Rotary Engagements since July 1 188
Been a fascinating week with a big variety in what’s
going on – lots of progress in lots of areas.
It’s usual for Rotary club Presidents to be in office for
a full year from July 1 to June 30th. Occasionally clubs need to share the duty and
Monday saw us at RC Loddon Vale for the handover from President Norman Moulsley
to President Bill Soane. Both great
Rotarians helping their club to be able to continue to provide great service to
their community. A super evening in
great company. Oh, and I got to present a certficate for the club's 40th anniversary!
Alongside the celebratory meetings there are also less
formal duties – a couple of “webinars” last week, on the future shape of Rotary
International in Great Britain & Ireland (RIBI) and on the way in which we
deal with Scholarships awarded by Rotary, either for scholars coming to study
in the UK or from scholars we support in their studies abroad.
Wednesday evening the first of what I hope will be a larger
number of meetings at my own club, having missed so many in the first half of
the Rotary year. Big turnout for our
first meeting of the calendar year – lots to enjoy, the more than £5,000 raised
by our efforts before Christmas being a highlight.
Thursday morning a fairly intense session looking at our
conference registrations and hotel bookings – in some ways filling the hotel
completely means we have to be extra careful that we haven’t overbooked – nice problem
to have though!
And in the afternoon a very special occasion. While Rotarians have an award, the Paul
Harris Fellowship, named for our Founder our inner Wheel organisation has one
of its own, similarly named. More recent
than the Paul Harris, the Margarette Golding award has only been in existence
since 2001 and has been given to only a little over 200 people. So it was an honour to be invited to see Evelyne
Philpott , President of the Inner Wheel Club of Marlow receive her award, only
the second to be given in our District.
To quote the Inner Wheel website “successful Margarette Golding Award recipients have generally been
involved with a variety of charities or organisations for a very long time,
often involving a great deal of commitment on a very regular basis. This work must
be completely unconnected with Inner Wheel membership, Inner Wheel or Rotary
fundraising activities. Alternatively or in addition they must have made great
personal sacrifices for the benefit of others. The awards are given to Inner
Wheel members as well as members of the general public. The criteria for success are set high so that the award remains a truly
significant marker of an individual’s commitment to others”. Congratulations to Evelyne.
On Saturday
morning I was at the first meeting of our Vocational Training Team since we
found out that our grant application had been successful. It’s nice to see that all the hard work that
has been put in by our team in preparation for this event is going to come to fruition. Special mention of our Team Leader, club member
Gillian Pearce whose visit to Kamuli Mission Hospital gave us the idea and who
has put an immense amount of time into getting us to this point.
And finally, to introduce you to another blogger! We have a young lady sponsored by the Banbury
Rotary Club for a Youth Exchange trip to New York state. She’s writing a blog too – so please keep up
with her as well at http://britabroad2013.blogspot.co.uk
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