Category: Club Meetings

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Keith Berry MBE

It was great to catch up with Keith Berry, an old friend of the Club, this evening.

Keith has recently been honoured with an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2011 for services to Young People in Wolverhampton.

Keith was joining us in his role as representative of Power Pleas the Wolverhampton charity which provides powered wheelchairs to local disabled youth to help them live a fuller life.

Power Pleas is about to celebrate its 25th year of operation and the Club has been raising funds to support for their work for most of those years.

Most recently members of the Club were invited by Wolverhampton Wanderers to collect outside the Molineux stadium before the Baggies derby and we were pleased tonight to hand Keith a cheque for £1,003 to allow the charity to buy a mobility tricycle for a local youngster with mobility problems.

Keith is active with a number of local charities and the award of the MBE is richly deserved recognition of his work.

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Roger Wilkinson – Monty had the right idea

We were joined this evening by Coach Roger Wilkinson formerly a player with Plymouth Argyle and Luton Town, a coach with Crystal Palace, West Bromwich Albion and the New Zealand under 17 and 20 teams and director of coaching for the New Zealand Football Association.

Now living in Wolverhampton Roger explained how a shared coaching ethos with John Cartwright led the two of them to found Premier Skills – a local not for profit company with a worldwide reach – where he is now a Director of Coaching.

Roger and the team at Premier Skills are convinced that the current FA approach to the development of players and coaching staff simply does not work and through their development of their Practice Play system they have sought to replicate the conditions which made the street football of the 50’s and 60’s such a great incubator for British footballing talent.

Its not surprising that the team at Premier Skills take part of their inspiration from the great Liverpool sides of Shankly and Paisley but it was a little more of surprise to hear how important a role Field Marshall Montgomery has played in the development of their system.
Roger explained how Monty had understood the need to focus on the job at hand, the need to get the morale right within the team, the importance of knowing your enemy, of surrounding yourself with good people and of clearly communicating to all both the culture he expected of them and their objectives.
Premier Skills have translated this onto the football field by ensuring that everyone understands the game style which they are working towards, the importance of governing the ball, the need to go forward with purpose, to create clever chances and to maximise finishing opportunities. Training is focused on playing football rather than ball games.
Roger stressed the importance of not only winning but winning with style and the Club wishes him and the rest of the team at Premier Skills every success in bringing about their coaching revolution.
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GSE 2012 Canada – Jayne Lawrence

Rotary’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country’s culture and institutions, observe how their occupations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

October saw the visit of the visit GSE team from Rotary District 5550 which spans Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada. As their visit to this country drew to an end Tettenhall had the great pleasure of hosting a Farewell Rally for the team.

As part of the GSE Exchange program a team of young professionals from within our own District 1210 are currently preparing for their own visit to Canada where members of the Canadian team and of the Clubs within District 5550 will give them a taste of how life is lived in Canada and an insight into how their occupations are practised.

The Tettenhall Club is proud to be the sponsoring Club of team member Jayne Lawrence, Head of Information at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust, who joined us at tonights meeting as part of her preparations for the visit. Jayne will make a wonderful ambassador for the Club and the City. We wish her well in her travels and look forward to hearing from her when she returns.

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41 Club Storm Liverpool

Round Table grew out of Rotary back in 1927 so its no surprise that Tablers make great Rotarians and we are lucky that many of the members of the Club were formerly members of the Tettenhall Round Table and a number of other local Round Table Clubs.

Originally, membership of Round Table was limited to men aged between of 18 – 40 years (now 18-45), so that following his 40th birthday, a member of Round Table would have to retire. He was then eligible to join a 41 Club, which is the pet name for The Association of Ex-Round Tablers’ Clubs.

The 41 Club gives ex Tablers an opportunity to continue the friendships they have made whilst in Round Table and encourages them to continue their active involvement in the Community as well as supporting their local Round Table club.

Many members of our own Club are also members of the Tettenhall 41 Club and one of their members came along tonight to let the rest of us know exactly what they got up to on their latest Lads Weekend Away in Liverpool as Gordon Nicklin shared with us a documentary that he had produced covering the annual Tettenhall 41 Club weekend away.

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Like Father Like Son

Its always a pleasure to welcome a new member into the Rotary family but tonight we also had the pleasure of welcoming the son of an existing member of the Club as our latest member.

Local property developer Peter Maddox has been a member of our Club for sixteen years now and his contribution to the Clubs activities during that time was recognised in 2006 by the award of a Paul Harris Fellowship.
Tonight his son Simon who also works in the family business, Peter Maddox & Associates, joined his father as a member of the Club. A former a member of Wolverhampton Round Table and already a regular supporter of the Clubs activities we know that Simon has it in his genes to make a great Rotarian and we look forward to sharing some great times with him and his family.
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30th Anniversary Dinner

Tonight saw the Club celebrate its 30th Anniversary with a special dinner at the Mount Hotel in Wolverhampton.

Originally chartered in January 1982 President John paid tribute to those founder members – 14 of whom are still actively involved in the Club today- and to those members of the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton (our mother club) whose work had been instrumental in establishing the Club.

