President's Report, March 2006March was a great month for Rotary fellowship, which I am pleased to report our members exploited to the full. On St David’s Day we had a double fixture. Gordon Butcher took us through a journey of his Service and Print business life and ably entertained our lunchtime meeting. My abiding memories are of an avoidance of exercise and cheap rail travel !!! In the evening David Jones and his Dixieland Jazz Band were on top form at Jagz. The venue seemed to suit both the quality of the music and the general ambiance. It was a very good and full day. Superintendent Dan Hale of Thames Valley Police gave an instructive talk on Local Area Policing within the Royal Borough at The Friends Meeting on the 8th March. Dan covered a wide range of issues and also touched upon the proposed re-organization of Police Forces throughout the UK. At our lunchtime meeting on the 15th we welcomed back our antipodean traveler, Ian Valentine. Ian gave an interesting resume of his travels in New Zealand and Australia such that we virtually had a full lunchtime speaker. Ian is also to be congratulated on being in constant touch with Rotary and arranging excellent publicity for the Children’s Concerts from down below. Over the weekend 17th-19th, 21 Rotarians and partners enjoyed an excellent District Conference in Bournemouth. Beverley did a magnificent job of organizing the club’s participation and nothing was overlooked. It was the hotfoot back to the Hexagon in Reading on the 19th for the second Children’s Concert that we jointly promoted with the RC of Wokingham. This time the children were from schools in Windsor and youngsters in the age-range 7 to 9 years. They performed amazingly well. We were pleased to welcome the Mayor of the RBWM, Councillor Eric Wiles. The mayor who is a governor of one of the featured schools expressed delight at the courage of the children taking part. On 22nd our District Governor David Buckland joined our Business Meeting. David literally took the floor and presented a most impressive review of the performance of District 1090. March 24th-26th eight couples traveled to the independent province of Holland called Limburg for RC Gulpen-Vaals Spring Lentefeest. During a full programme we were entertained for dinner on the Friday (in our case over the border in Belgium), on Saturday highlights were a visit to a Mining Museum, an afternoon in Maastricht and the Lentefeest in the evening. After a mid-morning brunch it was time to return to England. Monday 27th Geoff Donovan, Myself and our wives attended RC Windsor & Eton’s opening 75th Birthday Celebrations at the Guildhall in Windsor. On Tuesday the second stage of the Wheelbarrow event featured Tom O’Connor at the Duke’s Head in Sunninghill with great humour and an auction, which raised the total from the event for the Day Centre to £5000. On Wednesday 29th we were joined by our ladies. An evening at Saville Gardens attended by 65 were informed by John Fido, chairman of The Friends of Saville Gardens on the history and future intentions for this part of the Royal Park Alan Penny |