Everyone present was struck by his enthusiasm for All Saints and this was reflected by the number of questions posed after his talk.

Yveline Milner asked if Hove has a parish church now and Father Phil replied by saying that he wasn’t sure.

John Ansell remarked on the fact that the parish priest at All Saints used to be the joint priest in Preston Village and used to have to walk between the two parishes to hold services and suchlike.

Paul Thrasher remarked on the magnificence of the building but was not sure how the vast space of the church could be used and suggested that we should all meet there on one occasion to discuss ideas.

The vote of thanks was given by Derek Clouting.

13^th January 2009.

29 present – all our own members.

It had been decided that the ‘raid’ would take place at Steyning and Henfield Club on 22^nd January. There was a possibility of 15 or more making the journey to The Castle Hotel, Bramber for this purpose.

It was announced that just over £2,000.00 had been collected at the various sites before Christmas.

President Ken said that he had sent a letter to John Eaton, thanking him for all his hard work in organising the Club’s 75^th Anniversary night.

President Ken also informed members that Peter Fowle would be overall charge of the speakers’ programme.

It was also said that over 100 Rotarians and friends from Pforzheim and Evreux would be attending the contact visit to Oxford at the end of June.

He also said that the Mock Interviews, held at Brighton and Hove High School for Girls, had been a great success.

Ian Collington mentioned the motorcycle rally sub-committee would be meeting this week and said that a press release has been sent to various websites and magazines and there are now ten websites that mention the run. This has led to lots of good publicity for the event.

Ian was also our speaker today and this consisted of a short introduction to the work of "Tools for Self Reliance" one of Rotary’s most worthy, and unsung, projects.

Ian’s interest was aroused after listening to a talk, on Radio 4, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whereon he was praising this worthy organisation.

Tools are collected from all over the UK and sent to various depots, the depot for this area is in Hampshire, and they are then recondition and then sent off to various countries in Africa for the people there to use them for all sorts of purposes, including erection of buildings, together with general maintenance.

If you want to learn more of this project, you should visit www.tsfr.org

There are various ways one can support them. £40 is the cost of a box of tools ready to go, or you can collect tools from our own friends and families. Some of us may even have skills where we can train the refurbishers of tools.

Fundraising for "Tools for Self Reliance is another thing we can do.

Tad Phillips/Filipowicz mentioned that we were quite heavily involved with this scheme in the early nineties, when former member Colly Coulson used to organise the collection and storage of tools. There was even a trip down to the collection point in Hampshire, fondly remembered by some of us.

President Ken performed the vote of thanks.

20^th January 2009.

25 present – all our own members.

Ray Tiltman told us that he had spoken to Clive Chapple, who is in hospital, suffering from shingles, after collapsing at home. Ray said that Clive "was on the mend" but would not be at Club for some time.

Those members intending to take part in Ralph Harrison’s first walk were asked to be at his house at 9.45am tomorrow (21/1).

President Ken welcomed John Eaton, who has returned after a period of poor health.

It was announced that 16 people intended to attend the ‘raid’ on Steyning and Henfield Club this coming Thursday.

Foundation Chairman Bob Hinton said that had sold the remaining Rotary Calendars but was now asking members to purchase a fresh batch of marmalade in aid of our own "Spread and Save" initiative. He also remarked that Yveline will also be making more marmalade in the near future.

International Chairman Peter Fowle informed members of all the latest arrangements for the Contact Visit in Oxford on the weekend of June 19^th-21^st. It seems to be a very attractive weekend in prospect.

Peter also spoke on the changes to the speakers’ programme now he has taken over from Ian Collington. Speakers will, in the future, be supplied by our own members and, failing that, they will have to speak themselves.

Gordon Cummings volunteered to speak next week, after President Ken appealed to members.

It was said that all Tuesday are vacant, excepting for 17^th March, when the two table tennis competitors from the Paralympics in Beijing will give their talk.

Mike Peters was next up, with an up-to-date progress report on the Motorcycle Rally on the last Sunday in April.

He said that the school has been booked and that a total of 60 entries had been received, which was about par for the course this time of year. He also said that the two routes (long and short) had been fixed.

He told members that they should note the 26^th April in their diaries because plenty of marshals and other helpers would be needed. He also asked if members could help with sponsorship because we have not major sponsor this year with the loss of Legal and General.

He said that Ted Bartup will be producing a circular for members to take round to other businesses.

Paul Beaken added that when asking for sponsorship they should mention that sponsors’ names would be on all correspondence sent out about the rally including those to houses in the neighbourhood of the rally, which will give the sponsors more visibility in Hove.

Peter said that there had been a few minor snags with the hotel booking procedure but this is being sorted.

Booking instructions will be sent by email and in the pages of this bulletin in the next few weeks.

27^th January 2009

30 present – 29 of our own members and one Rotarian visitor; Stephen Sprenger from Seattle 4, Washington. He told us that Seattle 4 has over 800 members. I bet lunch is cold by the time it’s served!!

I don’t usually remark on who said Grace before the meal but I thought it was worth a special mention because Gordon Cummings said "The Selkirk Grace" by Rabbie Burns, to celebrate Burns’ 200^th Anniversary of his birth the day before.

It was reported that Clive Chapple had a bad weekend, suffering from severe shingles related head pains.

Skittles captain Ralph Harrison handed over £30 to Treasurer Mike. This was as a result of winning a charity game against Arundel when they met last week. Unfortunately, the Hove team, last year’s Champions, were knocked out of the competition beforehand.

Ted Bartup’s darts team suffered a similar fate, being knocked out of the District Competition but managing to win the subsequent charity game. There picking were a bit more meagre, the charity account benefiting by some £8.

Peter Fowle announced that he has managed to fill the speakers’ slots until the end of March but would like members to find speakers from outside the Club for the month of April.

He also said that the booking details for the contact visit to Oxford should be available within the next week.

Foundation chairman Bob Hinton told the club that the four missing aqua boxes had been found and these will be going to Hove Methodist Church for filling. Hove Methodists have also requested four more boxes.

This week saw the monthly "40 Set" draw and the cheque for £25 went to Michael Barley.

Ken Guest, Past President and Past Member of this Club was due to be speaker today but, unfortunately, he has had to attend a funeral, causing Gordon Cummings to volunteer for the task.

Gordon’s talk, like Clive Chapple’s a couple of months ago, was about his time serving the country during his National Service.

At the time he was called up, Gordon was employed by the Kirkcudbrightshire Council as a chartered engineer.

Gordon lived some 100 yards from the home of Rabbie Burns, where he wrote the aforementioned Selkirk Grace.

On call up, Gordon was sent to Worcester for just 10 days then on to Cove in Hampshire where he found himself being shouted at by Sergeant Esselmont(sic) a very loud, short and wide severe disciplinarian. This involved marching and firing range work under his supervision.

Gordon remembers one day at inspection when he got it all wrong with his hat, tie, tunic, trousers and feet, when the Sergeant said "You’re a tramp!" and walked off.

After ten weeks at Cove, Gordon was sent to Barton Stacey for War Office selection board, and at the end of this he was recommended for officer cadet training.

He then spent a fortnight at pre NCO school performing various manoeuvres. There were 12 "supposed saboteurs", formed into four groups of three.

On one occasion the four groups were taken out in a lorry, put down at a map reference point, and told to get to another map reference at 7 o’clock that same evening. Just after being set down they saw a bus coming down the road, so they caught this and spent the day in Farnham. He said they were quite a sight, shopping in Woolworth’s in their full kit, complete with rifles.

Eventually, they got on another bus, which dropped them off at their rendezvous point at 7pm.

On arriving, they received a severe rollicking. Not for catching the bus, because this showed initiative, but for dropping a bus ticket, which would have kyboshed the whole saboteur thing.

The next stop for Gordon and his fellow squad members was Mons, in Aldershot, where they were mixed up with men from other regiments.

One of his first experiences was to be on a parade ground with a very tall guard’s sergeant who was in charge of the parade. Standing to attention, he saw a cyclist freewheeling round the perimeter path. The Sergeant bawled out "Who’s that idling riding on that bike". The sergeant turned out to be the most famous soldier of his time, RSM

Ronald Brittain.

Gordon was put on report once by RSM Brittain because the brasses on his belt at the back of his uniform were not as shiny as the brasses at the front.

Gordon had to appear in front of the adjutant, a captain in the Welsh Guards, holding the belt to hear the captain say "Sergeant Major, this man’s trousers are falling down" This meant that Gordon was put back in the book again and finished up appearing before the adjutant on three more occasions.

Gillingham was Gordon’s next stop, learning how to sweep for mines, lay mines and build bridges. He said that these were Bailey bridges, much like the Meccano we played with as kids. He had to calculate the length and width of bridge, according to what was going to cross it.

Gordon came a very meritorious second on the course after twelve hard working weeks, and was then posted as a junior under Officer to Korea.

He never did get to Korea because on the way there, he was taken off at Singapore and posted up country as a garrison engineer, a post he was completely ignorant of.

Catching a train to Kuala Lumpur, complete with his revolver, much needed because, at the time guerrillas were blowing up railway lines, the thought of which caused Gordon a sleepless night on his journey.

Serambang was his destination, serving with the 17^th Ghurkha Division

He had the responsibility of looking after the various camps in the jungle, covering quite a large area, some 40 by 90 miles in total.

He found the Ghurkhas a very bunch of blokes, very hard working and cooperative, and was pleased to report that in his time there he was never shot at.

One of his sidelines at the time was bomb disposal, mainly our own bombs used in bombing guerrilla camps. UXB’s were reported by local authorities and Gordon’s job was to take a troop of Ghurkas to blow up the unexploded bombs. Blowing them up was necessary, to stop the enemy getting hold of them to use for their own purposes.

Finally Gordon’s time came to an end, and after taking some leave in Singapore, he took the boat to Hong Kong and then went off to Japan for some "R and R".

He then toured round Japan before catching the boat back to Malaysia, a very choppy trip as he remembers.

A boat trip back to Southampton followed, where he was demobbed.

In conclusion, Gordon sent he enjoyed his National Service very much and wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

President Ken performed the vote of thanks.

At the conclusion, Mike Peters related a story he had heard about RSM Brittain.

Apparently the RSM found someone walking across the parade ground after dark and he was firmly informed that "only two people are allowed on this parade ground after dark, and they are me and God and only God is allowed on here because I can’t see him!!"

ROTARY CLUB OF HOVE

Jan.

Mon 5^th. Club Council 6pm West Blatchington Windmill*** (Please note earlier time!)

Feb.

Mon 2^nd. Club Council 6pm West Blatchington Windmill***

April

Mon 20^th to Wed 22^nd. Inner Wheel National Conference Belfast***

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

June.

Fri/Sun 19^th-21^st. Contact Visit with Pforzheim and Evreux Clubs to Oxford. Provisional programme available from Peter Fowle***

September.

Fri/Sun 18^th-20^th. District 1250 Conference in Jersey. Details will be forthcoming.

New Dates***

CLUB DUTIES FOR DECEMBER. Cash – Ian Varley Care of Visitors – John Eaton

CLUB DUTIES FOR JANUARY. Cash - Tony Woodthorpe. Care of Visitors – Peter Fowle.

CLUB DUTIES FOR FEBRUARY. Cash – Howard Attree. Care of Visitors – Bernard Greaves.

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR DECEMBER

16^th This is the last meeting of the year, there being no meetings on the 23^rd or the 30^th December and a decision has been made to revive the Annual quiz which used to be so ably managed by the late John Couch.

Please note that George’s new email address is georgerobinson@ntlworld.com

MOTORCYCLE RALLY.

This major event, which brings much needed funds to our charity account and at the same time keeps the Rotary Club of Hove, and Rotary in general very visible to the general public is in some danger of floundering unless help is given, both to the committee, and at the event itself on 26^th April.

Adrian Ball has given sterling service to this event for some years now but, understandably, because of his recent debilitating illness, it may not be possible for him to continue in his important role as coordinator of the whole thing.

I don’t think many people realise how much goes into the organising of something like this, with countless man hours being spent both in committee and in the physical act of getting the forms out and collating them when they return.

If anybody is interested in lightening the load for our hard pressed committee would they approach either Mike Peters or Michael Nettell as soon as possible, to give them confirmation that the Club really does appreciate all that they do and that we hope this very successful venture continues.

Only one darts team left in the District Competition and that was only because they played one of our other teams.

The team led by Ted Bartup, defeated Bob Mulholland’s quartet to progress through to the next round.

Good news on the skittles front! The defending Champions with Captain Ralph Harrison in charge brought off a fairly close and very competitive win over the Brighton and Hove Breakfast Club at the Royal Oak Barcombe.

Just to rub it in, we also won the subsequent Charity game, making the Club’s charity account better off by £24.

Please make a note that the Club will not be meeting on Tuesday, 23^rd December and Tuesday, 30^th December as it was felt that both days were too near to the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

At the same time I would like to inform you that there will not be a January Bulletin and that is why this bulletin is a little bit late this month, mainly to include a report of the 75th Anniversary meeting on the 2^nd December.

Please note also that the Club duties reminder on this page covers December, January and February.

4^th November 2008.

31 present – 26 of our own members and 5 non-Rotarian guests; Vincent Petrarkis, guest of the President, Vivien Hill, guest of Frances du Toit together with Sue and Shirley, daughter and wife of our own John Ansell. Last, but not necessarily least, Peter James, our speaker for the day.

It was announced that the next District Council Meeting would be held on 20^th November at Forest School, Horsham.

Members were told that owing to the absence of organiser Peter Fowle, the "40" set draw would not be held this week.

John Eaton told us about the arrangements, thus far, for the 75^th Anniversary Dinner on 2^nd December.

Our Speaker today was Peter James, the novelist, who was here to tell us about his life generally and more particularly how he obtains material for his books, the current series being about a fictional Sussex Police Detective Superintendent named Roy Grace.

Before I go any further I must admit to being a great fan of his novels and I would recommend them to anybody because as well as great plots there are many places and people of interest from Hove that are featured throughout.

He related a story about a fellow author of his who was travelling on the Brighton to Victoria line and saw a woman reading one of his books. After about fifteen minutes the author remarked to the woman that it was one of the books he had written. On hearing this she guiltily closed the book and said to the author that she wasn’t enjoying it anyway!

Peter posed the question "Why Brighton and Hove?" with regard to his books and he answered this by saying that he felt it was the "soubriquet" crime capital of England and that from a criminal point of view Brighton is ideal with ports either side of it and loads of escape routes. He also said it was known as the "injecting drug capital of England" but apart from all this it is also a very nice place to live. Three Chief Constables have said that Brighton was the favourite place in all the British Isles for criminals to live.

Peter said that Keith Waterhouse hit the nail right on the head when he said that "Brighton has the air of a town that is helping the police with their enquiries."

He told us of the early beginnings of his career when he was asked to write a show on a pre school TV programme where he had been working as a gopher (go for this, go for that etc.)

