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.