Siberia World Challenge

Excellent presentation from a delightful young lady who spent  several weeks in Siberia last year as her World Challenge,. Our club had helped out with funding and she came to club to tell us all about it. martin passed around the Alzheimers Fund pot to top up what his police colleagues had given. We now have £160 so a good start. Next week will be a special business evening we have had a request to discuss membership and attendance and Clare will do another presentation on the Kenya project.

Another picture of the tandemists!

Martin C

Martin C retired from the police yesterday and had a farewell do at the Bull, Penenden Heath. I had a chance to say a few words about his rotary work and we launched our tandem ride event to Dordrecht with 'ride past" as depicted in the picture. Some of his colleagues contributed towards our Alzheimers fund and we hope to add to it as we go in May. All the best now to Martin and Jo for their 6 weeks in Aussie, they had better bring some banners back! 

RIBI President

Went to Maidstone Rotary lunch today. Excellent function, well organised and well chaired by Pat Thomas who as Vice President was standing for both the absent President and President Elect. Interestingly, President  Dennis is in Antigua to watch the Test Match. They had 10 or so balls today before abandoning as the pitch was unsuitable! I bet he wished he was at the club listening to Ian Thomson giving his brilliant presentation. Hilariously funny but a serious theme of why we all do Rotary, coming through loud and clear. 

We had five members from Riverside I think the biggest, certainly the noisiest contingent, visiting the club. Well done team, we flew the flag well and  I  even had the chance to invite the DG to my Presidents Night.

Lloyd has now got the quiz arrangements underway, let's hope for a good take up of teams.  

Potential Members

Club night saw the second visit of my guest Andy and it is looking good for membership subject to the normal procedures. Also Clare brought along a guest Catherine, who appeared to enjoy the evening which included anoher good presentation this time from the CE of Hi Kent, John Clayton.

Ron has now booked the coach for Dordrecht. I have managed to get Stuart G and Patricia to come along despite him leaving the club. I also got potential member Andy to join us. Then, with a bit more of my cajoling I persuaded maria to join us with husband David. So numbers are looking good now. I have found a Harris Tweed jacket in a charity shop so the props are starting to come together for Martin and my 1930s ride to Holland. Friday is lunch with the RIBI President, five from our club going- pretty good- will report later on the event. 

Bad Weather

I would like to think that it was the particularly bad snow and cold that kept members away on Tuesday night. There were just 16 of us but once again an excellent speaker talking about the Street Paster scheme. The low attendance I know raised a few eyebrows but I don't think it was connected with the fact that 4 long serving members have now left during my term of office! Some members did write to me with some concerns as to whether or not the resignation reasons were linked. I did, therefore write to all members confirming that they were not connected and urged existing members to try and get new recruits. I have kicked that off by bringing along a young friend of mine and hopefully he will join. That will lower our average age a bit. 

I have also decided to donate £1000 to COSMIC which I have now done. We shall have to see how fundraising goes if I am to increase that during my year. The Heart of Kent concert preparation is really underway now. We had another meeting at Dennis Fowle's house. I have taken responsibility for the poster and programme. The poster is now ready for printing I have managed to get a company to do the programme for nothing. I need to get the rest of the club on board to sell tickets soon. Dordrecht preparations well underway. We are going by coach- 10 couples at present with martin and myself going by tandem. More later on that no doubt.