He went on from this to write, distribute and produce low budget horror movies, with typical plots including a hamburger joint that sold burgers that consisted of body parts of the proprietor’s murder victims.

One film, "Spanish Fly" starring Leslie Phillips and Terry Thomas caused Barry Norman, the major film critic, to call it the least funny film ever made and the worst film since the war.

Peter said quick to point out that he also made other films that met with more success and these included "The Merchant of Venice" which starred Al Pacino.

He also told us that when he was very young he wrote to Enid Blyton and asked why she didn’t mention her characters’ visit to the toilet in her stories and she replied by saying that she didn’t think her readers would be interested in this sort of information.

The inspiration for writing thrillers was started by reading Sherlock Holmes stories and marvelling at one particular deduction centring on one of the villain’s shaving habits.

Peter said that his first ever published piece was a true story to Private Eye magazine about a chap who invented a machine for de-wrinkling prunes and who was later killed by the self same piece of apparatus.

The Det. Supt Roy Grace Novels character is based on a real life Detective Superintendent David Gaylord who was a "Cold Case" detective, who was often the last chance of closure for the families of victims’ friends and relatives.

Space prevents me from reporting this talk in full but needless to say it was most brilliantly done, and some of the things he told us were most fascinating and gave all of us a great insight into police work.

I’ll just quote a few examples:

He told us that a good policeman always looks at every face whenever he goes into a restaurant because he wouldn’t want to be seen to be frequenting the same place as their customers.

There was also the tale of a detective, who was on the way to an anniversary dinner with his wife when he saw some who he had been trying to trace for two years who when jumped out of the car and arrested him, leaving his poor wife to continue to the restaurant on her own.

Peter also told us of a time when he accompanied the police on a 999 call out for a domestic which was taking place in a particularly seedy part of Moulscoombe. He said the flat was like a tip but there was a brand new 50 inch plasma TV on the wall. He said the best description he could say about the flat was to say that it was the sort of place where you had to wipe your feet on the way out.

He told us of his trips with the special search unit, who have to die for bodies in the harbour and clean up road accidents. The head of this unit told Peter that they once had to search eighteen tons of rubbish in the council tip to find a murder victim and the resultant methane gas fumes gave the team headaches for many days.

Peter certainly gave the impression that he is the Sussex Police force’s number one fan, which was understandable because of the cooperation he get from them to enable him to write and sell his excellent books.

I’m sorry for anybody who missed the talk because I’m unable to give it full justice but it was one of the most amusing, informative and fascinating talks we have had in recent time.

Despite it being one of the longer talks we have had recently there was plenty of interest shown in it and this was reflected in the number of people wanting to question Peter.

Chris Heath asked him about his relationship with the police and whether he rings them up or do they ask him along. Peter said he had a great relationship with the police but he did say that sometimes he was asked not to write certain things he had seen, particularly things to do with drug surveillance operations.

Bob Mulholland asked him about Criminal Record Checks.

Michael Barley commented on opening lines in films.

Michael Peters made comments about the difference between burglary and robbery, which in the old days meant that robberies took place in the day and burglaries were of the night. The distinction is a lot more "blurry" nowadays.

There were also further questions and comments from Gordon Cummings, Tad Phillips and Paul Beaken.

The vote of thanks was given by Frances du Toit.

11^th November 2008.

32 present – 29 of our own members and three Rotarian visitors: Laurie Hillditch from Brighton, Stephen Neiman from Brighton and Hove Soiree and District 1250 Governor Pat Evans from Godalming, our speaker for today.

Tad Phillips/Filipowicz was proud to wear the medal of honour, given him by a grateful Polish nation last year for his services to that country, particularly during the years of the Russian Occupation. His reason for wearing it today was that 11^th November 2008 is the 90^th Anniversary of Polish independence.

President Ken told us of a letter received from the Asthma Association thanking the Club for our recent donation.

He was also pleased to read us a letter from Brenda Couch that read as follows: "Dear President Ken and Members, Thank you for your contributions in John’s memory. I’m delighted to tell you that £1,145 was raised for Berwick Ward at Eastbourne General Hospital. My family and I, also John, appreciate your kindness and generosity. Best wishes to all – Brenda Couch"

Laurie Hillditch told us of his own Club’s concert at All Saints’ Church on 13^th December and that any interested parties should get in touch with him.

Patrick Douch announced that there were to be a series of mock interviews at the Brighton and Hove High School and details of these would be forthcoming.

President Ken told us that he had attended the Hove Remembrance Service on Sunday and Ray Tiltman had also attended the Portslade version together with Bob Green and Patrick Douch.

Ted Bartup reported on a visit to Honorary Member Jack Wingfield and remarked that he was in good health for a 94 year old and that Jack sent his best wishes to us all. Ted also said that Adrian Ball is progressing well after his recent treatment and would probably attend club next week.

District Governor Pat Evans was our honoured guest today, to give us the annual thoughts of the current Governor.

She started off by thanking us for our hospitality and was aware of parking meters and would get through her few words before penalty charges were due.

She brought greetings from the President of her own Club, the President of RIBI and the President of RI.

She said it was a great honour for her to be our District Governor and it wasn’t until she went to San Diego and met the 1531 other DG’s what a large organisation this was and she was also struck by the sheer amount of different cultures within us.

She said she was often asked what it was like to be the first female Governor of this District and she her answer to this was that it was completely irrelevant in this dag and age whether one was male or female particularly as there are so many professional ladies working in the current market place.

She went on to remark that she was not at all happy with the current Rotary motif, which has to be reproduced on all stationary because, with it’s solid mass of blue, it uses far too much expensive cartridge ink when reproduced by one’s computer. She felt that the Rotary Wheel on its own is sufficient.

She then went on to quote an extract from a book called "Viva the Difference" written by a female Rotarian from Swindon which was about a married couple in their early sixties who were celebrating their 35^th Wedding anniversary.

When the meal was complete, a beautifully tiny fairy, as they tend do, appeared, and said that as they had been such an exemplary couple throughout their married life she would grant both of them one wish.

The wife said that she wished to travel round the world with her darling husband and immediately two tickets for this wonderful holiday appeared in her hands.

The husband said that he wish was to have a wife thirty years younger than himself whereon the fairy waved her wand and the the husband was transformed into a man of 92!!

Back to the serious stuff now with Pat telling us she realised the task she had ahead of her was when he received a 204 page book entitled "DG’S Manual."

She also told us that it was mandatory for her to visit every single club in her own District.

She told us that the purpose of these visits was to bring each Club’s attention to important Rotary matters and help weaker clubs to feel stronger. Motivation is one of the tasks and she welcomes contributions from Rotarians in the District as to how this can be achieved.

The rest of her talk was devoted to the usual message we receive from Rotarians, mainly to do with membership and also to support Rotary in all their designated projects, both at home and internationally.

She reminded us that this year’s RI motto is "Make Dreams Real".

Pat also spelt out how important it was that RI Clubs all over the World make sure they contribute enough to match the £100,000,000 that Bill Gates of Microsoft will contribute if the target is reached.

This programme is meant to be over a three year period and means that each club would have to contribute 1,000 for those three years, which would over and above the normal foundation giving.

On the membership problem, the one thing that is worrying her is that in the year so far she has received more notifications of the passing away of members than she has received about new members joining.

She then gave examples, of which some were mentioned at our own meeting a couple of weeks ago, what clubs are doing to try to revive their clubs and attract new members.

She said that fun and fellowship is a vital part of Rotary and should be continued wholeheartedly.

She mentioned the fun and fellowship that took part in Cardiff, at the same time remarking on our own very first class presentation on the Rotary Club of Hove Housing Society’s 50^th Anniversary at that same Conference.

She then went on to advertise the next couple of conferences, RIBI in Edinburgh in April.

Pat also thanked us for the invitation to this Club’s 75^th Anniversary Celebrations on 2^nd December and made special mention of John Ansell who has been a serving Rotarian for almost fifty years.

An above average District Governor talk by a very likeable lady.

The vote of thanks was given by President Ken.

18^th November 2008.

26 present – all our own members.

I started meeting off by asking members to let me have their Christmas messages to other members for next month’s bulletin as soon as possible.

John Eaton reported on the fact that numbers for the 75^th Anniversary meeting are very good and mounting by the minute.

It was announced that Yveline Milner has completed the baking of Christmas cakes and they were here at the hotel ready for collection. The price of the cakes will not be decided until Bob Hinton returns.

Christmas collection site lists are being circulated and volunteers are urgently needed for all collection sites.

There was no designated speaker today but Peter Fowle stood in and gave members comprehensive details of the contact visit to Oxford in June next year.

The details are as follows:

Arrive at hotel on the afternoon of 19^th June for booking in purposes and then at 5.15pm there would be a five to six hundred yard walk to the river for a boat trip. On board drinks will be served during the trip, which will last for some two to two and a half hours. At the conclusion of the trip everyone will walk back to the hotel to meet in the dining room for the evening meal.

Saturday (20^th) there is a tour of the City of Oxford in an open top bus which will commence at 9.15.

At the conclusion of this tour, at 11.30, the party will split into groups to tour various University colleges.

This will be followed by lunch with the rest of the afternoon being free for people to do their own thing. People will be able to use the discount tickets that will be given to everyone on arrival at their hotel.

The early evening will be devoted to getting oneself ready for the gala dinner which will commence at 7.30 for 8 in the hotel.

Sunday morning will see us saying our fond farewell to our visitors.

We were told that there will be 25 couples from Pforzheim, with 17 of these couples having already booked their flights. 10 couples have indicated that they are coming from Evreux, but whenever Peter goes to Evreux, many more indicate that they are interested in coming.

Peter said he would like to Saturday evening gala dinner to be one with formal dress but he is open to suggestions.

President Ken thanked Peter for all of his hard work and was sure that this was appreciated by everyone.

25^th November 2008.

25 present – 23 of our own members; one Rotarian visitor, Stephen Neiman from Brighton and Hove Soiree and Ann Baldridge, our speaker for today.

I’m afraid I was on holiday for this particular meeting and I have no further details except to say that Ann was here to tell us all about improving the local food scene.

She is giving us this talk as co-ordinator of the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership.

2^nd December 2008.

Over 100 people attended this momentous meeting including Cllr. Gary Pelzer-Dunn, Mayor of Brighton and Hove, District 1250 Governor Pat Evans and Chip and David, their respective spouses, Pam Fowle, President of the Inner Wheel Club of Hove

This was an evening meeting to celebrate the 75^th Anniversary of the Club and 50 years of the Rotary Club of Hove Community Housing Society.

Among the guests, and please excuse me if you think I missed anyone out, were Jean-Jacques Gallerand, President of Evreux RC and his wife Nicole, Harry Kershaw, President of Hove Probus, Bashir Ahmed President of Brighton and Hove Soiree, Waddah Kabbani, President of Brighton East Rotary Club, Past President John Lockyer and Norma, Michael and Daphne Hedges, Peter and Judith Harries-Rees, the latter three couples all past members of our Club.

The whole evening was perfect, with a great sense of occasion and a lovely feeling of good fellowship.

Brighton and Hove Soiree Club celebrated the occasion in great style when President Waddah Kabbani presented a cheque for £6,000 to President Ken to be deposited into the Housing Society Account.

This was followed by a wonderful gesture from President Jean-Jacques from Evreux who handed over 500 Euros to President Ken to be used for one of our charitable projects.

As I said earlier, it was a very enjoyable evening and it ended with a very pleasant performance from "The Quintessentials", consisting of four ladies and a pianist, who sang us songs from various shows as well as some lovely standards.

9^th December 2008.

26 present – 22 of our own members and 4 non-Rotarian guests; Samuel Mould; guest of Peter Fowle, David Arscott with his wife Jill Parkin and Scylla Collington.

President Ken said that he had received many thank you letters with regard to the 75^th Anniversary Dinner.

There was catching up to do with regard to the "40 Set" draw with two prizes, both £25, today. The first one was won by Pam Fowle and the other by Tad Phillips/Filipowicz.

Bob Hinton informed members that the Rotary Foundation Calendars were in and available at a cost of £3.50 each.

He said that he would also be pleased to accept money for the Christmas cakes that Yveline Milner had so kindly baked.

Community Service Chairman Patrick Douch reminded members that the Christmas Collection starts this coming Saturday and many volunteers were needed for Tesco at Church Road. A list was being circulated for this purpose.

John Eaton told members that there was plenty of birthday cake, left over from last weeks 75^th Anniversary celebrations and anyone could "help yourselves".

Today’s speaker was David Arscott, broadcaster and author of many books about Sussex and he was here to talk about his latest, entitled "A Tour Along The Sussex Coast" a quite fascinating little, with the emphasis on little, book packed with information about the route from Camber the first town, in furthest East Sussex, to Chichester, the last town in West Sussex before you cross over into Hampshire.

It was a really fascinating talk, with David telling us of many facts I had never heard of, about the various towns between those two points.

I can’t really give it justice, because of lack of space in this bulletin, but do will suggest that you purchase the book, from Snake River Press, because it will give you a very good idea of the many variations in geology, architecture and ways of life throughout the almost 100 miles of Sussex coastline.

The vote of thanks was given by George Robinson.

16^th December 2008.

29 Present – 28 of our own members and one non-Rotarian guest, Mikala Wilkins, a guest of IPP David Henderson.

Secretary David reminded all present that there will be no club meetings on the 23^rd and 30 of this month. and that the next meeting of Club Council will be on Monday, 5^th January at 6pm at West Blatchington Windmill.

Today was the occasion of the "40 Set" draw and as this was the last one of this calendar year there were two prizes, one of £50, won by June Douch and one for £25 that went to President Ken.

Today was also the date set aside for the Annual SGM, when last year’s accounts were presented and explained by Treasurer Mike and also when the nominations for officers for Rotary year 2009/2010 are given out.

Firstly, Mike presented the accounts in his own inimitable way and after a few minor queries was accepted by all present.

Next on to next year’s officers and it they were given as follows.

President – Bryan Meakin. Senior Vice-President - Ian Collington. Junior Vice-President – no nominations

Secretary – no nominations. Assistant Secretary – no nominations. Treasurer – Bob Hinton.

Assistant Treasurer – Mike Peters. Tony Woodthorpe has agreed to continue as Club Auditor for 2009/2010.

President Ken remarked on the fact that there is no willing to take up the post of Club Secretary and said we need to fill this post as soon as possible.

Following on from the SGM Ian Collington said a few words about the annual Motorcycle Rally and started off by saying that he was most disappointed and angry, that the Christmas Collection had not got off the ground yet.

He also told members that the results of his comprehensive survey will be included in the bulletin this month.

He said that there were members of this club who do absolutely nothing throughout the year and if we carry on as we are the Club will atrophy (that’s waste away!!).

