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Amherst News
September 2003
CLUB DIARY
Wednesday Meetings
September 10 Our speaker is David Westphal, an English wine grower.
September 17 An Amherst evening.
September 24 Offered to the charity Family Matters.
October 1 Business meeting.
October 8 The District Governor's visitation.
October 15 Amherst evening.
October 22 Rosemary Ferguson and Jeanne Crouch, Sevenoaks Tourist Information Office.
October 29 Partners' evening? Speaker Eric Matkins The Rotary Caravan Fellowship.
Service and Social Diary
Saturday 13 September Our 25th Anniversary Dinner
Sunday 21 September The Marie Curie Cyclo Sportive
Friday 31 October - Sunday 2 November The District Conference
Friday-Saturday 14-15 November "Children In Need" Collection
Friday-Saturday 2-3 April Stroke Awareness Day
Friday 23 April Charity Golf Day
Sunday 6 June Fun Day in aid of children's hospices
In a few days time we celebrate our 25th birthday.
It will be an evening of "Do you remember when ....?" and " What happened to ....?" and memories of what was and talk of what might have been. Of welcome to friends present and regret for friends no longer with us.
Then we start our second twenty five years. Time moves on and so must we. What challenge of contribution to our community lies round the corner?
Time to seek it out.
Harvey writes…..
The incidence of reported abuse of young and old alike is such that nobody can doubt the need for sensible protection for the vulnerable and their carers. The trouble is that when you ask somebody to sit down and write a 'policy' the result is necessarily 'one size fits all' overkill.
I groaned when I first read the letter and enclosures that arrived from District in the middle of the August silly season. The 'job description' for Club Protection Officer reads as though the author was trying to think up as many bullet point responsibilities as possible rather than the minimum essential for adequate protection.
In the course of our activities as members of a small Rotary Club we do occasionally find ourselves in one-to-one situations with the vulnerable, for example driving them to sheltered shopping or a theatre evening. The risk of an incident is very small but it does exist so we shall be taking proportionate and sensible steps to implement a risk management policy. Thanks to Don for volunteering to be our first Club Protection Officer.
We needed protection of a different sort on the 18th when six members answered the challenge from Chislehurst to an evening of boules. They seemed very determined to beat us. Mind you, we can hardly blame them - we had recently subjected their members to a 'Call my Bluff' evening. Thanks to President Peter Forrester and his members for a most enjoyable evening.
Attendance
If we may be allowed a moment’s backward glance, it is worth recording that our attendance figure for 2002-3 was an excellent 78%. Accepting as we do that some of us cannot attend as often as they would like, this figure is a testament to the Club’s core values.
Council Report 1st September Meeting
President.
There are approximately 70 booked to attend the 25th anniversary dinner. The projected deficit is small. All should have a good night.
A committee meeting evening is planned for the 17th September. It would then be up to committee chairmen to arrange their own meetings as and when required.
The President intended that we should continue to have a monthly business meeting with the addition of a ‘led’ discussion on a topic relevant to club business.
Secretary.
District meeting 4th September: the President and Ron Adams would attend as voting delegates.
The Public Library details on Club Officers have been updated.
Treasurer.
Charity account balance £1300, Club account balance £2241.
Some members have still not paid their subs.
We have paid £65.00 to Chiddingstone P.C.C. to cover the cost of printing the inside pages of the newsletter.
It was agreed to spend £140.00 on new Tabards.
Membership Services.
5th November celebrations: the committee would be organising the parking for St. Julian’s.
Club Christmas party: there needed to be some early discussion on format, location etc. to endeavour to achieve 100% support from the club for this event this year.
Club Health Check: Gordon had now had replies from 17 members.
Community Vocation and Youth Service.
Community Service award: it was planned make the award this year to Harry Garret, for Services to the British Legion. Harry would be invited to attend a Club Meeting to receive the award.
Sheltered shopping: Amherst is organising this year and will incur some expenditure.
Sevenoaks Athletic Association: Sid Wright, on behalf of the Association had requested support from both the Sevenoaks and Amherst Rotary Clubs to assist with the purchase of athletic strips for their members. We agreed to assist.
Sail Training: we are trying to get some feedback or acknowledgement from the last individual that we sent.
Fund-Raising.
