Bulletin April 2014

The Rotary Club of HavantThe Rotary Club of Havant

Havant club President: Stan Pike, in District 1110 Rotary Wessex. Club number 856 of RIBI. http://www.havantrotaryclub.org.uk

Publicising the cause: Our End Polio Now meeting at Havant Council Chamber

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However, it has been noted that on average only 30 members attend such evenings. It will be interesting to see the results of the questionnaire Sadly, despite being given out individually-named envelopes, only three-quarters of members responded. The results are now being collated. A day was spent at the Meridian Centre promoting Rotary and selling cro-cuses to help fund Polio eradication. This was followed by an excellent evening at the council’s Plaza, once more focusing on polio eradication. It was very well organized by Viv Williams with the support of other Rotarians. Niall Fry was a superb speaker and it was good to see members of other local Rotary clubs in attendance. My thanks go to Bill Taylor for supporting Mollie Geden at the District Young Chef final in Bournemouth. He was told that Mollie’s confidence had greatly increased thanks to this competition. Alan arranged a very enjoy-able gourmet evening at South Downs College. The following day four Ro-tarians helped with prefect interviews at Hayling College. Five club members attended District Council in Romsey. A few days later six Rotarians visited Angel Radio. The following weekend eight Rotarians competed in the Waterlooville Rotary Quiz. It was disappointing that our quiz was cancelled because of lack of entries. Do we try again next year? I had the pleasure in presenting a cheque for £500 to Jan Treacher-Evans of the Red Cross after she spoke to the club explaining number of initia-tives for young people in the community. I also presented a cheque for £200 to Ruth Guy from Mercy Ships – what a fantastic charity! The Dick Stacey bequest of £2,500 has been exercising our minds. Commit-tees have come forward with proposals as to how various amounts of money can be wisely used supporting various causes. We are determined that the bequest should be used as soon as possible. To aid the process Colin is drawing together a proposed shopping list allied to funds available. This will be brought to the next Business Meeting for members to decide upon. Stan Pike

From the President By the time you read this edition of the Bulletin I will be three-quarters of the way through my Presidential year. How time flies when you are part of such an ac-tive club. It is reassuring for the long-term wellbeing of the club that two new members have recently been inducted. Once more I would like to touch on the many activi-ties that we have been involved in. I found the Family and Friends evening at the Brook-field Hotel to be very pleasant with good company and an entertaining speaker.

Havant Rotary Bulletin is sponsored by Park Community Enterprises (see ad p12)

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Foundation

Our evening to raise awareness of Ro-tary’s End Polio Now with a top-line speaker was a great success, raising at least £6,000 which will be tripled. About 200 people attended the event, held in conjunction with the United Na-tions Association and neighbouring Ro-tary clubs at Havant Council Chamber and the adjoining Hollybank room. This will be augmented by Gift Aid and £1,000, part of the bequest received by our club from former member Dick Sta-cey. The total will be doubled by Rotary International, and doubled again by the Bill Gates Charity. Our speaker was Niall Fry, a member of the independent monitoring board of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) polio eradication programme. Niall gave a very interesting and informative presentation supported by illustrations with facts on the Polio Immunisation pro-ject, showing how close the campaign is to success, yet which is so fragile. It was proving difficult, however, to completely eradicate the disease in

Afghanistan, North Nigeria and Pakistan, and Syria, where efforts were hampered by conflict, religion and geography. The audience in the packed chamber included representatives of local organi-sations and businesses, who received drinks and nibbles on arrival, and coffee afterwards. Thank you to Rotarians who helped with the catering, hosting etc. We must also acknowledge the support and help given to us by council staff. Most impor-tantly, thanks to Viv, whose inspiration it was to have such an event and who drove the whole project. The previous week the club had a stand in Havant’s Meridian Centre with various members promoting the virtues of Ro-tary. We had bookmarks and a promo-tional explanatory information sheet to give away. At the same time we pushed End Polio Now and sold the mo-tif crocus. The event was useful if not entirely the success that we were looking for.