He asked everyone to make a contribution, however small, in our activities and then went on to say that the main problems with the M/C rally was marshalling. Ian asked us to make it our mission to find someone to cover this not unpleasant task and include your family or friends in this wonderful day out. He pointed out that if we recruit more marshals it frees up our members to perform their duties at the school on the day. He remarked that it was much easier to organise on the day because of the set up at the school.

Ian also suggested that we could involved local charities on the day and mentioned Fareshare, who maybe could supply personnel from among their clients. We have lost our main sponsors, Legal and General, which leaves a shortfall of £2,000 and he suggested that we each seek out "mini-sponsors" to help make up this substantial sum.

To put out minds at rest, he announced that the rally is definitely going ahead and entry forms are already printed for distribution and the event website will be up and running shortly.

Ian said that Mike Peters needs more support because he does loads of unsung work on this projects’ behalf.

Gordon Cummings, secretary of the M/C committee, appealed for members to join the committee and he would also like to distribute minutes of their meetings to more people.

It was stated that Peter Fowle and George Robinson have agreed to serve on the committee.

The meeting ended with President Ken wishing everyone a Happy Christmas on this last meeting of the year.

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR JANUARY

6^th The speaker today will be Father Phil Ritchie, who is the "new man" at All Saints. Hove and the vote of thanks will be Derek Clouting.

13^th. Ian Collington will be showing us a film which will bring us up to date with the "Tools For Self Reliance" project.

20^th The speaker today will come from one of our own members, unannounced as yet.

27^th Ken Guest, a Past Member and President of this Club will be the speaker today and the title of his talk is "100 Years of Electricity" and the vote of thanks will be given by Mike Peters.

ROTARY CLUB OF HOVE

I had the honour of representing our club in Evreux on the occasion of their 70^th Birthday held at Manor de la Chapelle de Reanville. More than 160 attended and enjoyed a great evening, during which I presented Jean Jacques Gallerand, President of the Evreux Club with 700 Euros!

Also in attendance from Hove were Peter and Pam Fowle, George Robinson and David Henderson.

Talking of celebrations, don’t forget that we will be celebrating 75 years of Hove Rotary Club on 2^nd December. Details will be available shortly and many special guests will be attending so it will be advisable to reserve your places as early as possible and let us make it a great evening.

On a more sombre note, a debate on the future of Hove Rotary Club was held at lunch last Tuesday (28/10). The debate was based on replies to a questionnaire that had been compiled by Ian Collington. Ian also led the debate which resulted in an interesting and lively contribution from all present. So much so that a sub committee will be set up, chaired by Ian, to explore the current needs of the club members and the way forward.

On the 18^th November, the election of Club officers for the year 08/09 will take place.

Some positions have been pencilled in, but due to the time limits we are having to seek nominations for Secretary, Treasurer and Programme Secretary, so if you are keen to take an active part in the Club administration have a chat with David Knowles.

Finally, a big thank you to Yveline Milner, who has raised over £600 for the club by making and selling jam, chutney and marmalade to Club members.

Yours in Rotary

Ken.

2008.

November.

Mon. 3^rd. – Club Council 6.30pm West Blatchington Windmill

December.

Mon 1^st. Club Council 6.30pm West Blatchington Windmill.

Tues. 2^nd. 75^th Rotary Club of Hove’s 75^th Anniversary Celebrations – Details as soon as possible

April

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

June.

Fri/Sun 19^th-21^st. Contact Visit with Pforzheim and Evreux Clubs to Oxford. Provisional programme available from Peter Fowle

September.

Fri/Sun 18^th-20^th. District 1250 Conference in Jersey. Senior Vice Bryan is very interested in attending this event and would welcome support from members.***

New Dates***

CLUB DUTIES FOR NOVEMBER.

Cash – Ray Tiltman Care of Visitors – Patrick Douch.

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR NOVEMBER

4^th. A very exciting first Tuesday with Brighton and Hove author Peter James giving a talk entitled "Brighton and oHovedHove’s Fictional Detective, Chief Inspector Grace" the vote of thanks will be given by Frances du Toit

11^th. Today sees the visit of District Governor Pat Evans and she will be giving us the "party message" and an account of her time in office thus far. The vote of thanks will be made by President Ken.

18^th. One of our own members, to be named, will be the speaker and the vote of thanks will be given by President Ken.

25^th. There are no details to hand at the moment about the speaker this particular day.

Once again I am devoting a couple of pages of the December Club Bulletin for members to send Christmas and New Year greetings to all and sundry.

If you wish to be included could you please send me a note, by Tuesday 18th November, of what you would like me to print together with cash or a cheque for £10 which will go straight into the Club’s Charity Account.

Please note that Mike’s new email address is trish.mike@talktalk.net

Please delete his old email address from your address books as he will not be using it anymore.

7^th October 2008.

23 present – 22 of our own members and one non-Rotarian guest; Anthony Henderson, son of IPP David.

Howard Attree, who as District Treasurer is privy to District information, corrected President Ken’s figure in his monthly letter of 600 attendees at the District Conference in Cardiff by telling him that the official roll call was 699.

Ted Bartup reported that Adrian Ball seemed to be progressing quite well and has just completed his first course of chemotherapy.

President Ken informed members that Ian Collington, after many successful and productive years, has asked to be released from his post as Speaker Secretary. President Ken said that volunteers for the job would be welcomed.

A card was passed round for members to sign to congratulate RC Evreux on their upcoming 70^th birthday.

Today’s speaker was Clive Chapple and the title of his talk was "My National Service"

Clive started off by saying that it was 42 years since he gave his "My Job" soon after joining Hove Rotary.

Clive told us that there was a two year gap in his life between leaving school and starting his National Service and he filled in this time by taking a building course at Brighton Tech.

After passing his medical he was put in with The Royal Engineers and with the aid of a travel warrant took the train from Shoreham station, finishing up in the Gibraltar barracks in Aldershot garrison. He remember that he also received a postal order for four shillings (20p), his first week’s pay.

Next day, on the barrack square, the Sergeant Major informed them that there two postings up for grabs, one in Cyprus and other in Elgin, in the far north of Scotland.

Seven days later he was posted to Barton Stacey in Hampshire for tests, in which he thought he had performed quite well and was confident when appearing in front of the board, telling them that his father had been an RSM during the First World War. This, apparently, went down like a lead balloon and the following day he was given a posting in Elgin barracks to take part in an NCO cadre.

120 of his fellow soldiers passed out from the course as acting unpaid something or other.

At the time, Clive said he was ignorant of what was going on in the world, particularly in regard to the Korean war because he had no access to newspapers, radio or tv. Subsequently 115 our of the 120 fellows he passed out with were posted to Korea but Clive was spared from what could have been a very dangerous tour of duty.

Clive said he was posted to the Field Regiment at Maidstone to build a Bailey bridge across the Thames. Following on from this he took part in manoeuvres in Thetford, Norfolk and then a bigger course of manoeuvres iin the Thames Valley under the name of "Surprise Packet" which took the form of pretending that an atom bomb had been dropped and involved building another Bailey bridge across the River Thames near Reading.

Following on from this he had an overseas posting, in Tripoli with his first instructions being to shake your boots out before putting them on because there could be a scorpion inside it.

Clive was in this part of the world when he learnt of the death of King George VI.

Clive then went on to relate the various activities he took part in, both sporting and otherwise, during his time in Cyprus After three months or so in Cyprus he found himself travelling between Port Said Cairo and then on to a part of the Suez Canal which was quite a way from Cairo. It was here that he played lots of cricket for the Royal Engineers. These matches were played on very placid pitches and it was quite common for both sides to score over 400 runs in their innings.

One of the more interesting things he mentioned was that he used to wave to the troop ships which passed through the Suez Canal on the way to Singapore and thought he may have even waved to Gordon Cummings at that time.

A really interesting talk and I wish I could have given it more justice but space forbids it.

The (sort of!) vote of thanks was given by President Ken.

Following on from this President elect Bryan Meakin informed members that he would be attending the District 1250 conference in Jersey next September and asked members to join him and Mary for what should be a very pleasant four days or so.

Bob Hinton rose to mention that Rotary Foundation Christmas Card order forms were being passed round and also said that Yveline Milner is quite willing to make Jam suitable for those with diabetes. There was some interest shown in this and she will go ahead and produce some in the near future.

14^th October 2008.

27 present – 26 of our own members and one non-Rotarian guest; David Bathurst, our speaker for today. IP

IPPP David Henderson was in the chair today, owing to the absence of President Ken and Senior Vice Bryan.

IPP David welcomed Adrian Ball back to the Club after a lengthy course of chemotherapy.

Bob Hinton reminded members that this was the last week possible to order Foundation Christmas cards.

David Bathurst, our speaker for today, is an epic walker and a prolific writer and he was here to talk about his latest book, "Walking the Riversides of Sussex".

David’s current job is in the role of Clerk to the Court at Worthing Magistrates’ Court, and he told us that he started work at Chichester Court in 1988.

He had his first book published in 1990 and the subject material was about the railway linking Chichester and Selsey, which was called the Selsey Tram. Since then he has many books published, including books about children’s literature.

He also wrote a book on Gilbert and Sullivan, which seemed appropriate seeing that Bob Hinton, another great fan of those light opera collaborators, was performing the vote of thanks today.

He has been writing books about Sussex walks since 2001, the year his daughter was born and his first book on this subject involved walking the Sussex coastline from end to end.

He now has a prolific catalogue of walking books and after reading his latest I can recommend them most thoroughly.

The best way to take advantage of David’s talk is to actually purchase one from all good book shops (and some bad ones most probably!) or failing that take one out on loan from the library.

A really interesting and informative talk from a true enthusiast on a hobby which has almost taken over his life.

The vote of thanks, as mentioned before, was given by Bob Hinton.

21^st October 2008.

27 present – all our own members.

Secretary David informed members that he had information pack for next year’s District Conference and if anyone wanted to look at it they should see Sergeant at Arms Bob (that’s me!!).

President Ken reported on his visit, this last weekend, to Evreux, to take part in their 70^th birthday celebrations.

He attended along with George Robinson, Peter and Pam Fowle and IPP David Henderson. Whilst there, President Ken presented a cheque for 700 Euros to go towards Evreux’s project in Africa.

Mike Peters reported that Adrian Ball is very tired after a long weekend away and will be receiving his final course of chemotherapy tomorrow.

Ian Collington rose to talk about next week’s debate about our Club’s future telling us that he has circulated a questionnaire and returned were needed in order for us to discuss the result of his survey.

Bob Hinton informed members that Yveline Milner has completed her production of the jam she has made which is suitable for sufferers of diabetes

He also brought members’ attention to the publicity leaflet on the tables for a performance of "Cinderella", by the Wandering Minstrels. He emphasised that this was not a pantomime but the Rodgers and Hammerstein version which had been specially produced many years ago for Julie Andrews.

Our speaker was one of our own, Frances du Toit, and she had the novel idea of giving us a talk on some old newspapers she had unearthed from her loft and that had been left there by a former reporter at Radio Brighton who had obtained them from the Brighton reference library when they were discarded.

These fairly ancient newspapers covered the year 1874 and the first six months of 1921.

Frances bombarded us with a number of most fascinating facts and figures starting off with the fact that four people who would leave their mark on the history of these Isles were born in 1874, these being Winston Churchill, Ernest Shackleton, Gustav Holst and Somerset Maugham, four giants in their own fields.

One doesn’t realise how long the Irish problem has been going on until Frances read out an extract from 1874 that reported on the Irish Home Rule Conference which resulted in 40 members resolving that a united party was to be sent to the House of Commons for the purpose of seeking self government for Ireland. Frances then followed this up with a report from 1921 on the self same subject with a report of a police patrol in Co Tyrone being ambushed, with two policemen killed. In the same year a constable was shot dead in Roscommon and the Dublin Custom House was set on fire and in one day there were 8 reports of terrorist activities.

Frances quoted many, many fascinating facts from these newspapers and I suggest that if you want to see them she would be only too pleased for anyone to have a browse through them.

Another really entertaining talk from one of our own.

The vote of thanks was given by Peter Fowle.

28^th October 2008.

30 present – all of our own members.

Members were reminded about the Special General Meeting to be held on 9^th December, to elect officers for next year of which we have no nominations at present.

Today was devoted to a discussion, or debate, about the future of the Club and what we should do to make this club a more attractive proposition to prospective members.

Ian Collington presided over the debate and he started off by informing us of the amazing, but not surprising, fact that the average age of members of this club is 72. This compares to an average age of 39 at Milton Keynes Rotary Club.

Ian reading out various results from the questionnaires he had distributed the previous week that had been answered by 75% of members. Membership satisfaction was quite high with, out of a total of 26 replies it was reported that 15 were satisfied, 7 very satisfied and only 4 dissatisfied. A majority of members were happy with meeting weekly, although there’s not a lot we can do about that because of the RI Constitution. Most people were in favour of continuing with the fifth Tuesday meeting and this also applied to being happy to stay with the current dress code.

After reading out these various results of the survey there then followed quite a lengthy debate between members with contributions from many members.

I think we were all agreed that membership is our main priority and if something is not done about it within the next couple of years or so this Club could perish.

It seems that the main trouble is that with an average age of 72 there are less and less people able or willing to perform various tasks that need to be done to make the club function to it’s full potential.

It was decided at the end to form a sub committee to follow on from this meeting.

Ian also told members that he would be happy to accept the post of Senior Vice President for the year 2009/2010.

President Ken thanked Ian for all of his hard work in arranging this very necessary discussion.

ROTARY CLUB OF HOVE

2008.

October.

Mon 6^th. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm.

Sat 11^th. Rotary Club of Evreux 75^th Anniversary Celebrations. See Pres. Ken for details***

November.

Mon. 3^rd. – Club Council 6.30pm West Blatchington Windmill***

December.

Tues. 2^nd. 75^th Rotary Club of Hove’s 75^th Anniversary Celebrations – Details as soon as possible

April

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

June.

Fri/Sun 19^th-21^st. Contact Visit with Pforzheim and Evreux Clubs to Oxford. Provisional programme available from Peter Fowle***

September.

Fri/Sun 18^th-20^th. District 1250 Conference in Jersey. Details will be forthcoming***

New Dates***

CLUB DUTIES FOR OCTOBER. Cash – Paul Thrasher. Care of Visitors – Gordon Cummings.

CLUB DUTIES FOR NOVEMBER Cash - Ray Tiltman. Care of Visitors – Patrick Douch

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR OCTOBER

7^th A short account of what happened at the previous night’s Club Council will be made and this will be followed by a talk from one of our own, unknown at this time, members. The vote of thanks will be given by President Ken.

14^th. This week’s talk with one of the longest titles I can remember typing ; "Sussex Riverside Walks – Along Rivers You’ve Never Heard Of?" will be given by David Bathurst, author and epic walker, and the vote of thanks will be made by Bob Hinton.

21^st. The opportunity for you to listen to yet another one of our own members, as yet unnamed, give an account of his experiences of life with the vote of thanks being given by President Ken.