Cyclo-Sportif: the organisation for this event on Sunday, 21st October is in hand.
The committee is looking at the feasibility of organising a sponsored clay pigeon shoot for late in 2004; members of Council thought it would be potentially a good addition to the club calendar.
International and Foundation.
Virtually all members now have some marmalade.
Roubaix: the committee is planning a programme of activities with Roubaix for the 2003/4 starting with a joint lunch in Calais this autumn.
Disaster Boxes: we will seek to fill the boxes the club has in hand before buying new ones.
The committee is seeking speakers from the German and Brazilian embassies and hoping to invite a speaker on the eradication of Malaria in Tanzania.
There are proposals at District level to separate the International and Foundation into two separate committees; the committee believe this to be a Club matter.
ROTARY FOUNDATION
Rotary's Own International Charity.
Currently receives worldwide donations of $75m and makes expenditure of over $95m per annum. This is possible through wise investment. Items and areas of expenditure are decided only by Rotarians.
Currently per capita inwards giving from the UK is well below par compared with others although in District 1120 we are trying to improve on this fact. Giving within our Club at present is solely through our Master at Arms and wine raffle collections weekly.
Noel Tatt, District 1120 Foundation Chairman, illustrated his talk to us with snippets of the vast areas of giving funded by Foundation.and opened our minds to new Grant participation at local and international level. The present Wilkins' Marmalade project is one current venture in RIBI.
However, we will need to concentrate our minds on Grant opportunities, perhaps with other partner Clubs, right now and for the future.
Foundation encourages Ambassadorial Scholars, GSE inward and outward visitors, and awards of Paul Harris fellowships to deserving individuals in the locality, which attracts publicity for Rotary.
The basis of District and Club Foundation activities is under review and this it is hoped will make Club members more aware of the greater mutual worth in supporting Rotary's own charity in the future.
Mike Parkinson
From Gordon
Gordon thanks all who took part in his ‘health check’ survey. Conclusions will be published when his Committee has studied the raw data.
Eric and Audrey LOOK AT BAVARIA
On the 3rd August we, with caravan of course, set sail from Dover to meet up with 13 other caravanning Rotarians and their ladies in Wurzburg, the wine growing area of Bavaria.
We stayed for six nights at the camp site in Frickenhausen, a village ten miles outside Wurzburg, on the edge of the river with vineyards all around. The temperature was 40ºC and took some getting used to. A tour of the small city of Wurzburg was ‘a must’ for some, but a ‘drive-walk’ in air conditioned cars, through the wine villages was a much more tolerable way of coping with the heat. On the second evening, we all visited the Rotary Club of Wurzburg-Residenz, were very warmly welcomed, had a ‘wine tasting’ of five different wines from a local producer and thoroughly enjoyed their fellowship.
Our second venue, for four nights, was in Nuremburg, sited alongside the Nazi Party rally site, just left derelict to the forces of nature, much as some of the relics of the Roman Empire in other parts of Europe. A busy but unattractive city, with no opportunity to meet the local Rotary Club.
So on to our third venue, six nights, eight miles outside Munich. A city so alive, the second largest city in Germany after Berlin, a remarkably efficient transport system of train, tram and underground, enabling us to get from our site to anywhere in the city, with art galleries, museums and tourist sites in abundance. A visit to the Rotary Club of Munich-Hofgarten was most enjoyable, where we were invited to make a visual presentation of our caravanning fellowship, which seemed to have been well received.
Our final venue, again for six nights, was Oberammergau, close to the mountains and world famous for its Passion Play, performed every ten years. A most enjoyable change from the three city areas at previous sites, the air more fresh, but the temperature still nudging the forties. A lot of driving to the lakes, the mountains, venturing into Austria and visiting the castles, Linderhof, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau of ‘Mad’ King Ludwig II. A visit to the Rotary Club of Murnau-Oberammergau was a highlight, a very upmarket hotel, a three-course meal with coffee, all for ten Euros, or about seven pounds.
So after nearly four weeks away, we reflected on the visits to three Rotary Clubs, who all conducted their meetings in English for our benefit, exchanged banners and thoroughly enjoyed their fellowship, we bring greetings to Amherst from their presidents and members.
