A few years ago we had the pleasure of hearing from the Dean of Ely Cathedral who visited our Club as a speaker. Today we were able to return the visit as the Ladies Weekend crowd took the opportunity to tour the Cathedral. Thanks to our most knowledgeable tour guides we were given an insight into the history and architecture of this most beautiful of buildings.
Ely was also home to Oliver Cromwell and the house there is one of only two surviving buildings where the Lord Protector is known to have lived. Whilst our tour guide explained the history of the house, of Cromwell and of the Civil War it was plain that she only found our true level when she let the group loose in the dressing up room.
There is no doubting the beauty of this City and all who visited wished that we could have spent more time there.
A large part of the success of the our Club is down to the support which we all receive from our wives. Each year we recognise how important this support is by honouring our wives at our annual ladies weekend. This year thanks to the suggestion of John Margetts the event takes place in the beautiful university City of Cambridge.
Following a excellent meal at our home base at the University Arms hotel we spent a very enjoyable evening in the company of John and Norma Major at the Cambridge Arts Theatre where the Agatha Christie Theatre Company were performing Verdict. The play features an all-star cast led by Dawn Steele, from the hit BBC drama Monarch of the Glen and the popular ITV series Wild at Heart. She was joined by Robert Duncan (Witness for the Prosecution, Absurd Person Singular, Drop the Dead Donkey) Ali Bastian (The Bill, Strictly Come Dancing, Hollyoaks), Peter Byrne (Dixon of Dock Green), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter film series), Elizabeth Power (Eastenders) and 60’s teen idol Mark Wynter.
Well OK we weren’t exactly in the company of John and Norma – but they were sitting on the same row and we’d like to think that they had heard we’d be in town.
You might have seen over the last few months adverts in your local paper inviting you to ‘Join Rotary and Make a Difference’. Mike Dickerson saw one of those adverts and after attending a few of our Club meetings decided that he could make a difference. Tonight we had the pleasure of inducting him as the newest member of our Club.
Mike operates a foot health care business in Wolverhampton. As a member of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland, he joins an organisation of more than 55,000 men and women who, as members of over 1,850 Rotary clubs, volunteer their time, talents, professional skills and energy to improving the lives of people in their local communities and others around the world.
As a member of a Rotary club, you have the opportunity to give something back, to give hope to those less fortunate and to make lives worthwhile and fulfilled. If you’d like to find out more about joining Rotary then click here – How to Join Rotary.
As more of the veterans of the Second World War pass it becomes more important than ever to keep their stories alive. This evening we had the pleasure of hearing from John Pittwood a member of the Rotary Club of Brierley Hill and Kingswinford.
John’s father – a navigator with 207 Squadron -was amongst the thousands of Allied airmen who had to bail out over occupied France following a bombing raid on an enemy target. Fortunately for John his father survived and based on his recollections and on the research work which John has since undertaken he has managed to piece together the story of his fathers meeting with members of the SOE resistance and of his journey to freedom.
The friendships which John’s father made with the members of the resistance survive to this day and now span the generations of the families. Our thanks go to John for preserving his father’s story and sharing it with us.
Following on from the success of the Club’s first casino evening last year this evening over 100 Rotarians and friends gathered in the company of the Mayor and Mayoress of Wolverhampton to find who would carry away the title of the Rotary Casino Champion 2011.
The evening started off on a special note as the Mayor, Councillor Malcolm Gwinnett, announced that having met his fundraising target for his two nominated charities – Promise Dreams which aims to fulfil the wishes of seriously and terminally ill children and the Deanesly Centre which treats cancer patients at New Cross Hospital – he would continue to raise funds for the remainder of his year to benefit the MS Therapy Centre in Wolverhampton – a charity dear to the heart of many Rotarians in Wolverhampton.
Whilst the President’s wife came a notable second the winner proved that with gambling as with most other things in life experience counts as Rotarian Bali Singh was the clear winner and our new Casino Champion 2011. Our thanks to all who attended and helped to make the evening a success and in particular to Rotarians Jag Gill, Bali Singh and Sammy Chung who organised the event. Monies raised will be used in support of local Rotary charities.
Nearly 100 Rotarians and their guests spent this evening in the company of horticultural Broadcaster, Howard Drury.