28^th. Today’s meeting is given over to a debate entitled "Changing Times – Getting the Most Out Of Our Club". The debate will be chaired by Ian Collington and summed up by President Ken.

Congratulations to our bowls pairs team consisting of President Ken Jones and Peter Fowle who are District Bowls Champions for the year 2007/2008 after a nail biting match with one of the Brighton Clubs that they finally won after breaking a 20-20 deadlock.

The Rotary year of 2007/2008 with regard to sport proved to be one of the most successful in this Club’s long history, because apart from the aforementioned Bowls title we also won the District Skittles Championship and finished very close runners-up in the Ten Pin Bowling Competition. Congratulations to all those concerned.

DISTRICT 1250 CONFERENCE, CARDIFF, 26^TH TO 28^TH SEPTEMBER, 2008.

Our Club was fairly well represented at this year’s District Conference.

President Ken led a party consisting of George Robinson, Ted Bartup, Paul Beaken, David Henderson, Howard and Helen Attree, Peter and Pam Fowle and Bob and Ann Mulholland.

Howard, wearing his District Treasurer’s hat, stayed at the Parc Hotel, the District Headquarter’s Hotel and the rest of the party stayed at the Mercure Lodge Hotel, located some three quarters of a mile from Cardiff City Hall, the conference venue.

Peter, Pam, Paul, Bob and Ann stayed the extra night, arriving in Cardiff on Thursday evening which enabled them to explore Cardiff on a brilliantly sunny Friday morning. They took advantage of the lovely weather and caught a river bus from Cardiff Castle out to Cardiff Bay, a trip of about half an hour and spent a very pleasant hour or so looking round the site of the Welsh Assembly and the very quaint looking Norwegian Church before catching the return boat to Cardiff Castle for a quick lunch before meeting up with Paul Beaken at the House of Friendship in the City Hall, where Paul had been supervising the Rotary Housing Society visual display. Hove Rotary was very well represented in the House of Friendship, our name being very prominent on the display, There was not only information about the Housing Society. There were also various posters and pictures depicting the various things that our Club were involved in, such as Stroke Awareness and the Christmas Collection. All this had been put together by Paul Beaken over the last year or so and I must say it looked very effective.

From the House of Friendship we all filed into the Assembly Room to catch the beginning of the first session of the Conference which started at three o’clock (approximately!). DG Pat Evans commenced by welcoming all Conference guests and delegates.

This part of the conference didn’t seem to be as mind numbing as in previous years because Pat seemed to handle it in more of a light hearted way.

The first speaker to address us was The RT. Hon., The Lord Mayor of the City and County of Cardiff; Councillor Kate Lloyd MBE.,JP.

A very good speaker who welcomed us all to Cardiff with her speech taking the usual line of expanding on the virtues and the history of her City.

Next on the stage was Tony Gordon-Smith, President of the Rotary Club of Godalming, the host club for this year’s Conference who congratulated DG Pat on reaching her current position, reminding us that she was the first Rotarian lady in our District to become Governor.

I’d forgot to mention earlier that DG Pat was accompanied on the stage by the theme tune from "Postman Pat". This tune had been picked because Pat’s monthly newsletter is entitled Pat’s Postings.

It was then the turn of Valerie Clapp Chairman of District 25 Inner Wheel to address us with her message which she did in a very musical fashion, singing a parody of a song, the name of which I can’t remember. This was fairly appropriate because Valerie, in her earlier life, was a professional performer at music festivals and pantomimes.

The next part of this session was entitled "Ordinary Rotarians doing Extraordinary Things" and this consisted of three ten minute or so presentations, the first of which was by the Rotary Club of Billinghurst and their presentation was called "Children of Sumatra" which involved curing children of some horrendous cases of facial distortion.

The second of these three presentations was by The Rotary Club of Guildford and their talk was entitled "Avoidable Blindness" and this was about their most admirable work in supplying eye surgeons to set up blind camps in India, leading to the curing of many hundreds of people who, prior to this, had no facilities for this sort of thing.

Last but not least was our own presentation entitled "Rotary Housing Association" that involved the presence of Ted Bartup on stage, introducing the film that Paul Beaken produced, showing the History and work of the Housing Society. Following the film both Paul and Ted went back on stage to say a few words.

DG Pat came back on stage to sing the praises of all three projects, saying what a great example they were of "Ordinary Rotarians Doing Extraordinary Things".

The final speaker of this afternoon session was Rtn Alan Priddle from Southsea Castle Club who was here to tell us about the Raymarine Lively Lady Project, a round the world voyage that helps young adults turn their lives around.

This project is the brainchild of Alan, who is known as an ocean adventurer. It helps young people who have not had the best start in life a chance to better themselves. The opportunity to sail a leg of the circumnavigation is the icing on the cake – the real benefit lies in the training they do to ready themselves for the trip. Through the work done over the months before departure they will gain valuable life skills, enabling them to set their lives back on track and achieve their potential or their personal goals.
Lively Lady, the craft they sail on, is the self same yacht that Sir Alec Rose completed his circumnavigation in 1968.

The vessel will make 27 stops on her voyage around the world and on each leg her creew will change and two more adults will come on board.

This was a truly inspirational talk and Alan was a great speaker. If you want to learn more of this project I suggest you visit their website on www.livelylady.net/challenge

The session finished and we all retired back to our hotels, ready for the night’s entertainment that had been laid on for us back at the City Hall.

Howard Attree, who had been in the city since Tuesday, recommended a Portuguese restaurant to us and after Presidential drinks in Bob’s room we caught two taxis to the Madeira Restaurant where a table for 11 had been set and enjoyed a thoroughly good dinner. A thoroughly good recommendation Howard!

Off to the City Hall for the entertainment that was entitled "Welcome to Wales" a concert including a mixed voice choir, harpist, singer and comedian.

The evening started with a very Welsh gentleman making a few anti-English remarks and then he introduced a singer, whose name escapes me, who sounded very much like Gene Pitney, if you can remember that far back who proceeded to single a few songs, most of which I had never heard before. The only thing Welsh about it was the fact that he lived and worked in Wales.

Not being all that impressed with the singer or the acoustics in the hall, most of us retired from the City Hall and made our way back to the hotel for a nightcap before going to bed, ready for the Saturday morning session.

I found out later that by leaving early we had missed the Welsh part of the evening, involving the Massed Voice Choir and the Harpist. Never mind!!

Saturday morning’s session began with DG Pat taking to the stage and giving her speech to the conference.

She had plenty to say about nearly all aspects of Rotary and her address was appreciated by all present.

Following on from this it was the turn of Bryan Dutton CB CBE; from the Leonard Cheshire Disability organisation to address us.

He started off by explaining that Leonard Cheshire Disability exists to change attitudes to disability and to serve disabled people around the world.

He explained that the organisation give assistant to some 21,000 disabled people in this country.

His group also campaigns for the civil and human rights of disabled people and he said that his groups has a huge breadth of experience, knowledge and constituency of disable people which gave them a unique platform from which to engage in public debate and to campaign on the social policy and civil rights issues that have an impact on disabled people.

A very good talk from the leader of a most worthwhile organisation.

Past President of RIBI John Hockin was the next speaker and he didn’t disappoint his audience, most of whom remembered when John was a very uncompromising President of RIBI. He is a very strong and forceful speaker and he didn’t waste any time telling us that that we all have to change our thinking with regard to how we think about Rotary and he emphasised that when introducing outsiders to the Club we should persevere and not invite them on only one occasion but keep inviting any prospective members even four or more times so that they can find out more and more about us before joining. He said that people do not like to make instant judgements and like to have a second, third or even fourth chance to see if Rotary would suit them. There was a lot more in this vein and at the end of the talk I think we all felt that we had been lectured to by the school bully.

I’m afraid that after this fairly long period of chastisement I decided not to stay for the second half of the session and left the hall before meeting up with the rest of the party at lunchtime for some "pub grub".

There was no session on the Saturday afternoon so we were all left free until it was time to get ready for the evening Gala Dinner back at the City Hall.

Prior to leaving for the evening’s festivities we had our own mini-festival in Bob’s room to sample some more of the Presidential drink and then once again we went into Cardiff in taxis.

I must say that this was most probably the best Gala Dinner I have attended at the not inconsiderable number of conferences I have been to. The meal was beautifully prepared and the whole evening had a very nice feel about it. I did feel a bit sorry for some of the Rotarians because owing to there not being enough room in the Assembly they had to eat in a small ante-room. Our party was split into two because our original number was 11 and the table plans were made when we were this number and we had to share two tables, one with Titsey and District and the other with the Storrington Club.

Sunday morning saw most of us up bright and early, ready to book out of our hotel and make our way to City Hall once again, this time in our own cars.

This morning started, as traditional, with the Sunday Service, which was led by PDG Tim Fogden who has been licensed as a Lay Reader since 2004. The most notable thing about the service was the singing of the last hymn set to the music of The Dam Busters theme.

There was a short break before the appearance of our next speaker, Alan Dedicoat, well known to most of us as the continuity reader on the Terry Wogan radio show most mornings and more importantly the chap who reads out the lottery numbers every Wednesday and Saturday together with the Euromillions Draw on Fridays.

This was a very amusing and interesting talk with Alan going through his years in broadcasting and devoting the last ten or fifteen minutes of his talk to extracts of "balls ups" on radio throughout the years.

I’m afraid that this was my last bit of participation at the conference because we had received a telephone call from home telling us of a minor crisis and Ann wanted to get away as soon as possible.

I hope this gave you a taste of conference and I hope you will support President elect Bryan if he decides to go to Jersey next September.

2^nd September 2008.

23 present – all our own members.

President Ken welcomed back Adrian Ball who is in the middle of a course of chemotherapy at the moment.

Foundation Chairman Bob Hinton told us that fourteen jars of plum jam are available for members to purchase for Spread and Save. A sum of £1.50 has been suggested but of course the main revenue will come when members return the jars full of money later on in the year.

He was also delighted to announce that seven aquaboxes have been filled by the congregation of Hove Methodist Church and these are being despatched tomorrow(3/9) and he suggested that we send a letter thanking them for their efforts.

Ray Tiltman informed members that he has maps for those who are unsure how to get to the barbecue on Saturday.

There has been a request from District 1250 for tools for a project in Sierra Leone. £60,000 has been collected and a new school has been built but now equipment and tools, including cups, saucers, sports equipment, sewing materials and bicycles is needed.

Frances du Toit has donated some tools and they are being collected by a member of the Caterham Club so if anyone has any small items suitable for collect please give them to Frances.

Larger items will be collected directly from any location of your choice….

It was one of our own members turn to speak today and David Knowles gave us a talk entitled "Shaving"

In an earlier period of his life David worked for the Gillette company and has a vast knowledge of his subject.

He told us that he had fifteen minutes to cover the history of shaving from the year 10,000BC to the present day and what a wonderful job he made of it.

There are too many facts and figures to give you in this medium but needless to say it was a really fascinating and interesting talk.

At the conclusion of his talk he then ran a short video presentation relating to The Gillette Razor Company.

The vote of thanks was given by Peter Fowle.

9^th September 2008.

30 Present – 29 of our own members and 1 non-Rotarian guest; Alan Wright, our speaker for today.

President Ken informed members that the Club has received notification from Evreux about their 70^th Anniversary celebrations, being held on 17^th October (nothing like plenty of notice!!!)

Ken said he would be attending and invited any members to see him if they wish to accompany him.

Peter Fowle told members that he was collecting money for the new "40 Set" draw.

Paul Beaken reminded those members who had promised sponsorship money for his and Frances du Toit’s participation in the recent Hike 4 Hospice walk that he was still awaiting donations.

Ray Tiltman apologised for any inconvenience caused by the postponement of the barbecue at Storrington last Saturday because of the very unfavourable weather forecast but it turned out to be a great decision because it "precipitated" very much all night.

Today’s speaker was Alan Wright who is area manager in Brighton and Hove for Alzheimer UK Ltd.

He started off by saying that because people are generally living longer nowadays there has been an increase in sufferers from Alzheimer’s with 700,000 diagnosed with this insidious illness and this figure is expected to rise to 1,000,000 within the next fifteen years.

It’s not just the person with Alzheimer whose quality of life deteriorates. Their friends, immediate families and carers are all affected

Alan told us that plans and hopes for the future are shattered when the diagnosis is given because, regretfully, there is no cure and therefore there is a natural inevitability that the number of cases will increase.

He compared it to a tidal wave that cannot be stopped and that we can only be prepared for all outcomes.

There is need for a National Dementia Strategy a government initiative that aims to improve the quality of life for carers and sufferers alike, and which can raise the profile of dementia and which would contribute towards the training of carers. At the moment there is an enormous burden on organisations such as Alzheimer’s UK.

Caring for people with Alzheimer’s is a 24 hour job and Alan’s organisation arranges to for one or two visitors of three or four hours to give carers a break which gives the carer something to look forward, just to visit friends, or even just lie in the bath to relax.

Alzheimer’s UK are desperate for volunteers because they have limited resources and they need an ever growing number of people to help out.

He pointed out to us that Alzheimer’s is an organic disease that eats away parts of the brain, and not the mental disease that many people think it is.

He said that even their offices in Church were inadequate, with far too little space so they have moved from their long time office to the Woodingdean, on the outskirts of Brighton.

Alan went through all the different types of organisations that are helping both patients and carers including the Towner Club which runs on Tuesday and Friday and is for working age people with dementia.

A really informative talk on the work involved in helping carers of people with combatative disease.

Great interest in the talk was shown by Members with many questions afterwards from Peter Savage, Me, John Eaton, Paul Beaken,Ian Collington,David Burchell, Mike Peters and John Ansell.

The vote of thanks was given by Mike Nettell.

16^th September 2008.

I was enjoying myself, playing golf on the Costa Brava, when this meeting took place and consequently I have no report.

23^rd September 2008.

27 present – 26 of our own members and one non-Rotarian guest; Andy Au, our speaker for today.

President Ken asked if any of our members were intending to go to Evreux on 17^th October for their 70^th birthday.

Yveline Milner had a positive response after asking the Club if they would like her to bake some Christmas cakes.

Mike Nettell and John Eaton helped out this last weekend as volunteers for the Alzheimer’s memorial walk.

Alzheimer’s raised considerable amount of money on walk together with the proceeds of the bowls afternoon which was organise by Inner Wheel and was attended by many members of this Club. £367 was raised at the bowls.

Members congratulated President Ken and Peter Fowle on winning the District 1250 competition last week.

President Ken wished Ted Bartup and Paul Beaken the best of luck with their Housing Society presentation at the District Conference in Cardiff this coming weekend.

Andy Au, founder of Fare Share, the organisation that collects food and delivers it to many projects throughout Worthing and Brighton was our speaker today.

He told us the amazing fact that his organisation delivers enough food for 13,000 meals every week

Fare Share is an outstanding project which takes excess food, which normally would be put in a landfill and channels it to aid and abet the poorer part of our society.