Picking out some of the highlights of the Clubs history President John noted the contribution of Honorary members such as the comedian Lenny Henry whose concert helped us to raise £135,000 in one night, the work which the Club carried out with Wolverhampton Wanderers collecting for local good causes outside of the Molineux Stadium and which has now raised over £40,000 over the 17 years that they have been running, the contribution which the Club has made toward education in the City with the mentoring programme which it runs with Smestow School, and of the success of the Club’s annual Santa Sleigh runs which as well as bringing some Christmas magic to the children of the city has also helped to raise over £40,000 to benefit local charities such as Compton Hospice.

Internationally President John acknowledged the work of founder member David Cave who over four years as the Clubs Foundation Officer raised £19,500 to help the Foundation’s work in eradicating polio from the face of the earth – work which is now showing real progress with no new polio cases in India for over a year.

With 58 members Tettenhall is one of the county’s largest Rotary Clubs and President John expressed his confidence that the current members would continue to build on the work which had been carried out over the first 30 years and that Rotary would continue to be at the heart of our community.

Tettenhall Inner Wheel President Lynne Cave brought the congratulations of the ladies of the Inner Wheel Club and the toast to the members of the Club was proposed by District Governor Barry Preen who presented President John with a certificate of recognition of the Club’s service from Rotary International President Banarjee.

Our thanks go to all those who joined us to help celebrate our anniversary and to Club member Mike Unwin for organising the event.

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Charles Green – Regeneration and the City

Wolverhampton has had its share of bad news over the last few years with the collapse of the Summer Row Retail Development in the City Centre and a seemingly never ending rise in the unemployment numbers.

Tonight we were joined by Charles Green, the Interim Strategic Director of Education and Enterprise at Wolverhampton City Council. Charles has a planning background and was involved in the successful Salford Quays Development near Manchester. He now works as a troubleshooter with local authorities and has joined Wolverhampton City Council with the object of turning the Council from an organisation which is strong on development strategy into one which is strong on development delivery – no mean feat given that his is an interim appointment- and one which delivers opportunities for all in the City.

Charles was able to share with us some of the work which had been involved in securing the recent investments from Jaguar Land Rover and of the plans which were now in place to capitalise on that investment and the infrastructure and facilities that would be available at the i54 development by attracting in JLR suppliers and aerospace engineering companies.

Whilst Charles admits that there is no quick fix for the City Centre retail core and that the current climate makes any large scale development unrealistic he made it clear that the Council were now listening to local developers to understand what smaller scale development and refocusing of the High Street was feasible.

With the stated aim of of ensuring prosperity for all in the City we wish Charles and his colleagues well in their work.

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Martyn Morgan – Education a Personal Perspective

Our Club has worked closely with Smestow School in Wolverhampton over a number of years so we were pleased to welcome Martyn Morgan, the School’s new headmaster, to our meeting this evening.

Raised on a Council estate in Wolverhampton, educated in the City and the first in his family to go to University Martyn sees himself as proof that education can change lives and he looks to make the same possible for all of the students at Smestow.

Martyn praised the role of the mentors from the Club and from Tettenhall Inner Wheel for the work which they are doing with students at the school in helping them to achieve their potential. Notwithstanding the pressures that are placed on schools to achieve exam success Martyn stressed the need for them to provide a rounded education and in working with Rotary he believes that the School is sending a message that the education of whole child matters.

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New Member – Stuart Herritty

Welcoming a new member to the Club is a great way to start a New Year – though in the case of our latest member Stuart Herritty it did feel as though he’d been part of the Club for some time as he had already thrown himself into the Club’s activities by helping with our sleigh collections through December – at the same time as helping his old Round Table club in Bridgnorth with their sleigh activities.

Stuart is no stranger to Rotary having been a member of a Rotaract Club in his youth. Aimed at 18-30 year olds Rotaract Club members enjoy a wide range of social activities as well as the opportunity to get actively involved in their local community and to raise money for local good causes.

Stuart works as a Manager with Treble Pumps in Wolverhampton the UK’s largest specialist pump distributor and we’re are all pleased to welcome him back into the Rotary family.

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The Sleigh Masters

Following on from a record year for our Santa Sleigh the Club tonight took the opportunity to recognise the contributions of two of its members without whom it would not have been possible.

We pride ourselves on having the best sleigh for Santa of any Club in the area and that of course is due to the hard work of Ray Hill who originally built the Sleigh and who now maintains it with the invaluable assistance of his grandson Oliver to ensure that it looks better each year.

Organising and co-ordinating the Club’s sleigh activities is a massive task and during December it becomes a full time job. Since the first Sleigh run and up until last year that work was in the safe hands of Sleigh Commander Roger Timbrell and Roger’s tireless work has ensured that Tettenhall’s sleigh visits are a much anticipated part of  the Christmas season for many in Wolverhampton.

Both Roger and Ray have selflessly given of their time and energy and in addition to the magic which the sleigh brings to the children of Wolverhampton it has helped the Club to raise thousands to benefit local charities. In thanks for all of their hard work President John was delighted to award Ray and Roger certificates of recognition on behalf of the Club.