strong Burnley team. 

Sunday morning up early again and off to Maidenhead for the RC Maidenhead Bunny Fun Run – just the sort of madness we do so well – persuading more than 250 local people to come out on a Sunday morning and run 5 km for charity, some in full fancy dress bunny costumes.  Again it wasn’t warm but it didn’t deter the runners, young and not so young.  Prizes given out by the Mayor of the Royal Borough and Naomi Riches, our resident Paralympian star.  Having seen Naomi only a couple of weeks before at our conference it was really good to catch up again – sooo many new friends this year!

And another non-Rotary treat on Sunday evening – this time a quick spurt up the M1 & M6 to Sutton Coldfield for the NoDA West Midlands awards where Pepperpot Players’ (Upton on Severn) performance of Joan’s “DIY” was up for best drama award.  This was the first time the group had been nominated for an award and we were delighted to go & support them on their special evening.