His clients are mostly people who have fallen on hard times, in rehab for drugs and alcohol and some of them are on community service after being convicted of committing various crimes.

35% of all food needed for this sector of Brighton and Hove is supplied by Fare Share, an amazing percentage.

This year they have given out 300 tons of food, some 50 tons up on last year. Vehicles deliver food to Worthing as well as Brighton and Hove and a run to Eastbourne is envisaged.

Andy said he was very grateful to the Rotary volunteers who drive the refrigerated vans. Three fill time workers are employed by him and there are some forty to fifty volunteers on the books.

Some of their clients also work on the scheme, with many addicts making themselves well enough to be able to carry out delivery tasks.

The project has been in financial trouble at various times but Andy has always managed to get by, diverting extra funds from his own church to the cause.

The scheme has been in existence for about six years and it was started up with the help of donations from various trusts, including our own John Eaton’s Osborne Charitable Trust..

Andy has worked it out that every £1.00 that is donated to Fare Share is equivalent to £7.50 worth of food.

City Gate, the church that founded it, happen to be Christians who have a deep desire to serve the community and Fare Share fulfils that need.

Recently he has launched a new organisation called "Friends of Fare Share" who will donate £5 a month which should help greatly in keeping the whole thing going.

An excellent talk by a true pillar of the community.

There were questions afterwards from David Burchell, Chris Heath, Ian Collington Yveline Milner and Ian Varley.

The vote of thanks was given by Bryan Meakin, himself a volunteer driver for Fare Share.

As a foot note I would like to add that I have been a volunteer driver for the last three years or so and I think it is one of the most worthwhile things I have done as a Rotarian. When I finish my shift I go home thinking I have done something really useful that day and look forward to the next time I am asked to drive one of the refrigerated vans.

I would urge anyone who has thought about it to act upon it because this is an organisation that really does live up to the motto of Service Above Self.

30^th September, 2008.

47 Present – 27 of our own members and 20 non Rotarian guests, including Bob and Dorothy Allen, guests of IPP David Henderson and David Fisher; our speaker for today.

President Ken announced that there was to be a Masked Ball, to be held by Crawley Diamond Club, on 21^st November and tickets are £40 each.

He also said that he has just returned from the Cardiff Conference, that he enjoyed greatly and said that Bob Mulholland would be giving a report in this bulletin. He also reminded members of the two conferences next year, the RIBI conference, in Edinburgh, on 25^th and 26^th April and the RI Convention being held in Birmingham from the 21^st to 24^th of June.

President Ken welcomed all the ladies to the meeting and gave special mention to Adrian Ball’s return to Club.

Peter Fowle appealed to those members who had not yet contributed to this year’s "40 Set" draw. (Continued)

Ray Tiltman informed members that he still had an outstanding raffle prize that was donated to the recent aborted barbecue but no one would own up to being the donor.

Foundation Chairman Bob Hinton said that Christmas Card order forms are on each table ready for members to take advantage of. He said that some people had already filled them in but he would welcome more orders.

He also told us that there are still some pots of Cinammon and Apple Jam for sale for Spread and Save.

There is also one solitary jar of Plum Jam.

Today was "40 Set" draw day and the the number drawn corresponded to that of the late great John Couch. Treasurer Mike said he would send the cheque off to Brenda.

Our speaker today was David Fisher and the title of his talk was "The Birth of Cinema in Brighton and Hove".

David said that Brighton and Hove is one of the most used and important location film sites in Britain.

He started by saying that in the late 19^th century there were only still pictures with many of famous locations, such as the Palace Pier, which was the first picture he showed us. People at the time were very interested in being entertained and there were people in the background trying to get moving pictures off the ground and there were various devices that seemed to make pictures come to life.

He showed us examples of some of these unusual machines and they very effective, but pretty limited. He then went on to plot the development of cinema in chronological order as follows:

1888 Louis le Prince, a Frenchman, married to a Yorkshire lass and living in Leeds, created the first film ever made. This piece lasted just over one second and consisted of 20 still shots.

1889 William Green, who later become William Friese-Greene, a successful photographer with three studios in London, and studios in Bath, Bristol, and Plymouth. He formed a photographic business partnership with Alfred Esme Collings and builds a ‘chronophotographic camera’ with which he takes ‘animated photographs’ and for which he applies for an English patent, granted (no 10131) on 21^st June.

A very well known film about the life of Friese-Greene, starring Robert Donat, that also featured Laurence Olivier as a passing policeman.

Friese-Greene lived 20 Middle Street, Brighton and was known as the original inventor of cinematography but this was slightly exaggerated. David said that the camera he used was bulky and quite huge.

In the meantime, in the USA, Thomas Edison had developed a very successful business and claimed that he never knew about Friese-Greene’s invention or patent.

1893. Esme Collings, no longer in partnership with William Friese-Green now has his own photographic business at 120 Western Road, just between Cambridge and Brunswick Roads) where he remained until around 1916.
1894 George Albert Smith takes a lease on St. Ann’s Well Gardens.

1896 In France other people were developing cinematography, particularly the Lumiere brothers and their work took the world by storm.

The first film show in Brighton (and the first in the UK outside London) is given at the Pandora Gallery, opposite the West Pier. This site is now occupied by the Melrose Restaurant. .

Esme Collings makes a number of films in Brighton. These included films such as "Brighton Front On a Bank Holiday" "Hove Sea Wall in a Gale" and "Train Arriving at Dyke Station, which was filmed at Devil’s Dyke". He also made a film called "Woman Undressing" sometimes credited with being the worlds first ‘blue movie’.

Alfred Darling carries out equipment repairs for Esme Collings at his engineering works at 25 Ditchling Rise Brighton. This firm is still in existence and is now located at Home Farm Road, Hollingbury.

1897 The first images of the sea seen anywhere in the world on film was that of the sea off Brighton.

James Williamson, a chemist, who had premises at 144 Church Road, which is now an opticians at 156, showed some examples of his work which included a film about the Boxer Rebellion in China but was in fact shot in Wilbury Villas in Hove.  

George Albert Smith was a fascinating character who came to Brighton as a boy and lived in Grand Parade. He purchased St Ann’s Well Gardens and he turned it into an entertainment centre with Hot air demonstration, parachute jumping and fortune tellers but he got the film ‘bug’ and made films, including one at an unidentified windmill involving a chimney sweep and one about Father Christmas coming down the chimney. He also made another film involving the use of x-rays. One of his more cheeky films was about a chap taking advantage of a lady in a railway carriage passing through a tunnel. Charles Urban, an American, became his partner and he also made films at St Ann’s, but they mostly involved people pulling funny faces.
1902 James Williamson took over premises at Cambridge Grove, building a glass studio because there was no artificial light available. He had already made 122 previous films, albeit very short ones.

Urban had, in the meantime, bought the rights to make colour films which had been invented by a chap who died and patented it with the name of Kinemacolour, the first colour system in the world.

1909 Things began to fall apart a bit. Charles Urban had taken over the rights to the colour system and he and George Albert Smith had fell out because Smith though he was being diddled out of his money and they didn’t speak to each other for some twenty nine years.

William Friese-Greene lived in Worcester Villas and he thought he had a better claim and sued Smith and Urban with the action going on to the House of Lords’ Where Friese-Green won his suit but he was left penniless which meant the colour film was never developed in this country and it was left to the Americans to be first with their Technicolor.

Also in this year, the Queen’s Electric Theatre opened in Western Road to show the more and more films being produced. It cost one shilling to go into the balcony and threepence to go into "the area".

Film distributors from all over Europe met in Paris at this time because they were worried about the American threat to their market and and they tried, unsuccessfully, to resolve this.

At that time European films accounted for 70% of the output compared to only 5% today.

1910 Works still carried on with filming carrying on locally in Shoreham for another fifteen years or so but it was the end of an era for the early film pioneers of Hove.

David finished by saying that if anyone wanted to find out, in more detail, about the early days of film in Hove they should log on to www.brightonfilm.com

This was an excellent talk about a fascinating time in Hove’s history. Who would have thought that sleepy old Hove would be the leaders of the race to produce the moving pictures that went on to become such a huge industry.

Questions were asked afterwards by Ian Collington and Me.

The vote of thanks was given by Gordon Cummings.

ROTARY CLUB OF HOVE

2008.

September.

Mon 1^st. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm

Sat 6^th. Charity BBQ. Hampers Lane, Storrington Details forthcoming.

Tues 9^th. Housing Society Meeting. Courtland’s Hotel 2.30pm***

Wed 10^th. My Birthday!!!!!!!!

Sun. 21^st Charity Bowls Afternoon at the Drive Bowls Club Hove. Details forthcoming.

Fri/Sun 26/28^th. District 1250 Conference – Cardiff

October.

Mon 6^th. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm***

December.

Tues. 2^nd. 75^th Rotary Club of Hove’s 75^th Anniversary Celebrations***

April

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

New Dates***

CLUB DUTIES FOR SEPTEMBER. Cash – Peter Savage. Care of Visitors – TBA

CLUB DUTIES FOR OCTOBER Cash - Paul Thrasher. Care of Visitors – Gordon Cummings..

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR SEPTEMBER.

2^nd. There will be a short report on the previous evening’s Club Council and then a speaker, picked from one of our own and not yet known. The vote of thanks will be given by President Ken.

9^th The title of today’s talk is "Dementia, a Growing Problem – More Early Support and Care" and it will be provided by Alan Wright who manager of the local branch of The Alzheimer’s Society. The vote of thanks will be given by Mike Nettell.

16^th. Another chance to listen to one more of the Club’s own members, the vote of thanks being given, as customary, by President Ken.

23^rd. Today’s speaker is Andy Au from Fare Share, and he will be telling us about his organisation that delivers the equivalent of 13,000 meals a week to local projects. I’m proud to be a volunteer driver for Fare Share and urge you to try to attend. The vote of thanks will be given by Bryan Meakin, who is also a volunteer driver.

30^th. This the fifth meeting of the month will see many of us attending with partners (wives!!!) and the talk will be given by David Fisher; Editor of Screen Digest and he will giving us the lowdown on the early film pioneers in Hove and his talk is entitled "Hove Beat Hollywood, Film Pioneers at the Dawn of the Cinema." The vote of thanks will be given by Gordon Cummings.

I am sure that most of you are aware of the funeral arrangements for John but here they are, just in case.

2.30pm Thursdy, 4^th September at All Saints Church, Eastbourne. The church is situated on the junction of Grange and Carlisle Roads.

John sat in at my very first contact with this Club when I was invited along to Tony Kerly’s home, for an Information Meeting, to be faced with some very formidable looking Rotarians who were there to run the rule over a prospective member, me!

I remember John even then as the one with the very friendly face.

This was confirmed to me later when, after giving the customary "My Job" talk to the club, I received a note from John, saying that it was one of the best "My Job" talks he had listened to in his time in Rotary. It wasn’t necessarily true but I really appreciated the fact that John had taken the time to write a note to me to say that and it helped me in my early days in Hove Rotary Club. I’ve always found John very supportive and positive and he will be sorely missed by all of us.

If any of you would like to share any ‘John’ stories with me for later bulletins, I will be pleased to print them.

At a recent meeting, Bob Hinton mentioned that Elise had been cycling through the United States on a charity ride.

Here is a recent account that has been received from Elise to bring us up to date:

Greetings! I send warm wishes to all of you and your families.

I’ve safely returned from my cross country bicycle trip. Many people are now asking me how it all went, to which I respond, it was one of my most challenging and rewarding experiences thus far in life.
Pedalling 3,200 miles in 42 days was physically demanding, but I found the journey to be more mentally rigorous than anything else.

I learned lessons about patience with myself and others. There were some days I thought I could ride twelve hours straight, and others where I couldn’t get off of my seat and strip out of cycling shorts fast enough. My travel companions, Annie, Aremy, Alex and Max felt the same way, and our moods were quite mercurial, actually.
In the span of seconds we were elated and then despondent, satisfied but then suddenly hungry.
Each state we passed through is memorable in its own special way. I saw a lot of magpies in California and we reached the summit of our first mountain - Carson Pass; Nevada was snowy and a constant climb; Utah’s red rock cliffs and canyons were breathtaking - I met a Dutch tourist at a lookout spot and she exclaimed "my eyes do overdrive!"; Colorado was full of hospitality - we were welcomed into homes three of our five nights there; Kansas was unexpectedly difficult - although flat, the head and cross winds were horrific, and my right shoulder got mighty tired leaning into 45 mph winds just to stay upright; Missouri was my favorite state - the limestone Ozarks were like
roller coasters and the roadside orange daylilies and pink Echinacea were simply
beautiful; Illinois was crossed in a single day - we only saw the southern tip; and Kentucky was where I decided to end my tour - for now anyway!

The decision was not about inability or limitation, but yielding to the moment and to my heart.
I’ve been asked to keep this account succinct, but should the abbreviated
version perk your interest, I’ll direct you to my blog where I regularly posted entries throughout the trip.

The address is: www.emspofford.blogspot.com.

On a final note, thank you very much for your donations to Faithful Fools (www.faithfulfools.org) and the School of St. Francis in Managua, Nicaragua. I’ve raised almost $2,000 USD, and I’ve got an application in for a matching grant. Wishing you and your families my very best!

Love,

Elise

By sheer coincidence, I have also received a letter that Julie Neumann, the Ambassadorial Scholar that we were looking after during President Ken’s term first time round, and it reads as follows.

Dear President Ken,
First of all congratulations on being president again, although I imagine that it is with mixed feelings that one accepts such an honour, as the death of a club member is something very sad.
I was very pleasantly surprised when I got your e-mail and it is very nice of you to think of me. I also still often think of my year in Brighton as an ambassadorial scholar.
I graduated from university last autumn as one of the top students of my year with only As in my final exams.

Since January I have been a student teacher at the grammar school of my hometown Neuenbuerg.

I really love teaching! It is sometimes stressful, often a lot more work than you think, but always rewarding.

So far I have only taught under supervision, but after the summer holidays I will get to teach my own
courses, two in Maths (year 5 and 7) and one in English (year 11), in
total 11 hours a week. I am already looking forward to it, and spending a lot of time already preparing my lessons.
However, school is not only about teaching Mathematics or English, there are a lot of other things going on.

One of the most important events for me this year was the student exchange. Our school has an English partner school, Bridgewater High in Warrington near Manchester.

Every year a group of German students stays in Warrington for a week (usually in the spring) and in July their English counterparts come to visit Germany.

This year I was asked to host one of the English teachers. This was really an honour, because normally student teachers do not get to take part in such fun activities as an exchange.

Well, as you can imagine, I said yes without hesitating a second!
The week of the exchange was one of the best I have ever had.

My guest, Simon (39, IT-teacher and head of the IT-department) was very nice, although he spoke terrible Scouse. The first half hour I could not understand much of what he was saying, but after a while I got used to his accent.
The group from Warrington (49 students, 5 teachers) arrived in Neuenbuerg on the second of July at around

1:30 am(!). The next day, we visited a beautiful castle in the city of Ludwigsburg and in the evening the English and German teachers went bowling together.

