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.

Week 3 Part 2 – Some fabulous events

Club Visits since July 1                                  9

Rotary Engagements since July 1                  27

The height of summer is peak season for key fundraising events across the District and thankfully all have been blessed with such a difference in weather from last year- blazing sunshine replacing the dreadful damp and boggy conditions of 2012 .

Elthorne-Hillingdon Golf Day     

Tuesday marked the 18^th annual Charity Golf Day for my club, RC Elthorne-Hillingdon.  A gloriously sunny day saw 38 teams of three at Batchworth Park Golf Club.  While the conditions were favourable for long hitting, the heavy rough captured many and scoring was quite difficult – in a best two of three Stableford points at each hole against three-quarter handicaps a score of 87 won the day for Tube & Bracket team Technical, recapturing the trophy their colleagues at the sartorially elegant T&B won 3 years ago.  

With club President Shirley away for the week, I was asked to present the prizes, an absolute pleasure for me, although I had to hand the honour over to Shooting Star & Chase fundraiser Michael for two prizes – second team, with 82 points to Team DG End Polio Now, including Past District Governor Tony Bacon and captained by yours truly, who also picked up a nearest the pin prize - actually with six pars & two birdies this was my best round ever – an adjusted net 60, ten shots below the standard scratch score (apologies to non-golfers for all the technical jargon).

Yet again, this fabulous day produced more than £10,000 for the sole recipient charity, this year Shooting Star Chase Hospice – so worthwhile.

Truck Festival

Friday saw me at a music festival for the first time in many, many years - the 16^th annual Truckfest at Steventon.  Headlined by Spiritualized, The Horrors, Ash, The Subways (no, I’m none the wiser either) on 5 stages, my raison d’etre was the presence of no fewer than 5 of The Rotary clubs in District 1090.  With RC Didcot, founding fathers of the food at Truck, serving burgers & chips with all the trimmings, (oh and doughnuts, such good doughnuts), RC Faringdon on pizzas, and RC Oxford Spires (with RC Wallingford, Sinodun & District & RC Eynsham) on Lentil Dhal, Onion Bhajis and Chapatis most tastes are catered for.  What seemed like a small army of volunteers on each stand rendered any assistance from me completely superfluous and forced, yes forced me to sample the wares of each stall instead.  It was really lucky I arrived at lunchtime starving hungry wasn’t it?

No figures yet for how much the clubs raised but one thing is certain, between them they raised the profile of Rotary in front of an audience that wouldn’t normally come across Rotary in such numbers (and being so useful for them – nothing like being the source of food!).

 

Elthorne-Hillingdon Inner Wheel Changeover

Friday evening, Joan & I were guests at the Inner Wheel Club of Elthorne Hillingdon changeover, with President Joan Thorpe passing the baton to incoming President Sue Mills, recently returned from holiday with husband Peter, Immediate Past President of RC Lyme Regis (hence the need for a recuperative trip on 1 July).  My club is very fortunate to have such a great group of ladies in our Inner Wheel club and we’re really grateful for their support.
 

Uxbridge Autoshow

And finally for this week, a monster event for RC Uxbridge.  The Uxbridge Autoshow has been a fixture in the Rotary Calendar since 1984 – with the exception of last year when the ghastly weather forced cancellation when heavy vehicles became stuck in the mud the day before it was due to take place.  Over the years the event has raised more than £400,000 and it is the club’s largest fundraising effort each year.  An enormous amount of work goes into the preparation for the event with teams of people on site for days beforehand.  As the neighbouring club, some of my fellow members turn out to help and I spent a couple of hours helping mark out the site on Wednesday afternoon (see above L) before returning on Sunday for the main event (above R) when the field looked somewhat fuller!.
Sunday turned out to be just about the perfect day - relatively cool in the morning with the sun coming into full view just after 1p.m.  Huge turnout of vehicles, with some really very well-preserved examples (and that was just the owners!).  Also very good crowds and a splendid atmosphere - too early to estimate the proceeds but hoping for great reward for the enormous effort by the whole club in staging the event.  London Borough of Hillingdon Mayor Alan Kauffman and his lovely wife Lynn graced the occasion (seen L with RC Uxbridge President former mayor Jill Rhodes and R with yours truly).

Many clases of vehicles were awarded prizes and I joined Jill & Alan in handing them out, most notably to the eventual best in show winner - seen here getting the class prize from me (L) and the overall prize from all three of us.  A terrific day out for all the family and a shining example of Rotary at work

Week 3 – A Week of Two Parts – Part 1 – the Club Official Visits

Club Visits since July 1                                  9

Rotary Engagements since July 1                  27

Been such a busy week this week I’ve decided to split my blog posts into two – club visits and other events.  Started the week with a visit to RC Windsor & Eton on Monday lunchtime.  Founded more than 80 years ago and boasting Royal connections with Prince Philip as an honorary member, the club still meets in the centre of the town and has a fair sprinkling of locally employed working members who take a break from work for club meetings.
Warm welcome from President Philip and given plenty of time to speak!

