Rotary Engagements since July 1 299
This week started with a day out on Monday at the Loddon
Vale Golf Day in aid of the Alexander Devine Children’s Hospice and our own End
Polio Now campaign. I thought it would
be great for the District Executive to enter a team and to walk off with the
prizes. Well we managed one out of two! Sadly DGE Tim Cowling had to cry off with a
bad back but AGs Colin Corio & Gerry Cowan joined me for a very pleasant
stroll round the golf course on a dry day only spoilt by our incompetence with
the clubs! However, the club raised a
goodly amount for the two charities and a good time was had by all.
Tuesday it was over to Shillingford Bridge for an evening
of planning for our District Assembly this coming Saturday – it’s another of
those surreal moments when you realise we’re already into next year and still 8
weeks to go of this year!
Wednesday saw our own club have committee meetings –
we’ve got a guy hopefully joining us in the near future and he’s taking a full
part in what we do already – signing up to help at events – great stuff.
Thursday Joan & I joined the ladies of Inner Wheel
for their annual Rally, including visitors from the neighbouring Inner Wheel
districts and their National Chairman, Gill Rowley. Lots of hats, fellowship and finery and a good lunch in Caversham.
Friday and off towards Cornwall – set off early knowing
it was a Bank Holiday weekend and having endured horrendous traffic the
previous Friday on the way to Cardiff.
And of course the traffic was fine so we arrived at our overnight stop (Cheriton
Bishop on the edge of Dartmoor) good and early.
Saturday we headed off the rest of the way down to Truro
for the National Final of Rotary International in Britain and Ireland (RIBI)
Young Musician competition. Supporting
our two finalists (one vocal one instrumental ) and making the 600 mile round trip
were a magnificent group of 15 of us, Youth Services Chair Tony Hill, Young
Musician organiser Anne Coulson and her husband Robert, and no fewer than 10
from sponsor club Ascot (the Clares, Loves, Corios, Harveys and
Valentines). Well done all for making the
effort. 
Vocalist Francesca Power performed
her pieces better than ever but was surpassed by the winner, who is 4 years
older. However, 15 year-old Robert
Cheung made all of our efforts to be there seem as nothing with an outstanding
performance that swept away all others and carried off the title of National
Instrumental winner. What a great day!
On Sunday morning we called in to see Ben Mee at Dartmoor
Zoo for the very pleasant task of handing over a couple of cheques totalling £1,000
for Dartmoor Zoological Park and for Brain Tumour Research as a thank you for
his splendid talk to us at our District Conference in Torquay.
The wedding season is in full swing at the
Zoo – they have this great Twitter hashtag ~#SayIdoattheZoo which is very cute –
preparations were in train for their second wedding of the weekend so we didn’t
stay long – just long enough to see the Meerkat babies- aaaaaah!
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