On Friday, we went to the Europa Park, a big amusement park with lots of rollercoaster rides, shows and other attractions.

On Sunday we went hiking with the English teachers (the students stayed in their host families). We went to the same high moorland area that I went to with Peter, Pam, Ian and Scylla, when they were in Germany.

We also showed them the Schmuckwelten, the jewellery museum in Pforzheim, Neuenbuerg
castle and Strasbourg.

In the evenings we usually went out to nice places to have dinner.

It was really a fun and eventful week and when the English group left, I did not feel like going back to teaching.
Fortunately, it was only a few weeks until the end of the school year, so after all the final tests were done, we did not do much teaching anymore, but watched movies or ate ice cream with our students instead.
However, the exchange program is about more than just having fun in Germany for a week.

Since I was once an exchange student myself and also stayed abroad during my time at university, I know how important it is to meet people from different countries and to learn more about
how they live, what the think and what is important for them.

Rotary promotes international understanding on a large scale, our school does it on a much smaller scale, but I think each effort contributes to the creation of a peaceful and tolerant world.
My experiences as a Rotary scholar were unique and I hope to be able to pass on what I have learned from you and the other members of the different Rotary clubs I visited to my students.
I will keep you posted on my efforts.
With very best wishes
Julia.

5^th August 2008.

30 Present – 27 of our own members and two Rotarian visitors, PDG Tony Johnstone from Brighton and Hove Soiree, escort to our speaker and Laurie Hillditch from Brighton together with Yuko Anishi, an Ambassadorial Scholar from Japan who was our speaker for today.

Secretary David pleaded to members to make sure they sign the apologies book if they know they are going to be unable to attend any meetings.

David Henderson reported that Adrian Ball is having a scan today and should have a result by this afternoon. David said he appears to be in good health and spirits.

It was reported that John Couch is having a circulatory problem and is being moved from Eastbourne to Sussex Hospital to have keyhole surgery on Thursday and should be at the Royal County for at least four or five days.

It was announced that there was to be a Fun Day at Brighton Marina on Saturday, 30^th August, that has been organised by Brighton East Rotary Club

Bob Hinton then spoke on the recent legacy from Wally Muggeridge, a former member of Portslade and West Hove, explaining that the Club has already received £10,000 but there could be a further substantial amount on its way when the matter of the value of some private shares has been concluded.

All money will go straight into the Club’s charity account.

Ray Tiltman mentioned the upcoming barbecue on Saturday, 6^th September stating that tickets for the event will be £10 each and he would be grateful if people could bring raffle prizes along.

Today’s speaker was Yuko Anishi, an ambassadorial scholar who is being counselled by the Brighton and Hove Soiree Rotary Club.

PDG Tony Johnstone introduced her by saying that the beginning of her visit to this country didn’t get off to a very good start owing to Tony turning up at the wrong Terminal to pick her up. It looked as though things only got better after that because Tony said that she had been an absolute joy to look after, helped by the fact that she speaks "fantastic" English.

Yuko is studying International Relations and is at the moment writing her dissertation to be submitted in September to the University of Sussex.

This dissertation is, specifically, focussed on Japanese women who are married to non-Japanese living in the Brighton area.

She has interviewed 20 women and found lots of interesting facts about both British and Japanese customs.

She posed the question "Why do Japanese women come to the UK?"

The fact is that many more Japanese women than men tend to migrate and leave Japan at an earlier age than most men. The reason for this is that Japanese women tend to find Japanese culture very constricted and male orientated. Men and women are hired for jobs on a different basis and the bias is towards male staff.

Yuko said that legislation is being drawn up to change this but the practice still goes on to this day.

She said that there is a very strong social pressure for women to become good and wise housewives.

One interviewee said that she like the "Ladies first" culture in Britain and the other said she had suffered from an oppressive supervisor at her job back home.

In Japan also there is a lot of pressure for ladies to get married early and not much chance for women to obtain equal qualifications for jobs.

Yuko said she was lucky because she quit her job and went back to University to obtain higher degree but thanks to Rotary she was able to come to UK as an Ambassadorial Scholar even though she only has a visa for one year.

Most of her interviewees were in the same boat and came as students with a visa for one year so if they wanted to stay that had to find jobs, most of them in the financial sector of the City of London with Japanese banks and suchlike. Some took jobs in Japanese restaurants and shops.

Yuko told us that Japanese Universities are not open to mature students.

She also said that people tended to stay in one job for most of their lives because promotion was usually on the basis of seniority.

Unfortunately for the women, they are expected to marry one of these "stable" men so marriage to a British man looks more attractive because the married woman over here can still hold down a job, unlike in Japan, where the woman is expected to stay at home.

Yuko said that as she lives on campus and studies with other international students she hasn’t had much contact or interactive dialogue with local residents.

She also said that she hardly ever saw her own father because when she was at home he worked all week and played golf all weekend, which was also work related. (that was his story anyway!!)

She finished by saying that motherhood is a very strong institution at home, because of the absent fathers and that she teaches Japanese to children born of a mixed Japanese/British marriage because even though the mother will most probably stay in the UK for the rest of her life they like their children to know their mother tongue.

A really most articulate talk by a very charming young lady, truly a real Ambassador for this branch of Rotary Foundation.

President Ken gave the vote of thanks.

12^th August 2008.

33 present – 30 of our own members; two Rotarian visitors, Sidonie Bond from Brighton and Hove Soiree and our old friend David Perrin from the Brighton Club and one non Rotarian guest; Chris Belton, our speaker for today.

It was announced that Peter Fowle and Ken Jones have reached the final of the District 1250 Bowls competition.

Chris Belton, our speaker today was here as a representative of Asthma UK

Asthma UK is an organisation that helps sufferers of this invidious condition understand what is happening to them and also how to deal with it and make their lives easier. There is no cure for the condition but sufferers’ quality of life can be improved by following Asthma UK’s advice.

Chris told us that asthma is a condition that affects airways, the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. He said that when person with asthma comes into something that irritates their airways (an asthma trigger) the muscles around the walls of the airways tighten so that the airways become narrower and the lining of the airways becomes inflamed and starts to swell. Sometimes sticky mucus of phlegm buils up which can further narrow the airways.

All these reactions cause the airways to become narrower and irritated – making it difficult to breath and leading to symptoms of asthma.

Chris also told us that 5.2 million people in the UK are currently receiving treatment for asthma and this includes 1.1 million children and he emphasised the extent of this condition by telling us that there is a person with asthma in one in five households in the UK. One of the more harrowing facts is that four people a day in this country die from asthma. The sad part is that nine out of ten of the deaths are preventable with proper control.

Chris is not a sufferer himself but he decided to become involved with Asthma UK, spreading the word as it were, about ways to alleviate the condition, after finding out that his grandson was a sufferer.
He said that it is difficult to pinpoint the reason for contracting it but family history sometimes comes into it.

Some links with the condition are obvious, such as contact with dogs or cats, with furry or feathery animals being

common triggers. Cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes as well as ozone are another contributing factor.

Chris said that there are two key types of medicine, one being a reliever and the other one a preventer. The main reliever is in the form an inhaler, usually blue in colour and he emphasisised that everyone with asthma should have an inhaler and should be used immediately to relieve any symptoms. Preventers are used to stop swelling and the air lanes blocking up.

It is advised that everybody that has asthma must consult their GP because most surgeries employ nurses who can be a great help to anybody with the condition.

If you want to learn any more about this very common condition I suggest that you visit the Asthma UK Website on www.asthma.org.uk where you will find more information than you can handle.

Chris gave us examples on famous people who are or were asthma sufferers, including one surprising name which was Paula Radcliffe. Who would have thought a marathon runner could manage such extreme feats suffering from asthma!

Bob Hope, Charles Dickens and Lord Astor were just a few of the famous who were asthma sufferers.

Chris said he hoped that his talk had given us a flavour of what is in store for asthmatics and hoped we can spread the word that having asthma is "not the end of the world" and one can lead a fairly normal life with it.

He concluded by saying that it cost one pound a month to become a member of Asthma UK.

There were questions after and Chris was stopped in his tracks when John Mainwood mentioned a seminar he had attended on the Buteyko Method that claimed to be able to cure nearly all cases of asthma.

(if you want to find out more of this please "Google" Buteyko for a full explanation)

Ian Collington asked how a child goes about getting a care plan and how do parents know they can take advantage of it and Chris replied by saying it is so haphazard the only way it can become common knowledge is by talking to more groups like us and spreading the word. He said you have to ask a doctor or nurse to work through an asthma plan with the child involved.

Dr. David Henderson says that his own nurse is asthma trained, and speaking on behalf on the two Doctors present congratulated the speaker on the clarity of his talk and said it was much better than they could have managed.

The vote of thanks was given by Chris Heath.

19^th August 2008.

22 present – all our own members.

It was reported that John Couch has been admitted to Eastbourne General Hospital and is not at all well.

Adrian Ball is going for bone marrow test and will be having a course of chemotherapy starting tomorrow.

The fun day at Brighton Marina, held by the Brighton East Club was given publicity and it was said that if we help them in their endeavours they may reciprocate when it comes round to the motorcycle rally.

President Ken congratulated Peter Savage on his recent Diamond Wedding Anniversary and sent best wishes to Pat.

George Robinson informed members that barbecue arrangements are proceeding well and tickets are being sold at a fair rate but raffle prizes are still needed.

Ted Bartup, in his role as Chairman of the Hove Rotary Housing Society, reported on the visit by the President of RIBI and the District Governor, who came to see our housing society at work. President Ian was very impressed and they had usual circuit of houses finishing up at Rotary Point where tea and biscuits were supplied under the supervision of Ray Tiltman.

Ted thanked Paul Beaken for his "brilliant" DVD presentation and it is hoped that a long version of the DVD will be shown at the District 1250 Conference in Cardiff at the end of September.

Frances du Toit spoke about the Hike 4 Hospices last Saturday reporting on the fact that Paul Beaken and herself walked the five miles and she was extremely impressed with the organisation of the event, with free drinks being supplied at each end of the walk. She said that Paul will be at next week’s meeting to collect the sponsorship money pledged by a number of members.

Bob Hinton was our speaker for today and the subject of his talk was his fifty years as a Methodist local preacher.

He jokingly started by saying that he realised that he couldn’t talk about religion at Rotary and said that we could ask him to stop speaking.

Bob then went on to pass round the room the bible that he was given on his first accreditation as a preacher in August 1958. He then gave us a short explanation on Methodism and the role of a local preacher.

He explained to us that Methodism churches reflect their origins when they were founded as churches in the early 19^th century although the movement itself begain in the 18^th Century. It was founded as movement for growth within the Christian movement.

The founders of the Methodist movement, John and Charles Wesley, both trained as priests in the Anglican Church at St John’s College, Oxford and were both worshipped as High Anglicans.

They both went off toe Georgia, USA, to establish religion among the American Indians but found themselves working tieh the settler and tried to enforce Methodism but came "dreadfully unstuck".

Both came home, one of them early and the other one after a year and within a few months of coming back, John Wesley had a conversion experience.

The following is John Wesley’s own account of this experience.

"In the evening I went unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther and preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death."

Bob then went on to explain the role of a local preacher and said that in the very early days of Methodism most preachers were itinerants, moving throughout the country and they used to meet up with each other in the middle of the week to share their experiences.

Local preachers, people who worked locally began to take responsibility for their own churches.

He explained that in modern times every Methodist minister you meet will have been a local Methodist preacher.

He said that two things qualify you. One, that you are able to communicate with others and two, that you were a committed Christian and that you would be able to talk about that. You would also have to be accepted by other local preachers in you church.

Bob remarked that training was not so vigorous in Bob’s early days and having passed he had to accompany another preacher for a number of occasions.

He started to train as a preacher at the age of sixteen and qualified when he became a preacher at the age of 21.

He preached at churches in the various places he lived before settling down in Hove many years ago.

Bob receives a programme every quarter of where he is to preach in the next few months

A preacher must not fail to turn up and he said that he has had only one close call. He remarked that he even attended Patcham Church for a sermon on the morning following an accident when he broke his ankle.

Bob informed us that his duties are purely voluntary, with no pay involved.

He told us that there are many lady preachers in Methodism and it is no longer a controversial subject. Methodism has had lady preachers now for some 40 years with more women than men applying at present which means that in the future lady preachers will most probably outnumber their male counterparts.

Bob said in his early days he flirted with the idea of becoming a priest but didn’t say yes to this call because priests were not paid much and in the mean time the Town Clerk in Preston had offered him a job, the offer coming on the day that Bob accepted his calling.

A fascinating and insightful talk by Bob thoroughly enjoyed by all present, including Bob himself which was reflected in the first comment by Peter Savage afterwards when he commented to Bob that he had a constant smile on his face while talking, which denotes that Bob was very happy to tell us of his long association with Methodism.

Peter also asked if Bob had the authority to marry people in church with Bob replying in the negative, explaining that it was nothing to do with the church but to with the law and him not being an authorised person.

David Burchell asked if there was any form of hierarchy in the church and Bob replied by saying that Methodism is not centralised but there were 20 odd districts in the England and Northern Ireland which are overseen by a Conference. Below the districts are circuits and then individual churches.

Chris Heath remarked on the fact that many Anglican Churches are closing and asked if the Methodist movement was in the same boat. Bob said there was not much difference between the two and many Methodist churches have closed in the last sixty years.

He said that at one church in Brighton, there were only twelve people in attendance last Sunday.

Ted Bartup asked if the church received any financial help from the Government and Bob said the short answer to that was "No" excepting for Gift Aid on charitable donations.

John Ansell wondered if The Boys’ Brigade was part of the Methodist Church. Bob said it was founded by the Methodist church but was not exclusive to Methodists and said that the Youth Movement has now replaced it and is less regimented.

Howard Attree asked Bob if his parents were Methodists and Bob said his Mum was but his father was Anglican. He also said that when his parents married, his father moved over to Methodism and Bob himself attended Methodist Sunday school as a young lad.

The vote of thanks was given by Howard Attree.

26^th August 2008.

24 present – 23 of our own Members and one non-Rotarian Guest, Adam Pride, our speaker for today.

Prior to the meeting Sergeant-At-Arms Bob asked all members to observe a short period of silence in respect to John Couch who passed away over the weekend.

President Ken reported on the death of John, although all Members were aware of the tragic event and said that the funeral date has not been set yet but it looks as though it will be on 4^th September in Eastbourne.

President Ken was happy to report that Adrian Ball is getting on nicely and has had his first course of chemotherapy.

He also said that volunteers are still needed to help out at Brighton East’s fun day at Brighton Marina this coming Saturday.

Ray Tiltman made mention of the Fund raising Barbecue, being held at Storrington on Saturday, 6^th September, particularly calling for more raffle prizes to make it a big success financially.