Born in Lincolnshire, Howard started his horticultural career early selling lettuces at the age of 6 and working in local nurseries before going on to Edinburgh Botanic Garden as a Student, leaving with honours and all but one of the top awards. Following a move to Birmingham he worked for 20 years as a Horticultural Training officer and as a researcher and presenter on Central TV’s popular Gardening Time programme.
Howard’s entertaining and informative presentation included 50 illustrated gardening tips and hints as well as a quiz and a valuable opportunity for the keen amateurs in the room to find the answers to their gardening problems.
The event, which was organised by Club member Doug Evans, was a huge success and raised funds for Village Water, a project supported by Rotary International which provides clean water and sanitation in underdeveloped countries.
With Census Day having fallen on the 27th March we were joined this evening by Kevin Beck, our Census area manager. Kevin and his team have been active for months now encouraging people to take part in the Census by explaining how the information collected makes a practical difference to peoples everyday lives by ensuring that local authorities receive their fair share of central government funding to run its public services – like leisure centres, rubbish collection and public transport.
As well as explaining to the Club how the Census information is collected and used Kevin also gave us a potted history of census.
Census Day having passed the hard work starts now for Kevin’s team as they begin to visit every household still to submit their return to give help and encouragement so as to ensure that the census information is as complete as possible. Their hard work in serving the community in this way is appreciated by all in the Club.
As a result of the Club’s Christmas fund raising Tettenhall Rotary have been pleased to donate three thousand pounds towards Compton Hospice’s Capital Appeal fund.
This is an exciting but challenging time for the Hospice as they start work on a major £3.5 million refurbishment project which will see shared bedrooms and communal bathrooms replaced with single en-suite rooms for all of its in-patients. Therapy and consultation rooms will also be refurbished to enable the Hospice to offer greater privacy, dignity and choice for those in need of their services and to help move nearer to their aim of making the hospice a true home-from-home.
Compton Hospice focuses not only on patients medical and physical needs but also on their psychological, emotional and spiritual well being. The works funded by the contribution of the the Club and the thousands in Wolverhampton who regularly support its work will allow the Hospice to provide patients with the facilities and care which they so desperately need at this time.
Our grateful thanks go to all in the Wolverhampton who supported our Christmas Carol Concert and Sleigh collections and in particular to David Gregory, Manager of Sainsbury’s in Perton, and to James Martin, Dealer Principal of Stratsone Jaguar in Wolverhampton.
We were joined this evening by Steve Evans a member of the Rotary Club of Ironbridge. Steve has long been involved with the development of Rotary’s international programme but had come to talk to the Club about the work of the Village Water charity in advance of World Water Day on the 22nd March.
Billions of people lack access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation. Village Water provides hygiene education and sustainable water for rural villages in western Zambia. The charity installs protected shallow wells with manual water pumps that allow the people to draw uncontaminated water from underground.
Diarrhoea is one of the leading causes of infant mortality in Zambia and a major contributor to malnutrition. Village Water will only install pumps in villages where the community agrees to implement measures to provide for the safe disposal of human waste, and to adopt basic hygiene practices such as hand washing with soap in order to break the cycle of disease transmission for diarrhoea, particularly amongst children under five.
To date, Village Water has succeeded in helping over 75,000 people in 326 villages, each with either a new or rehabilitated well and with around 20 pit latrines for toilets, with hand washing, refuse pits and plate and vegetable racks to keep the food off the ground – and this has had a dramatic impact upon the health of the people. All the sanitation work is undertaken by the people themselves with Village Water providing cement and other materials.
Our thanks to Steve for his work in promoting the work of this very worthwhile charity and rest assured that we shall be supporting its work over the coming year.
It was fitting on Valentines Day to be joined by Fred Austin and his wife Margaret and to hear their real life love story which is now the subject of a book – Czech and Mate.
Born into a Jewish family in pre war Czechoslovakia Fred was fortunate with the help of a distant cousin in Austria to secure passage to England under the protection of an English school teacher. It was the last that he was to see of this mother and sisters who were all to become victims of Nazi extermination.
Overcoming hardship whilst under the care of his rescuer Fred went on to attend Leicester University where he was to meet Margaret, his future wife. Fred was to qualify as a teacher and eventually to become Head of Dudley Grammar School. On his retirement from the Grammar School Fred became chief officer for Age Concern in Dudley. It is testament to Fred’s character that there is no hint of bitterness as he recounts his past life and as a longstanding member of the Rotary Club of Dudley he has devoted himself to the service of others.