Robert Winnicott

Polio project wins support

End Polio Now: Viv Williams talks to the audience in the Council Chamber

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Vocational visit

Angel Radio has unique record

Stan Pike, Mike Coombe, David Walters, Colin Hunt, Gerry and I were welcomed by the founder Tony Smith, who gave us coffee and an extraordinary insight into the world of a unique listening experi-ence for older people. Inside the converted shop at 17 Market Parade are crammed three tiny studios, a reception area and bookcase upon bookcase of rows of tapes and records of music dating from 1900 to 1959. An-gel Radio aims at an audience aged 60+ and is the only radio station in the UK with this target audience. As Tony Smith explained, the pro-grammes are designed to entertain, stimulate and inform older people from all walks of life and a recent survey indi-cated over 80,000 people regularly tune in, with 13per cent of the audience leaving their radios on 24/7. Tony told us that since February 2002 Angel Radio had provided a full radio service 24 hours per day seven days a week ,with uplifting nostalgic entertain-ment in the form of music, humour and

memories from the years 1900 to 1959, together with current information re-garding health, diet, pensions, etc. It created a sense of self-worth for staff and audience and gave a voice to a section of the community who were often segregated and generally under-valued and underserved by the media. Currently Angel Radio has a 70+ strong team of producers, presenters, editors, receptionists, managerial and finance staff. The volunteers work various shifts with some recording programmes to be broadcast through the night. We were shown the studios where banks of equipment were used to record the music on to computers and where pre-senters interviewed people separately. I asked Tony if he had been trained to use all the various types of equipment and he said that he was originally an electrician and had picked up radio equipment experience as he went along, only occasionally having to call on outside repair work. He explained that they also offered

Vocational visit: Members and Angel Radio hosts

work experience placements to school and college students and currently had a 15 year old, who enjoyed her placement so much, she was now a regular volunteer. Funding for Angel Radio comes from various sources, originally from a small Lottery grant, local businesses, local council grants and donations from listeners. Thanks Gerry for a great visit you arranged. Christine Hogben

Angel Radio is on 101.1FM

Deep in the heart of Havant lies a free public service gem, Angel Radio, and five mem-bers recently joined Gerry Model there on one of his interesting vocational visits.

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Accent on youth

Richard presents a cheque to Nita Usai of Chaos

Cheque presented Richard Galloway presented a cheque to Chaos, a local group lead by parents which looks after teenagers with learning difficul-ties and their families. The group had just started cook-ing classes run by Havant Inner Wheel Club’s Tessa Smith and needed a bespoke food cabinet. We were happy to finance this project. Leader Nita Usai recently at-tended a club meeting to de-scribe the work of her group and the challenges they faced and had overcome. Bill Taylor

Mollie now set on catering career

Young chef Mollie Gedden

Mollie Geden, a Year 9 pupil at Hayling College, ac-quitted herself well at the District Final of Young Chef in Bournemouth. Sponsored by our club, she had been the runner-up in the previous Group 7 round of the national competi-tion. This time she was among 14 contestants who cooked three courses for the judges while parents and teachers waited nervously for the verdicts at the end of the morning. The standard of cooking from all the contestants was remarkably high. The judges, along with the Lord Lieu-tenant of Dorset, the Mayor of Bournemouth and our District Governor John Ede clearly enjoyed and ad-mired the skills on show. Mollie didn’t win but she was certainly not overawed by her older competitors. She was presented with her certificate by the Lord Lieutenant. Mollie now wishes to pursue a career in catering and her teacher reported how Mollie’s self-esteem and confidence have been boosted by taking part in Young Chef. Bill Taylor, Chairman, Youth Committee

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The results of their la-bours were much en-joyed by the diners. The menu included dishes like Warm Medi-terranean salad with braised fennel and house smoked fish cake; Char grilled guinea fowl marinated with orange and lemon, gratin potato and seasonal vegeta-bles; and Vanilla panna cotta with poached Wil-liams pear and polenta biscuit. To finish there was fresh brewed coffee and petit fours.

Fine dining

A delicious menu awaited a party of members and guests as they arrived at South Downs Col-lege ion Wednesday, February 26, for a Gourmet Evening cooked and served by catering students. The head chef for the evening, student Jade Marie Curtis had taken charge of the whole team.

