VISIT OF R.I.B.I. PRESIDENT IAN THOMSON

At a special luncheon meeting hosted by the Matlock Rotary Club on 14^th July at the Temple Hotel, Matlock Bath, members of the Bakewell, Matlock and Wirksworth Rotary Clubs welcomed R.I.B.I. President Ian Thomson and his wife, Joan, accompanied by District Governor Lionel Howard and his wife, Shelagh. 

President Ian addressed the meeting and after a light-hearted introduction, turned to some of the more serious problems facing Rotary.  His priority is to see a reversal in the fall in membership numbers to ensure that Rotary Foundation is able to maintain its leadership in local and world community service.  Thanks to a £100m dollars donation to the Foundation, by Bill Gates and his wife, Ian was confident that the world-wide eradication of polio through the Polio Plus campaign would soon be complete. (Our Club hopes that the Foundation will then accept our proposal to turn its attention to the similar eradication of TB).  We should expect to see some re-organisation within the movement to bring it into tune with our world today.  On publicity, he was of the opinion that most Clubs do not do enough to tell people about Rotary service.  This year’s theme was to “Make Things Real” for the children of the world. 

After the meeting the party were taken up the Cable Car to visit the Heights of Abraham, courtesy of our hon. member Andrew Pugh.

 Rotary District 1220 DG Lionel Howard, RIBI National President Ian Thomson, Matlock President Andrew Hodkin

IAN GARRITY REACHES 30 YEARS OF ROTARY MEMBERSHIP

Matlock President Andrew Hodkin and RIBI President Ian Thompson congratulated Ian Garritty on his reaching 30 years of Rotary membership.  Well done Ian !!

 RIBI National President Ian Thomson & PP Ian Garritty celebrate Ian’s 30^th year in Rotary

 PECULIAR 3 PEAKS CHALLENGE WALK

President Andy, Past President Simon, Jonathan Short and Peter Wigglesworth,  took on the challenge of the Yorkshire 3 peaks walk on July 11th, and boy was it a challenge.

Arriving in good spirits on Thursday night and assured by the camp site owner that it would not rain., Simon decided to sleep outside in a bivi bag, while the others camped. Needless to say, it poured down during the night, and in the morning Simon was found asleep in his car.  Peter awoke feeling a bit peculiar, having drunk too much Theakstones the night before.

Setting off in high spirits our group got lost very quickly when it began to rain heavily.

On descending from Pen- y- Ghent they had to cross a stream which was now swollen to a small river of considerable depth and strength of flow. It took half an hour to decide where to cross and only just managed to wade through fully clothed. Jonathan had a bright idea of throwing his rucksack across the water but his throw wasn’t good enough due to cold fingers. His rucksack landed in the water and was swept downstream at great pace. Simon asked if his wallet was in the rucksack, Jonathan said yes and ran after it like Lynford Christie. No one has ever seen a Rotary member sprint so fast. After wading into the water again, and getting a good soaking, he managed to retrieve his rucksack several hundred yards downstream.

We were only 4 miles into our walk and soaked wet through.  “It’s getting brighter” was our catch phrase and it did for about an hour but the rest of the time it rained, for 11 hours.

The team managed to get back to the café within the required 12 hours, posting a time of about 10 hours 55minutes, for a distance of 25 miles, which for the conditions was good. Rumour has it they enjoyed bits of the walk and altogether will have raised about £500 to the Tansley Riding Centre for Disabled People.  A very good start to the President’s year.

ANDREW TAKES THE HELM

Paul Fryer reviewed the highs and lows of his year of Office as president and thanked the members for their support.  He appealed for members to give the same support to incoming president Andrew Hodkin, wishing him well as he invested him with the Presidential Jewel. Simon Brister formally thanked Paul on behalf of the members and congratulated Paul on a successful year and his conduct of the Club.

Andrew welcomed and introduced his new team of Officers and reminded us of the Club’s aims and projects for the coming year as agreed at Club Assembly, and stated his personal preferences for his year of Office with the accent on fun and fellowship and some new, younger members.  

New team JVP Bill Darley, with President Andrew Hodkin and SVP Albert Ripamonti - "Having Fun"