With sleep being so difficult because of the heat, being up early on Wednesday for breakfast at Reading Matins wasn’t too much of a hardship – despite leaving home at 06:15.  Really great welcoming club with lots of my personal favourite District Rotarians as members.  Wearing their 20 years lightly they trot through the meeting at pace – well, so many have work to get to by 09:00.  Delighted to be presented with my own Pounds for Polio collecting bag – member Athley Cowling has made one for each member – a great idea.

Thursday lunchtime and one of my shorter trips – RC Gerrards Cross & Chalfont St Peter being just under ten miles.  Lively banter marked the occasion, my own club being old rivals in the District darts competition and they being the current holders.  President Jeremy has a very clear programme mapped out for the Rotary year – looking forward to seeing it all come to fruition.

Week 2 - Varied, Fascinating, Inspiring, HOT!!

Well summer's definitely arrived then!  Although at the Eastern end of Rotary International District 1090 where I live many days were quite cloudy even up to lunchtime up to & including Friday.  But you won't want to hear about the weather you want to know what I've been up to.  Well here's some statistics after 14 days:

Club Official VisitsYear to date:           6
Rotary Engagements to date:             16

Monday evening I was out at RC Easthampstead sepcifically to hear Amardeep Kainth, our Rotary Peace Scholar, who'll be off to the International Christian University in Tokyo in September for two years.  Amardeep is a very impressive young lady who has a tack record of achieving exactly what she sets out to do.  She' going to be a fantastic ambassador for District 1090






Tuesday I went out to Islip to meet the ever-agreeable Oxford Spires club and new President Rich Fuller.  Always impressive the Spires crowd - ever busy, and a first for my year - new members inducted during my visit - wlecome to Rotary Lorraine & Carol.  Spires will be at Truckfest this coming weekend (19-21 July) serving up their delicious (I'm anticipating here!) vegetarian curry.  Looking forward to that - will let you know next week how we get on. (also looking forward to seeing club members from Wallingford Sinodun, Didcot & Faringdon there)


Then on Wednesday it as off to Oxford North at lunchtime (deeep in discussion with President Richard Alden on the left) and Burnham (with President Vivien Crump on the right).  Thoroughly enjoyable day.






Saturday, Joan & I were privileged to be at the celebration of the 35th anniversary dinner for RC Faringdon.  Close to 90 of us in the room and the temperature was even hotter! (I'm still working in old scales - over 32 to you more modern people). Splendid atmosphere, lots of banter, and lots of serious Rotary reflection as well, topped off by speaker Lt. Col David Couzens, who didn';t talk about dog training (you had to be there)

 I always think it's hard for clubs to venture into uncharted waters with a brand new event and Banbury Cherwell really excelled themselves with their inaugural Broughton Castle cycle event.  Organised in conjucntion with Banbury Star CC (very smart move for both clubs I think) riders completed up to an "Epic" 70 mile event (rather them than me in that heat) while their families either did a couple of shorter routes or enjoyed the sunshine and the stalls and entertainment laid on.  It was a real family occasion with Rotary family involvement - super stalls from the Rotary Club, their Inner Wheel Club and Banbury Rotaract.  Well done all! (Pictures with the Mayor of Banbury - big bloke wouldn't argue with him! and with some competitors).




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First Week Completed!!

 

With Maidenhead President Pat

Been a very busy first week.  Monday 1st I had the pleasure of speaking at Maidenhead Rotary's first meeting of the year chaired by their first lady President Pat Lattimer. 

A fun lunchtime with this great club.

President-Elect Udo & the year theme banner

And in the evening onto Pangbourne.  President Jerry Wilson was unable to be there - family comes first! So the meeting was hosted by President-Elect Udo.  Super friendly atmosphere and a lively discussion
on the serious subject of our quest to eradicate Polio. Disappointing news that the outbreak in the Horn of Africa has struck more cases only strengthens our determination to complete the task.

With President Ivor

Thursday saw me at Oxford Isis where I clearly gave President Ivor Spackman something to think about judging by the expression on his face!!  A really dedicated club.

In between I went to see President David hand over to President Nigel at Pinner, President Gillian hand over to President Shirley at my own club Elthorne-Hillingdon, welcomed all the attendees at our Future Ptresidents Workshop at Sonning Golf Club on Saturday morning followed by a session outside Eastcote Pharmacy encouraging folks to "Know Your Blood Pressure" in conjunction with The Stroke Association.

New Rotary Year - First Thoughts!

As we're now entering a new Rotary year, we had our "handover" on Friday (Rotary changes its Principal Officers every year).  At our event (Brunel University Hamilton suite - great venue) I had the opportunity to address the gathering with some thoughts on what we might try to achieve while I hold the post of District Governor.  And here are my thoughts so that more people have a chance to at least read what I had to say:

"I’m constantly surprised by how little impact we as Rotarians make on the consciousness of the general population of the UK. By which I don’t mean that we don’t do anything for them, it’s more how unaware they are of what we do to make the world a better place and more importantly why they should come and help us do so.  

