President Colin’s 1st Quarter Report, July-September 2009In July this year, it was both with pleasure and some apprehension that following the club's celebration of its 60th anniversary; I started my second term of office, representing this club as their president. Since then, I have represented the club at a number of district events, I have also had the pleasure of attending various meetings with other clubs, including a joint meeting at the Windlesham Golf Club, with both the 41 club and Round Table, who together with a number of members from this and other clubs, enjoyed a very informative and enlightening dinner talk with Adam Afriyie, the M.P. for Windsor & Maidenhead. I have also had the pleasure of recently attending an evening with the Easthampstead club, when a number of other clubs representatives and myself, met with the R.I.B.I president David Fowler, who gave a humorous after dinner talk. As I stated above, I looked forward with pleasure to being your club president, not least for the invitation I had received from the Inner Wheel President Pam, to join her and the ladies of the Inner Wheel club and their friends, to a garden party held at the home of Sue and Mike Price. As expected, this proved to be a most enjoyable afternoon, despite the inclement weather, which had threatened the day. Likewise, on behalf of their partners, I would also like to thank the ladies of the Inner Wheel, for inviting us to their Progressive Supper, this for me, and I know that I am also speaking for all those who attended, is one of the more enjoyable events of the year, long may it continue. In addition to these outside events, we have also had the pleasure of entertaining our District Governor Terry Kenyon to dinner on the 23rd September, this was most enjoyable, especially with the light-hearted rally to the rotary theme of her after dinner talk. During the past three months, we have a number of club events; firstly we had a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon B.B.Q. at the Cynthia and Nigel’s. We have also had the Golf Day at Chobham G.C., this achieved in excess of £9K for charity. Again I wish to thank both Geoff and Ann Cook, together with all those who assisted with the event, for all the efforts that were put into making the day a great success. Since the start of my year, I have been pleased to welcome Moya Harvey as a member of this club, Moya has been a Rotarian for approx 10 years, and is currently an A.D.G.. Since joining, she has at my request, taken on the roll of attendance officer and speaker finder. However, whilst I consider that this has brought new life into the club, it is sad to note that, despite the majority of the membership accepting the fact, there are a number who are still reluctant to accept that the club is now duel gender. Therefore, I say to those members, ‘it’s time to build bridges and move on’ for the sake of the harmony of the club. You will also be pleased to know that, we have a possibility of between three and six new members who have indicated degrees of interest in joining the club, whilst two of these are transfers from other clubs, there are a number of others nurtured by members and through other contacts. There is however a sadder note to this report, this being the resignation of three members, two of which were long standing members, namely Peter Short and Bill Sheppard, both of which have contributed greatly to the club during their membership. I can truly say that, on behalf of us all, they will be sorely missed, not only as members of the club but also as friends to us all, however you will be pleased to know that I have given them both an open invitation to join us at any time in the future, if they so wish. Finally, I turn to the District conference next year. I am sad to see that there will only three couples from Ascot going to Eastbourne, all I can say to those who are not going, you will be missing a great event. On another point however, it has been noted that there has been some criticism of my relaxed approach to the presidency., To those I would say, if they had been to District and other club meetings as I have, they would have become aware of the RIBI-led trend, endorsed by our District, to move away from the stuffy chain wearing image of Rotary as perceived by the public. This is why I have adopted a more relaxed atmosphere within our club. Colin Corio |