Gourmet dinner was prepared by students

Good fellowship: Pictured top right are Mike Coombe talking to head chef Jade Marie Curtis. Above, Richard Galloway, President Stan Pike, and Roxane Heath, be-low, Ken Leyton, organiser Alan Davies, Jenny Leyton, and Barbara Davies; bottom, Chris Fuller, Sue Kent, Don Kent, Valerie and Mike Coombe

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Fine dining: Pictured above are John Baker, Robert Winnicott, Jan and Derek Holmes, and Rosemary Baker. Left, Trevor Nightingale, Pe-ter and Shirley Varnish, Dave Harvey, and Sue Nightingale. Below, Jackie Branson, Audrey Cox, Mike Sellis and Mike and Mo Valentine,

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Spotlight on the young

A cheque for £,2,000, more than half the proceeds from our Golf Day in Septem-ber, were presented to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance volunteer Pam Gully, when she spoke to the club in February. The local air ambulance service began operations on July 1, 2007. So far its helicopter has flown 5,000 missions, 131 of them this year. The helicopter is based at Thruxton Air-field near Andover and head office is in Southampton. Every day the crew pro-vides an efficient, prompt response to road traffic collisions, sporting acci-dents, collapses, and many other inci-dents throughout the area. Many of these missions are life saving. The aim of the service, reveals its web-site, is to provide an exemplary Air Am-bulance service to the people of Hamp-shire and the Isle of Wight, conveying patients to the most appropriate hospital for their needs. However it needs volun-tary donations to keep it flying. The helicopter used at present is a seven year old Eurocopter EC 135. Al-though it is slightly larger than its prede-cessor the Bolkow 105, the EC 135 can still land in an area only the size of a tennis court. It also has skids, which are ideal for the varied terrain in which it works.

It has a larger cabin layout, which is better for the paramedics as they have more room to work on the patient in flight, should this be necessary. In addition it has an extra seat so it can carry three or four crew members and so not only can a doctor fly with two paramedics, but sometimes a family member can travel with the patient. Loading for the EC 135 is from the side – unlike the Bolkow which could only load through the clamshell doors at the back – and is much better for the crew, and far less stressful for the patient.

Waiting game at the District PHF lunch

Golf day funds presented

Welcome funds: Volunteer Pam Gully receives a cheque for £2,000 on behalf of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Air Ambulance from our

President Stan Pike

It took a long time to be served when a small group of Havant Rotary’s Paul Har-ris Fellows went to Oakdene Forest Park at St Leonards, near Ringwood, for the District’s PHF lunch in March. The group comprising Derek and Jan, Eve and Chris and Jenny and Mike, sat

down to eat at 1 pm and their turn to visit the carvery arrived at 2.15pm. A further seven out of the total of 20 tables were still waiting. The speaker was Peace Scholar Sharon Edington who had to rush her talk in order to catch her train. The best laid plans ... Eve Fuller

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International

You may remember that we have agreed to contribute funds to the District Sand Dams Project. Articles in our last Bulletin and the recently-published Rotary Wessex, pages 10-11, explain the project. I am pleased to say that, whereas at the time of the last International meeting there were only eight clubs in our district contributing to the project, the number has now grown to 13 clubs. The District sand dam co-ordinator Allan Smith is hoping for a District Grant and a Global Grant to increase the value of the contributions. Shirley Varnish,

Chairman, International Committee

Thanks to our generosity, we can now see her writing well with her feet and not missing out on her schooling. Furthermore, while she is at school her mother is now learning to sew on her machine so that she is in a position to earn an income. We should be im-mensely proud of our contribution to the well-being of a seriously desperate fam-

ily in this community. In the other photo we can see Pomaya furthering her training in a medical ward in Pokhara. Pomaya is the school teacher from a very remote area in Ne-pal for whom we paid all the training and maintenance fees so that she can become the (only) medically trained person in the region.

I am delighted to report that, as always, we have some excellent feedback from our projects overseas. There is a really encouraging photo-graph of Pabita (left), the little girl born without arms in Nepal, who was in real danger of becoming a poor outcast completely missing out on an education.

Our projects in Nepal are rewarding

In training: Pomaya in the medical ward

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Accent on the club What will the club look like in five year’s time? Will it still exist or will it diminish as the present mem-bership gets longer in the tooth?