Rotary FUN DAY 2004 In aid of Children’s Hospices
Last month some of us were puzzled by references to a ‘D-Day celebration’. It seems that someone in District tagged the June 6 Fun Day ‘D-Day ’, perhaps in jest, but the joke was rapidly perceived to be in poor taste.
Geoff’s Statistics for the Club's 25th birthday
Using the likely ages of our thirty-one members on 13 September (d.v.) we find that the average Amherst Rotarian (no such beast exists of course) was born in October 1939, almost sixty-four years ago.
Before the end of President Harvey's year there will be four Big 0 events, after which we'll have one member under fifty, eight between fifty and fifty-nine, twelve between sixty and sixty-nine and ten "over seventy". Plus all the thirty- and forty-somethings we recruit.
The club will be more ecumenical if they were all female (twenty-nine of them will make us 50:50 between the sexes) and at present we're short on members born in odd-numbered years and with surnames beginning with C, D, F, N, 0, Q, U, X, Y and Z.
At present the club is 3% female and only nine of us were born in odd years. Two of our members were born within a fortnight of each other and two others within a month.
So now you know.
I LOVE MY COMPUTER AND MY CAR BUT …
Bill Gates once compared the Computer Industry with the Auto Industry and said that if General Motors had kept up with the technology like the Computer Industry, we would all be driving $2500 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.
In response GM issued a press release stating that if they had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics –
For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they painted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would ‘die’ on the motorway for no reason. You would pull over to the hard shoulder, close all the windows, shut off the car, restart it and then reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept it !
Again, a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause the car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to re-install the engine.
Apple Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “General Protection Fault” light.
The Airbag system would ask ‘Are you sure?’ before deploying.
Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio aerial.
Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You’d have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn off the engine.
But, either way – we can’t live without them – or can we?
Contributed by Mike Parkinson
THE DISTRICT QUIZ
All change, new look
This year’s Quiz will be ‘wine and wisdom’ fund-raising evenings in aid of Foundation (perhaps not surprising as Noel Tatt has a hand in both?)
Briefly, the idea is that a pair of Clubs hold a joint social event for members, families and guests. Everybody present participates in the Quiz - not such a bad idea in itself. But only the scores of certain people will count towards the result, and only a minority of those people need to be members of the Clubs.
Winning the Cup will depend on who you know rather than what you know.
****************************
Answers to last month’s flower quiz
1. Rose
2. Wallflower
3. Dandelion
4. Sweet William
5. Viola
6. Daisy
7. Love in a Mist
8. Canterbury Bell
9. Honesty
10. Morning Glory
11. Cowslip
12. Forget-me-not
13. Marigold
14. Carnation
15. Pink
16. Freesia
17. Stock
18. Busy Lizzy
19. Bluebell
20. Poppy
21. Foxglove
22. Tulip
23. Primrose
24. Red Hot Poker
25. Hollyhock
26. Lupin
27. Cyclamen
28. Buttercup
29. Sweet Pea
30. Lamb’s Tail
Ecclesiastes
Some more parish notices have come to our notice.
"In the Rector's absence, we enjoyed the privilege of a good sermon by Mr Stubbs."
"Eight new choir robes are needed, due to the addition of new members and the deterioration of the older ones."
"To augment the choir for next Sunday's special celebration, a warm invitation is extended to all members of the congregation who enjoy a good sin."
"The Men's Circle and the Mother's Union are having a joint supper, for which the charge will be a nominal feel."
"Sunday's sermons:
Morning: Jesus walks on water.
Evening: Search for Jesus."
"Weight watchers Meeting: Please use double doors."
DISTRICT COUNCIL
Your voting delegates (Harvey and Ron Adams) duly attended this month's Council - held for the first time at Hadlow and including for the first time a meal before the business.
Two matters required a vote and were duly passed - one, formal approval of the fund-raising Fun Day at Detling Showground next June (formal approval being needed to activate the RIBI insurance); and the other, belated approval of the separation of District Foundation and International Committees (see District Directory).
This month's good cause presentation described a project in South Africa for the care of children with AIDS. The prime movers are a husband and wife from Ashford Club, who are available to speak to Clubs.
We were reminded that more marmalade is available and that Ambassadorial Scholars make good Club speakers.
Ron