Our theme for this year is Engage Rotary, Change Lives. Take “Engage” – if we look up that word in the thesaurus we find almost 30 synonyms – words like Encounter, Attract, Join, Involve, Absorb, Engross, Retain – actually that’s not a bad set of words to use as a strategy for our Membership.  So let’s do those things – let’s use every encounter we have as Rotarians as an opportunity to explain what we do and to attract new members to Rotary and once they’ve joined let’s involve them, and absorb them into the framework of our clubs, so they’re engrossed in what we do and we retain them. 

If we do all those things we won’t have a problem with Changing Lives – we’ll change their lives and our lives for the better and we’ll all be able to change the lives of the communities impacted by our Service for the better.  And we may have less of a problem with people knowing what we do – if there’s more of us, that’s more of us to spread the word.  Sounds devastatingly simple, but I know that the reality isn’t quite like that – for a start we’ve got to get our members to Engage with the idea that that’s what we need to do.  And in some clubs that’ll be easier than others.  And it will only happen if we all use our collective will to make it so.  At our District Assembly I felt a real buzz about the place, a gathering of people who wanted to be part of making our District a better place to be a Rotarian, a more dynamic place to be a Rotarian, a more satisfying place to be a Rotarian. 

Ten years ago my club held a celebration of its silver jubilee and we made a video including remarks from founder members of the club where they stressed the importance and vitality of Rotary fellowship.  Resorting to my thesaurus again and looking up Fellowship I find words like camaraderie, partnership, solidarity, cooperation and yes, that’s what we need – a sense of shared responsibility for the well-being of our society – to do Good in the World.  And I’m not going to miss this opportunity to trumpet the cause of our Rotary Foundation – our charity.  We’ve come a long way in this District in the last few years, we have every right to be very proud of our achievements for our Foundation – we’re approaching the gold standard – the $100 a member every year, let’s keep that going, and let’s make use of it in supporting our projects.

I’d like to draw towards a close now, with a plea to all of you to help me to achieve 100% participation from the Rotarians in the District for our Pounds for Polio project which runs from Monday, yes July 1, until 24 October, World Polio Day.  Why is this important right now?  It’s important that we continue our efforts to complete the Endgame because we have had warnings again this year of what happens if we don’t finish the job.  Outbreaks in Kenya & Somalia which have led to the need to carry out emergency vaccinations of more than 1 million children should serve as a grave reminder of the ongoing need.  Yes, I know we’ve been at it for years, yes I know people are tired of the continued need, but in my view we need to adapt the words of Magnus Magnusson – We’ve started so We’ll finish.  Just to remind you, our objective is to raise £100 for each Rotarian in the District in the next 115 days, just a £1 a day each – not a lot to each of us, but capable of an immense Change in the Lives of others.

And a quick sneaky advert for District Conference 2014 – Torquay March 21^st-23^rd.  I’m very proud of the exceptional line-up of speakers we’ve already got for you - Arsenal & Scotland goalkeeping legend Bob Wilson, who’ll not only be talking about football but also his charity, the Willow Foundation which makes things happen for terminally ill young adults; transplant games medal winner Richard Burbedge and Paralympic gold medal rower Naomi Riches who’ll both be telling us what it’s like to grow up being different and to overcome those disadvantages.  And Ben Mee who’s taken a broken down zoo & built it up during a time of personal tragedy – yes it was him, not Matt Damon that Bought a Zoo.  We also have Lady Carnarvon on what it’s like living in Downton Abbey and how the temporary hospital storylines were factually based on the earlier Lady Carnarvon.  Not to mention Hudson river plane crash survivor Larry Snodgrass and Ray Burman on surviving 35 years in the police – make sure you put the date in your diary and come – better still, make sure you bring along someone from your club who’s never been to a District Conference and show them why they need to be there – after all, if it hadn’t been for District Conference I may never have joined!

I’m looking forward to this year immensely.  I know I lead a terrific bunch of people committed to improve the lives of others.  If I can help you to do that, please let me know and if I can I will. Let’s go out there and have fun Engaging Rotary & Changing Lives."

Be Better Known Campaign Comes to an End

Done it!  Having set myself the task of visiting all of the 63 clubs in Rotary District 1090 before I become District Governor on 1 July I've been to Burnham last week and Bicester & Thame this week.  All interesting stops - Burnham & Bicester were their Club Assemblies, where they're setting out their plans for the coming year and at Thame last night they were making significant charitable donations to a bevy of charities, including the Thames Valley & Chilterns Air Ambulance, SERV (volunteer Blood and organ transport), Sharing Life Trust, Hearing Dogs, Thame Day Care and the Meadowcroft Care Home, President Bob's chosen charity.

So, now a week's break and then I'm into the whirlwind that will be my series of Official visits to all 63 clubs - well at least they'll know who I am!