Night out: Members enjoy the March Fifth Monday meeting at Emsworth Sailing Club

The outgoing club secretary will be compiling and producing the next edi-tion of the club handbook. Members’ current details will be circu-lated at the business meeting on Mon-day, May 19. Please check your full details and let the

secretary know of any errors or omis-sions, or if you have any changes to ad-dresses, emails, etc.Those members not at meetings will be emailed with their details for checking. The information is needed in good time for the production of the booklet. Chris Fuller

The District is offering clubs the chance of a three-and-a-half hour session for members to come to a consensus on establishing a vision and planning how to get there. Topics to be considered include: what do we stand for in the community; club size and attributes; all five avenues of service – club, community, international, vocational and youth; Foundation activ-ity; and public image. The District’s team of trained facilitators aim to be impartial guides. They want the majority of members to be in atten-dance at the session and they should be

committed to taking part and have open minds to “dream grand dreams.” However, the District gives the assur-ance: “It is really worth the effort and the time. “There are five main planning questions to be considered: Who are we? Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? How will we know when we’ve arrived? “Your vision then becomes the focus for the club’s long-term (or five year) plan and you can then decide upon the ac-tions you need to take to implement your plan.” Caroline Millman

Did you know?

Club Directory and Handbook 2014/15

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Communications

Mercy ship is a lifesaver

Day out at Paultons Park comes round

care, offering training and advice, ma-terials and hands-on assistance. The focus is on conditions which are treatable or preventable in developed countries, but often left untreated in the poorest parts of the world leading to permanent disability and rejection. Work carried out along the African coast in-cludes eye surgery, dentistry and preg-nancy-related disabilities. All this trea-ment is unaffordable for the majority of

the population. Facilities include five operating theatres, an 82-patient ward, and accommoda-tion for 450 crew members. The only paid employee is the captain – a peppercorn sum which has to be used to purchase items in the ship’s shop – to meet legal requirements. At the end of the talk a cheque for £200 was presented from the club to Mrs Guy by club President Stan Pike.

A moving talk was given to the club recently by Ruth Guy, a trus-tee of Mercy Ships UK. The organisation is part of a global network of offices whose mission is to raise awareness and support for the work of Mercy Ships through fundraising, volunteer recruitment and the procurement of materials and services. The focus of the talk was Africa Mercy, a floating hospital con-verted from a retired Danish Ferry, which provides free surgery and medical care up and down the West coast of the continent, and works in partnership with local communities to improve health

Kids Out Day, at Paulton’s Park is on Wednesday, June 11. The club will, as usual be taking a party from Glenwood School, Emsworth, to join the fun, organised by the District Our group, financed with a club contri-bution of £275, plus the coach costs, T-shirts and baseball hats, will be seen off by the Mayor of Havant, and accompa-

nied by Rotarians and helpers. Last year 1,319 special needs children were treated to this day out, part of a national event, and, together with teachers, carers and Rotarians, the Dis-trict party totalled 2,432.

Presentation: Ruth Guy of Mercy Ships receives a cheque from President Stan Pike

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Diary, cashiers and hosts APRIL 5 Rotary Know Your Blood Pressure Day. 7 Club meeting. Speaker: club member Colin Bostock. Host: Ponsonby. Cashiers: Rasheed and Roberts. 8 Club Board meeting, The Brookfield Hotel, Emsworth, 7pm. 14 Club meeting. Business and AGM. Host: Swinton J. Cashiers: Taylor and Valentine. 21 Bank Holiday. No meeting. 23 St George’s Day Parade, Emsworth. 28 Club meeting. Speaker: Dr Richard Austin, AONB manager, Chichester. Harbour Conservancy. Host: Varnish. Cashiers: Williams and Winnicott. MAY 5 Bank Holiday. No meeting 12 Host: Anderson. Speaker: Club member Jackie Branson on “A look at

Europe.” Host: Anderson. Cashiers: Blake and Branson. 19 Business meeting: Host: Clear. Cashiers: Coombe and Chawner. 26 Bank Holiday: No meeting. 27 Skittles v Inner Wheel, British Legion Club, Hayling Island. JUNE 2 Club meeting. Host: Cox. Cashiers: Cope and Cullen. 9 Club meeting: Host: Davies. Cashiers: Edgell and Fuller E. 10 Club Board meeting. The Brookfield Hotel, Emsworth, 7pm. 11 Kids Out Day, Paulton’s Park. 16 Club business meeting. Food Bank collection. Host: Galloway. Cashiers: Harvey and Heath. 17 Incoming Club Council meeting, The Brookfield Hotel, Emsworth, 7pm. 23 Club Assembly. Host: Hogben. Cashiers: Hogg and Hooper. 30 Fifth Monday and Presidents’ Handover. Langstone Hotel, 7pm. Host: Holmes. Cashiers: Moore and Isaac.

Deadline for next issue: Friday, May 30