Billy McWatters: Will Roberts Mt Kilimanjaro trek in support of Motor Neurone Disease

Thu, Apr 27th 2017 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Weekly meeting with guest speaker.


Rotary Vice President Scott Elliot welcomed members to last week's meeting of the club to hear Wing Commander(Retired) of the RAF Will Roberts, OBE, Cavers, Hawick, give an excellent illustrated talk on his ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa in September, 2015 which he achieved to raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Charity which claimed his wife Ellie 5 years before.  He was one of a group of 28, which included 6 family members, and 22 made it to the top the remainder having to retire suffering from altitude sickness.  The party ranged in age from 19 years to Will being the senior member at 71.  They did the trip through Really Wild Challenges Ltd and they provided equipment such as tents and kitchens and also porters who erected each camp in advance for them arriving over the 35 mile climb to the peak at a height of 19,341 feet above sea level all accomplished over 6 nights.  The cost was £4,100 for each member and the group raised a total of £192,500 of which £11,700 was his sponsorship contribution.  It entailed 6 months of intensive training beforehand and he trained with Teviothead Walking Group along with solo regular walks to the top of Ruberslaw from his house which he eventually achieved in 1 hour and 5 minutes.  He showed some stupendous photographs of the scenery which he took during the trek.
He touched on his service in the RAF and he had 2,500 hours of flying in Phantom jets and made 140 deck landings on HMS Hermes and saw service in the Middle East, Far East and Australia as well as active service in the Falklands War and Saudi Arabia where he commanded  RAF Tornados in No Fly Zone Operations.
He is booked to do a similar trek in September this year with most of the same group to Machu Picchu, Peru, again to raise funds for the MND Appeal, a charity close to his heart as it claimed his wife and hopes to raise £5,000.  MND is a certain killer and there is no known cure and donations can be made through www.justgiving.com/fundraising/WillRoberts-MachuPicchu-2017.
After an emotive and interesting talk followed by questions Ron Sutherland gave the club's vote of thanks.
The Rotary Club are holding a coffee morning on Saturday, 20th May from 10a.m. to 12 noon in Trinity Church Hall in aid of East African Famine Appeal and tickets £2 are available from any Rotarian or pay at the door.

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2019-20 President Linden Warburton and Treasurer Scott Elliot (centre) meet with Polysport representatives Libby Kennedy (right) and Greg Cuthbert (left)

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