Today was the occasion of the monthly "40 Set" draw and the cheque for £25 was won by Peter Savage.

Our speaker today was Adam Pride who is secretary of Bricycle, the local cycling pressure group.

Adam started off by saying he finds cycling a very normal thing to do and finds it odd that it is a subject for a talk.

He mainly spoke of the inadequacies of the road system to cope with bicycles, citing the hopelessness of cycling along the Old Shoreham Road, which, if it was possible, would make his journey to and from work some two miles shorter every day.

He said there were sixteen schools between Locks Hill in Portslade and the Seven Dials turn off and if only five percent of pupils at these schools could be persuaded to use a bike it would reduce car congestion by a great deal.

He then went on to talk about the installation of the Seafront- South Downs cycle lane which has cost some £700,000, which, he was eager to point out, was not paid for by the local council but came from central government funds through Cycle UK.

Adam also remarked that he would his organisation is seeking legislation to limit the speed of cars to 20mph within the city limits of Brighton and Hove. (This was not very well received!!)

It was quite a brief talk and it soon came round to questions and these were led off by John Eaton who asked if he thought the success that the cycling team had in the recent Olympics would encourage more people to take up cycling.

Adam said he hoped it would generate interest among youngsters.

Peter Savage then asked the age old question on why cyclists do not obey the rules of the road, jumping red traffic lights and cycling on the Hove Esplanade, despite "No Cycling" stencilled at regular intervals.

Adam replied by saying that he hates this habit of red light jumping and would be quite happy for these people to be prosecuted.

Ian Collington thought that there should be more understanding between cyclists and motorists but Ray Tiltman said that car pollution figures had gone up by 25 percent since advent of cycle lanes and then had a general rant against the imposition of a 20mph speed limit in Brighton and Hove.

Frances du Toit said that Cambridge students are not allowed to bring their cars to university, thereby forcing them to use their bikes.

John Ansell, in reply to Adam’s earlier remark about the amount of bikes in Holland said that Holland is rather flat and Brighton and Hove is built on a series of hills, which he has noticed more and more in his later years.

The vote of thanks was given by Paul Beaken.

2008.

August.

Mon. 4^th Club Council West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm***

Wed 13^th. Visit of President of RIBI to inspect our Housing Society properties***

Sat/Sun 16^th/17^th Hike for Hospices Walk. See Paul Beaken for details***

September.

Mon 1^st. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm***

Sat 6^th. Charity BBQ. Hampers Lane, Storrington Details forthcoming***

Sun. 21^st Charity Bowls Afternoon at the Drive Bowls Club Hove. Details forthcoming***

Fri/Sun 26/28^th. District 1250 Conference – Cardiff

April

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

New Dates***

CLUB DUTIES FOR AUGUST Cash – George Robinson. Care of Visitors – Ian Collington.

CLUB DUTIES FOR SEPTEMBER Cash - Peter Savage. Care of Visitors – John Couch.

CLUB PROGRAMME FOR AUGUST.

5^th. our speaker today is Yuko Anishi, an Ambassadorial Scholar from Japan, who is being looked after by a member of Brighton and Hove Soiree and the title of her talk is aptly entitled "Japan’s View of Britain – Unravelling the Myth and the Reality". The vote of thanks will be given by President Ken.

12^th. Chris Belton is our speaker today and he will be giving a talk that he is calling "Asthma UK – Government Neglect of Five Million Sufferers". The vote of thanks is in the capable hands of Chris Heath.

19^th One of our own members, unnamed as yet, will be speaking to us today and Peter Fowle will be giving the vote of thanks.

26^th. it looks like yet another rant at authority because today’s talk, given by Adam Pride, secretary of the local branch of Bricycles will be talking under the heading of "Brighton and Hove’s Shambolic Road System – Us v. the Council. Ian Collington will be our spokesman (geddittt!!!!)

8^th July 2008

26 Present – all our own members.

Senior Vice Bryan Meakin was in the chair today owing to President Ken being on holiday.

There was worrying news of Adrian Ball, who was rushed to hospital last week in pain and subsequently had part of his bowel removed and is awaiting further tests. Hillary has thanked members for the many "get well" cards and messages. It was reported that Adrian is progressing very well and is now in a general ward.

Latest news on John Couch is that he is still awaiting an operation, which now looks like taking place in August.

SVP Brian informed us that the President of RIBI will visit our area, specifically to have a look at our own Housing Society’s properties. A remark was made saying "you don’t see a President of RIBI for years and years and then two of them come along within three or four months", harking back to the visit by Alan Jagger just a short while ago.

A report was given of last Saturday’s picnic lunch, held at 30 Sackville Road for the Housing Society Tenants and also attended by members of Hove. It was a very successful afternoon with some 15 tenants attending together with quite a few Rotarians. Everybody agreed that the food, catered by Jenny Saunders, was excellent

We had joint speakers today with IPP David Henderson and Peter Fowle giving us an account of the recent contact visit to Evreux.

They reported that following their journey from Hove to Evreux, Rotarians from Evreux ferried their German and English guests to their homes for dinner that evening.

Peter then gave us a quick run down of what happing to the Port of Le Havre, which they visited on the Saturday.

Many facts and figures, mostly denoting that the port is very healthy and is expanding at a rapid rate.

All the more remarkable because it was completely flattened during World War II.

David then took up the talk by saying that he was a little surprised that the Hotel Normandie was not the hotel at which he was staying and was also annoyed to find that Peter had ‘pinched’ the last parking space at the hotel by the time he arrived. He thought the hotel was very small but the ambience and the staff there were first class.

The now usual Rotary meeting was held on the Saturday morning and there was an excellent presentation from this year’s President about their project in Senegal and it was very encouraging to see what was being achieved with the money that this club had donated.

David reported that the Saturday evening function was a great occasion and David was quite pleased that he upstaged the Pforzheim President who had forgotten his chain of office!

David also reported that he had given four bottles of English Sparkling Wine to the French president but he had received no feedback on this!

One thing David and Peter were agreed on was that our friends in Pfortzheim and Evreux were greatly excited about next year’s Contact Visit in Oxford.

Ian Collington confirmed this fact saying that there was such enthusiasm and he congratulated Peter Fowle for persevering in his efforts to make the visit possible.

15^th July 2008.

31 Present – 29 of our own members and 2 non-Rotarian Guests; Andy Durr, our speaker for today and Tony Pearson, a past Rotarian from New Zealand who has moved to Hove and was casting his eye over us.

It was announced that Ron Knight’s funeral will take place this coming Friday at 12.15 pm at the Woodvale Crematorium.

Members were told that Adrian Ball is now back at home and is getting on very well and said thanks for all the cards since he has been home. Members are free to phone him whenever they like.

Yes, you are free to phone him whenever you like.

President Ken asked that if anyone wanted to attend the District Conference at Cardiff at the end of September, they should contact Peter Fowle, who has the hotel and registration details.

Paul Beaken then rose to seek participants in the "Hike for Hospices" that is taking place on the weekend of 16/17^th August. There are various lengths – 5 to 42 miles – and people can pick and choose which ‘leg’ they would like to take part in.

Paul was our sole participant last year but it appears that three or four members would be taking part this time round.

It was hoped that between £80,000 and £90,000 would be raised this year.

Further to the RIBI President’s visit on 13^th August, members were invited to attend the lunch at The Royal Albion Hotel 12.30-1pm, where members of the Rotary Club of Brighton would be hosts.

Andy Durr was our speaker for today and he was here to tell us about the formation of the Brighton Fishing Museum.

Andy has retired from his job as a lecturer at Brighton University and is a former mayor of Brighton and Hove, just after the two boroughs merged. Members may have guessed the party he represented, the clue being in the wide pair of red braces he was wearing at lunch.

Andy was the main mover behind the formation of this museum devoted, as it says in the name, to the fishermen of Brighton.

The story starts in 1991 when the now Lord (Steve) Bassam asked Andy to come back in the Labour Party, mainly to dislodge the very strong group of Trotskyists present in the party at the time.

Andy told Steve that he would only return to the Council if he was allowed to do something about the Brighton seafront which was an awful run down area populated by drug addicts and general layabouts.

It also consisted of a load of empty properties which were actually owned by the council. One of these properties was to become the site of the Brighton Fishing Museum.

Much later, after a lot of wheeler dealing to do with the make up of the properties on the seafront, and attempts to stop too many nightclubs opening there, the Museum opened

The seafront became a much more attractive location and one of the understandings made was that all the businesses in that area had to be owned by local people.

The BFM was financed by the income from the rent obtained from the other council owned properties.

Andy told us that a workshop was also created and all the display cases and suchlike were made there. Andy himself was one of many who rolled up their sleeves and got on with bringing the project to fruition.

The museum tells the story of Brighton and Hove as well as just the fishing aspects of it.

Fishermen in this city were highly involved in the tourist business, running pleasure trips as well, unlike other resorts where fishermen were just that.

Admission to the Museum is free but they do raise some money from commission on the sales of artworks from artists who have a small workshop and gallery there.

He told us that they spent the amazing sum of £14,000 a year in professional fees because of modern legislation to do with health and safety and suchlike and also because they were a limited company.

The museum is also a reminder to people that Brighton, now a big city, was a small town whose base was fishing.

A very good talk by a larger than life character, who could maybe make a return visit and tell us all about his fight against the Trotskyists!

The vote of thanks was given by Howard Attree.

22^nd July 2008.

33 present – 27 of our own members and 6 Rotarian visitors; Waddah Kabbani, President of Brighton East, David Perrin (Brighton) Immediate Past District Sports Officer Mike Poulter (Godalming Woolsack) and John Wilson (Lewes) our speaker for today.

Ted Bartup brought disquieting news about Adrian Ball, informing us that tests on samples taken from his bowel during recent operation have proved to be malignant. Adrian will be attending the hospital for consultation but is feeling very well in himself and is getting plenty of exercise to build him up.

John Couch is seeing a specialist shortly and should be operated on sometime in late August.

Today’s meeting was all about skittles and started with the presentation of the District 1250 Skittles Trophy to Ralph Harrison, captain of our team, for winning the District Competition towards the end of the last Rotary year.

Ralph remarked that we have had our largest squad ever this year and this proved to be one of the reasons that we won it on our thirteenth or fourteenth attempt.

The rest of the meeting was also devoted to skittles because our speaker today was John Wilson, organiser of the Lewes Rotary Club’s Annual fundraising Skittles week.

John started off by apologising for the fact that he only had ten minutes or so to talk about forty years of the Lewes Skittles week.

He told us that the event started in 1967, and was run by a chap called Stan Holland to raise funds for the Royal Victoria Hospital in Lewes.

Stan retired from the even in 1983, since when it has been run by the Rotary Club of Lewes.

There are many trophies to be played for throughout the week and John told us that only one of the trophies contained silver and that was The Lewes Prison Cup.

It is quite a major undertaking because the competition runs for six consecutive nights and there are sixteen lanes in use and it takes a long time to whittle down the finalists.

Six or seven of the leading teams each night go through to the final on the Sunday.

The volunteers are there until about 11pm each night because the whole site has to be cleared of any mess and of any vagrants that might be hanging about.

John said that all the little things have to be got right other the whole thing falls down.

He told us the site remains the same as the one in the first year but the equipment for the event is stored all over the town of Lewes.

Thirty two teams compete each night with a break at half time for refreshments.

The site is totally enclosed on skittles week but the gardens are open for the rest of the year.

There is a collection bucket at the gate, the proceeds of which go the Royal Victoria Hospital and the St Peter and St James’s Hospice.

The teams play for eight different trophies during the week.

Many people and many charities benefit from the event and they include the six different charities that are allowed to have a raffle each night. Money is also raised by way of a coconut shy and a helium balloon stall.

Forty advertising hoardings are strung round the arena which also brings in a fair bit of money.

The whole event is a perfect example of Rotary working with and among the general public and gives great public relations for Rotary.

An excellent talk from a very dedicated Rotarian and he performed marvels in telling us so much in the short time he had been allotted.

Ralph Harrison performed the vote of thanks. .

David Henderson read out a letter from Emma Ovenden in which she thanked us for our donation which enabled her to attend an International Jamboree in Iceland.

A letter of thanks from the parents of Chloe Bedford, thanking us for the contribution to the purchase of her specially adapted motor car.

Letters of thanks were read out from tenants of the housing society, thanking us for the picnic the other week.

Finally it was announced that there was to be a fundraising barbecue at Hampers Lane, Storrington.

Tickets will cost £10 and the event will take place on Saturday, 6^th September. Usual time

29^th July 2008.

45 present – 34 of our members and 11 visitors including Dr. Robin Moffatt (our speaker) and his wife Beryl; Bob and Dorothy Allen guests of IPP David Henderson, Leonie Petroca, guest of Frances du Toit, Carol Fowler, guest of President Ken and three visitors from Hove Inner Wheel; Edna Walker, Amy Collier, Phyllis Howell and Tony Underwood.

It was reported that everything going well for Adrian Ball at the moment and is due to have a scan in a week’s time. Telephone calls to Adrian will be welcome.

President Ken reported that John Couch has been admitted to hospital with circulation problems and will be in for at least a few days.

Today was the occasion for a "40 Set" draw and the cheque for £25 was won by Bernard Greaves.

Our speaker today was Dr Robin Moffatt, who was a Forensic Crime specialist with the Metropolitan Police for more than 40 years.

He started off by telling us that he had the distinction of being expelled from his kindergarten school for becoming difficult on the arrival of a younger brother.

Told us a doubtful story involving a young girl in the toilets which led to the expulsion.

He mentioned that one of the boys he shared a desk with at school was a fatality in the typhoid epidemic of 1935.

He told us that he spent the war in Grammar School and then went into the navy for his national service.

On leaving the navy he started medical work at Guy’s Hospital in London and had the privilege of working under one of the most famous pathologists this country has had, namely Dr. Keith Simpson. Keith Simpson was present at most of the big murder trials just after the war including Haig, the acid bath killer.

Robin told us that he had a rude awakening when he went into partnership with another doctor who then informed him that he was unable to do any work at night because he was unwell.

Robin told us a quite long story about George Brown the Labour cabinet minister who was arrested, for the third time, for drink driving. He had been arrested after "having an argument with a bollard!"

Mr Brown was quite noisy in court and the Judge, for Mr Brown had elected to go to court, told him to shut up and threatened him with contempt of court. Mr Brown came back to the court after lunch much the worse for wear, after allegedly drinking a bottle of Mateus Rose (what a poor taste in wine!!) and stood in front of the jury and said "If you think this case is anything to do with you have another think coming."

Despite this, on being found guilty he only received a suspended prison sentence together with a rather large fine.

The judge said afterwards that he would have sent him to prison but he wouldn’t have been able to obtain a visa for performing government work in the United States.

One of Robin’s biggest and most recent cases was the horrendous murder of Sally Ann Bowman, a girl from Croydon, whose body was discovered almost outside her own front door.

Robin said that from past experience he thought that this murder had been committed by someone who lived close by and this turned out to be the case.

DNA was taken from hundreds of young men in the area but the offender had left the area and gone to Holland but came back and committed a crime in Horsham for which he was arrested and his DNA showed up for the murder of Sally Ann.

This was the case where the offender admitted having sex with the girl but she was already dead,

Robin also surprised us by telling us that he was a Rotarian for twelve years but had to pack it up in the end because of pressure of work

He told us that he was speaker secretary of his Club and fell out with one of his own members when he invited a Socialist politician to speak at the Club.

This was a really good talk but a true expert in his field and I think most probably we should have tried to have him as an evening speaker because he had lots more to tell us and was restricted by time today.

There were many questions after his talk, with great interest shown by Bob Allen, who was Chief Superintendent of Police in Hove until he retired many years ago.

The vote of thanks was performed by Dr. David Henderson, a police surgeon of some eighteen years experience.

Worth knowing if you can remember it under such circumstances!!!If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321.The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.

This information was recently broadcasted on CTV by CrimeStoppers however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it

I was lucky enough to receive the following message from Adrian just before putting this bulletin to bed, so here it is in full;

Hi Bob,

I guess I may have missed the deadline for the August issue, but if by any chance I haven't, would you be so kind as to just put in a note from me to say "Thank You" to all those Rotarians and their ladies for the tremendous number of cards and "Get Well Messages" that I have received, they have all been most encouraging. I am now awaiting further tests on Tuesday 5th to scan the body to see what may still be lurking inside!!  Best Wishes to you all.    Adrian

THE FOLLOWING WAS RECENTLY VOTED THE BEST SHORT JOKE EVER.
A three -year-old boy examined his testicles while taking a bath.
'Mom', he asked, 'Are these my brains?' 
'Not yet, ' she replied.

Please note that Bryan’s new email address is bryan.meakin@hotmail.com

One day, Jack says to Mike 'My elbow hurts like hell. I suppose I'd better see a doctor!'

'Listen mate; don't waste your time down at the surgery, ' Mike replies.
'There's a diagnostic computer at Tesco. Just give it a urine sample and the
computer will tell you what's wrong, and what to do about it. It takes ten
seconds and only costs five quid....a lot quicker and better than a doctor
and you get Club card points'.
So Jack collects a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Tesco. He
deposits £5 and the computer lights up and asks for the urine
Sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits.
Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout: 'You have tennis elbow.
Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity. It will improve in two
weeks'.
That evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Jack began
wondering if the computer could be fooled.
He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his
wife and daughter, and 'pleasured himself' into the mixture for good Measure.
Jack hurried back to Tesco, eager to check what would happen, he deposits
£5, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results with a grin.
The computer prints the following:
1) your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener.
2) Your dog has ringworm. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo.

3) Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.

4) Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.

5) And if you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better....
> Thank you for shopping at Tesco

For all of us who didn’t attend the Contact visit some weeks ago I thought you’d be interested in this picture of the Presidents of Hove, Evreux and Pforzheim at the Saturday morning get together.

Mon 2^nd. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill. 6.30pm.

Tues. 3^rd. Club Assembly when i/c Ken Jones sets out his programme for the forthcoming Rotary Year***

Fri/Sun. 6^th-8^th. Contact Visit Evreux, draft programme issued by Peter Fowle and further details will be forthcoming

Sun/Wed. 15^th/18^th. RI Convention Los Angeles.

Sun 8^th. Paul Harris Fellowship Lunch at Reigate Manor Hotel. See John Eaton for further details***.

Wed. 25^th. Bangers and Mash at Pangdean Farm. Please note that this is a re-arranged date but is still a "Must Go To" event. Detailed arrangements will be announced at a later date by organiser Bryan Meakin***

Tue. 1^st. Induction of i/c President Ken.***

Sat.5^th. Housing Society Charity Barbecue 30, Sackville Road, Further details forthcoming***

Mon.7^th. Club Council, West Blatchington Windmill 6.30pm***

Fri/Sun 26/28^th. District 1250 Conference – Cardiff

Sun 26^th. Motorcycle Rally – Blatchington Mill School – all day!! Watch this space!

CLUB DUTIES FOR JULY Cash – Bryan Meakin – Care of Visitors – Derek Clouting.

CLUB DUTIES FOR AUGUST Cash - George Robinson. Care of Visitors – Ian Collington.

3^rd. Today is the occasion of the Club Assembly when i/c President Ken will be introducing his team and they will be giving us their ideas and intentions for the coming Rotary year. ADG Duncan Anderson will be the moderator.

10^th. Today is set aside for one of our own members to speak to us.

17^th. We have two speakers today, and they will be the candidates who represented our Club at the recent RYLA course in Amersham. The vote of thanks will be given by President David.

24^th. President David’s last meeting in charge and he will be marking this with his Valedictory. He then will hand over his Presidency to i/c President Ken.

25 Present – 23 of our own members, one Rotarian visitor, Duncan Anderson from Reigate, here as our moderator for Club Assembly and one non_Rotarian guest, Arthur Salisbury, a guest of Ray Tiltman.

President David told members that Ron Knight had phoned and sounded quite "down" but he did say that Ron would welcome telephone calls from members.

Announcement made with reference to "Bangers at the Barn" on Wednesday, 25^th June, tickets £12.50 from Bryan Meakin.

John Mainwood was delighted to announce that the Club’s skittles team had been triumphant in the District Final, beating Godalming Woolsack club quite comfortably.

Paul Beaken informed members of the picnic, being held at 30 Sackville Road, between 1-3pm on Saturday 5^th July. Tickets £10 which will include all food and drink.

Ray Tiltman was delighted to let members know that the Barbecue at Storrington this last weekend had raised £762.00

President David followed this up by thanking Ray and his family for not only organising the event but letting us have such a great venue for this very successful fundraising and social event.

Incoming President Ken then took over most of the reminder of the meeting, which was devoted to Club Assembly.

This, of course, is the meeting when Ken, and the team appointed by him, set out their ideals and aims for the forthcoming Rotary Year.

I/C President Ken said that he was very aware that this coming November sees the club celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of the Rotary Club of Hove’s charter and hopes to celebrate this major milestone.

He stated that his first aim, as always with new Presidents, is to find ways to increase membership. His target for the year is a nett gain of six members.

He is very proud of the fact that the club has two Housing Societies, with a total tenancy of some 100 people.

Publicity is also one of his priorities, having noted that we received nil publicity on the visit of the RIBI President to our city this spring.

He finished by saying that he hoped that the forthcoming Rotary Year would be one to remember.

There were then various reports from Committee Chairmen setting out their aims, much of it as in previous years.

The meeting was summed up by ADG Duncan Anderson, who said that after hearing the various presentations he could see that the Club was in very capable hands.

I/C President Ken then handed the meeting back over to President David for him to give the concluding toast.

This was a really fascinating talk and I’m sure it whetted the appetite of most of us, making us determined to visit this huge country of so many contrasts.

The vote of thanks was given by Peter Fowle.

10^th June 2008.

21 present – all our own members.

President David reported briefly on the Contact Visit to Evreux that had taken place this last weekend.

He said it was a great success and that both the Germans and the French were looking forward to the next Contact Visit, in Oxford, next June.

Bryan Meakin rose to publicise the upcoming "Bangers in the Barn" night reminding members that tickets could be purchased from him for the price of £12.50 each.

Bryan also reported that he had seen Ron Knight at A and E department at the RSCH and felt that he looked "completely bewildered". He was waiting for a taxi to take him home from the hospital.

Bryan thought it would be a good idea for people to telephone Ron and try to cheer him up in some way.

I/C President Ken asked members for support at the District 1250 Conference in Cardiff and if.

Peter Fowle will have hotel details shortly.

Today was the occasion of the a belated "40 Set" draw and the cheque for £25.00 was won by June Douch.

Paul Thrasher was our speaker today and the subject of his talk was his travels in India.

He started off by remarking that the popular concept of India is the poverty, dirt, squalor and disease but he personally found it a country of great extremes, with sandy beaches to some of the largest mountains in the world, deserts, jungles, very fertile farmland which produced two crops a year, extreme heat and humidity and monsoon rains. It also was the home of curries and Kingfisher beer.

Paul has made three trips to the subcontinent extending from the Himalayas in the far North to the far South, including Sri Lanka.

Paul’s talk was given with the aid of slides and one of the first slides he showed us was one of his son’s Hindu wedding to an English born Indian lady.

Many of the slides depicted fabulous views of India, but one of the first slides was one of Jaipur Gate, that stands on the lawns of Hove Museum, on New Church Road.

One cannot get their heads round the sheer numbers involved, particularly when Paul mentioned that the transport system, mainly trains, in Bombay, has to cope with seven million commuters every day!

He also told us that the population of India has expanded from 900 million to 1,030 million now, that’s an increase of 17 million people per year. The total increase in that time is more than twice the population of the whole UK.

One of the more significant pictures was one of the first view that visitors to Bombay see on arriving.

There was also one, taken in Bombay, that showed three eras of Indian architecture within two blocks of each other.

Yet another slide showed us the fanatical interest the Indians have in cricket, with every square yard of a vast open space taken up with organised games of the sport. The state of the ground they played on has to be seen to be believed.

One of the big industries in Bombay, now Mumbai, was the washing of garments, a traditional industry which employs several hundred thousand people in the city. There were huge washing areas where clothes and suchlike are brought to be washed.

Paul showed us many, many great pictures, taken during his three visits and I couldn’t possibly do them all justice in this short report.

Nevertheless it was a really fascinating talk and I’m sure it whetted the appetite of most of us, making us determined to visit this huge country of so many contrasts.

The vote of thanks was given by Peter Fowle.

32 Present – 28 of our own members, one Rotarian Visitor, Mike Harvey from Chichester Priory, and three non-Rotarian guests, Ann Mulholland, here as chaperone to her granddaughter Hanna Mulholland and Fierenzo Pozzolo our two RYLA Candidates.

President David was absent today and I/C President Ken took the meeting.

He started off by reading out a letter from John Couch, in which he explained that he was unable to attend Rotary at present because of his low energy levels and is waiting for news of a heart valve replacement.

He hopes to be back with us in September.

It was announced that David Burchell is to go into hospital this coming Thursday to have a pacemaker fitted.

Paul Beaken rose to say a few words about the Housing Society resident’s summer lunch, being held on 5^th July between 1pm and 3pm in the rear garden of 30 Sackville Road. Tickets for this very sociable event will be £10 which includes all food and drink. An absolute bargain!!

As mentioned above, today we were visited by the two RYLA candidates who took part in the RYLA week in April.

They were Hanna Mulholland, granddaughter of your editor, and Firenzo Pozzolo, an Italian girl, who was born in Argentina.

Hanna was not in the original list of participants but one of the candidates, a pupil of Portslade Community College dropped out a couple of weeks before the event and Hanna kindly opted to take her place, not really knowing what was in store for her.

Hanna was first up today and she read out a report of her experiences throughout the week.

She was then followed by Fiorenzo who gave her impressions of the week generally.

Ray Tiltman rose at the end of the talk to make one or two observations. He told us that he attended an evening of excellence last week at PCC with a discussion about what the media thinks of the current generation of adolescents. His opinion was that the youth of today is carrying on the traditions of our own generations and that they get a very poor press.

24^th June 2008.

One visitor today, mike Harvey hear to talk about hike for hospices in august.

Presentation to amadeo on his last day servig us

28 present - 27 of our own members.

Dist council 9^th july.

Next week presidential handover. Nigel kellick speaker.

Nhs 60^th birthday 1948 480,000 hospital beds 167, 000 waiting list 167,000 beds 1.5 million waiting list.

Welcome to mike Harvey from –prsident david.

Best dressed person in room. Greetings from Chichester priory.

Reports on invalids ron knight. Asked ray tiltman said pelase do not telephone as he is not up to reporting on his illness adinfinitum.

Was due to go to martlets but he was so bad the nurses had to come to him but is hoping to go in this week.

Thanks for all our calls but please stop them.

David haycock in Neville hospital.

Mike Harvey spoke on hike for hospices.

This is second talk, the first one being on the initial walk this time last year.

We were very supporting to this event, with paul beaken actually taking parrt in the event.

40,000 pounds raised last year so hopefully there will be a lot more this year.

Gift aid money is still arriving.

Hospices are very expensive places to keep running and they only receive about 11% from government funding.

This is the first time there has been cooperation between some 25 rotary clubs to help in this venture, providing marshals, marketing, distrtibution of flyers. Hospices don’t usually work together and they are surprised that they are running something like this. Treading new ground. Ribi give awards.

Hike for hospices featured in pr trophy of ribi. Hike for hospices didn’t win it because it was not an individual club running it. They don’t give it to consortiums.

16 17^th august are dates of running.

Shortest leg is 5 miles and the longest is 42 miles, the whole walk.

Main aim is to find walkers, don’t have to walk yourself.

Marshals are needed for Saturday 16^th.for the brighton and lewes part of the walk.

Fliers have been brought along to this meeting.

May get 5t00 runners this year which means 75t000 or 80000 pounds in total.

Paul beaken reminded everyone that residents’ barbecue is 1-3pm food and drink cold collation alcohol and drinks provided by Bob and Ann Mulholland for £10.

Today was the 40 set draw two prizes one for £50 ralph Harrison. £25 won by clive chapple.

Today was the day of president david’s valedictory.

Seems only a few weeks ago that he wrote his first presidential message for the bulletin but he finds it hasn’t been too hard because of the many achievements throughout the year.

Crowning achievement was ribi president alan jaggers visit when he praised most highly our rotary housing society who praised the building work and he should know befause he is a builder.

Blatchington mill also turned out to be a great choice as motorcycle rally.

Bob hinton and yveline milner doubled the marmalade production raising money for foundation.

Bryan meakin rotary breakfast was another teruly great event with the best breakfast he had eaten in his life.

Many varied speakers speaking about things that he didn’t know existed.

Crop circles Victorian home preservation and a host of topics.

Many good contributions from our own members.

Spors programme ended with us becoming district skittle champions.

Social programme has been first class, joint presidents ladies night was superb organised by Adrian and hillary ball.

Polish trip was also a great success, his first visit finding it fascinating.

People whod been on previous trips oticed changes, read john mainwoods report.

Personal note, achievement unique – kissed twice the mayor of brighton.

Contact visit was very good joint program with other clubs in Senegal.

Lots of time spent on buses though.

Next year looking forward to visit in oxford.

One things concerned him this year with strain put on certin individuals with regard to Christmas collections and the motorcycle rally.

Please support them in better numbers next year and give plenty of notice of your support.

Fincnaial calls on clubs resources are getting no easier.

He has really enjoyed his year in office and thanked his council for their support.

No one ever said no when he asked for help.

If asked please serve a year as president because it is very enjoyable.

Thanks for support and looking forward to support president ken in his coming year.

Presidnent Ken did the vote of thanks.

Said he had a hard act to follow.