November 2016

ROTARY CLUB OF CARLISLE

PRESIDENT David Morton

SECRETARY Mike McNally

THE BORDERER

NOTE THE BORDERER IS NOW BEING PUBLISHED IS A BETTER FORMAT - CLICK HERE TO SEE IT

NOVEMBER 2016

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Our Youth Speaks Competition was a great success. All members who attended the event were most impressed with the public speaking skills of the all the young people who took part.

It is heartening to see such talent being produced by our local schools and we send our best wishes to the winning Trinity School team for the District 1190 round of the competition.

Congratulations to Stephen and his team for organising the event.

Our Charter Night is on 30^th November. Our main speaker is now Les Armstrong MBE. Please feel free to invite potential members and use the opportunity to ‘showcase’ Rotary.

Congratulations are due to our Quiz Team who won the first round of the District Quiz. There is a report elsewhere in this edition of The Borderer

Our thanks must go to Marian and David Hoggard for organising an excellent Wine Tasting Evening – thoroughly enjoyed by all. Moral of story – put your name down early in the Blue Book!

Finally we have an appeal for members who have a vehicle suitable for towing Santa’s sleigh on two nights. Ho Ho Ho.

PRESIDENT DAVID

YOUTH SPEAKS

The 2016/17 annual Youth Speaks Competition organised by the Club was held on the evening of Wednesday 19^th October in the Auctioneer Carlisle.  Five teams competed; two from Trinity School Carlisle, two from Austin Friars Carlisle and one from Caldew School Dalston. The standard was once again extremely high and this was reflected in the judges’ comments. It was an enjoyable and entertaining evening with a wide range of topics debated.

The winning team this year was the Trinity School team comprising Cloe Telford,  Cameron Inglis and Urzula Budzynska with their chosen topic. “Could we sustain life on Mars?”. The runners up were Caldew School. The winners will go forward to the District round of the competition

A big thank you must go to all the people and organisations that ensured  that the evening ran so well and smoothly,  Nick Utting our question master again this year, Carlisle Speakers acting as our Judges for the fourth time, our time-keepers who kept their fingers on the button, and fellow Rotarians for their encouragement.

The Shepherds Inn once again did us proud with a delicious buffet.

Lastly and most importantly we must thank all the schools concerned for their continued involvement with this competition.  I know that it is a busy time for both teachers and students who are preparing for exams and their UCAS entries but hopefully they all felt the evening beneficial by gaining experience, developing skills and in confidence public speaking.

WINE TASTING

4^th November 7.00pm

We had a brilliant Fellowship & Sport social evening at David Hoggard’s house in Scotby.

The finger buffet (not a sandwich in sight!) was provided and served by Marian with the assistance of David’s lovely granddaughter Gracie.

Marian arranged the wine tasting with the help of Piers Mortimer of Corney & Barrow.

Piers produced six wines and we were invited to sample them in turn. Three different detailed descriptions were provided for each wine, two of them completely false and we all had to suggest which description waswho was the truth.  

It was an excellent evening, much enjoyed by all and many thanks must go to David Hoggard for letting us use his house and to Marian and her committee for organising it.

ROTARY NORTH WEST

From our District Governor (Reproduced verbatim)

As you probably know, District Council in September decided decisively that the District will continue to produce a hard copy magazine. Disruption to the normal distribution arrangements has led to the next issue appearing in January 2107.

So in consultation with Dave Simpson and his committee, I've decided to turn this opportunity to our advantage. The January edition of Rotary Norwest will carry all the articles already submitted, but in addition will have a new feature called "HomePage". This is a Club specific page, meaning the content will be different for each Club in the District, made possible by advances in digital printing techniques. 

Each Club is asked to submit an article and/or photos which will feature on page 3 of the mag. This is where you promote your LOCAL Club, with what you're currently doing, when and where you meet, and inviting like-minded people to join you with contact details.

The idea is that you persuade local libraries, doctors/dentists surgeries and similar to put the mag in their waiting rooms. So hopefully they'll see what Rotary is about at District level, but also, crucially, what you are doing in your local communities and how to contact you.

In addition we're incorporating QR codes so anyone with an iPhone or iTablet and the appropriate app is directed to the District website just by scanning the code.

Now for the nuts and bolts:I need your submissions by Friday 18th November. They should be around 250 words with a couple of photos.If you can't supply photos, add 200 words to the copy.Please don't embed the photos in the text - I'll just have to de-embed them - and supply captions to the photos.When naming people in photos, list them from the left, but remember that natural or action photos are much more engaging than a group shot of people.

As a further attempt to re-vitalise our communications, I want to include something from EVERY Club in the District.  So if you can't manage the stuff I've asked for above, and you haven't already submitted an article, PLEASE let me have just 100 words about what you've been doing - I promise it will get in!

I've been charged with re-invigorating the mag and I'm relying on Club Secretaries and senior officers to help make this work.  With your support we'll get there!

For information, we'll be producing the subsequent issue for distribution at the April District Council, and then hopefully we'll be back on schedule for the Rotary year 2017-18.

MOVE OVER HADRIAN

– ROBIN’S OUR NEW WALL-BUILDER

Having mastered the art, Robin will now spend the winter building a wall around the entire circumference of The Shieling to prevent Jenny and the bees from escaping. The only problem facing Robin now is to find 50 tons of stone, so any offers to the Editor please !”

Robin feels so confident in his newly found wall-building skills, that he leans against his handiwork!!
HERO RATS

Our evening Speaker for October was Tim Clarke an Ambassador for APOPO, a charity that has developed an innovative system, deploying African Giant pouched rats to detect landmines using their extraordinary sense of smell.

Innocent children and adults are injured or killed by landmines every day. Villages are cut off from basic needs such as water resources and cannot grow crops or graze livestock on productive land. Detection of these devices is difficult, dangerous, costly and time-consuming. Trained HeroRATS can quickly and accurately detect the location of landmines. APOPO’s mine-detection rats can search around 200 square meters each in 20 minutes. This would take 5 days using metal detectors.

Likewise they are also capable of detecting tuberculosis from samples and have a remarkable 100% success rate. There are approximately 8.5 million new cases of TB per year causing 1.3 million deaths. In most Sub-Saharan countries less than half of all patients are diagnosed. Left untreated, a person with active TB can infect 10-15 new people each year. The APOPO trained rats can accurately sniff out TB in human sputum samples. One HeroRAT can screen 100 samples in less than 20 minutes. This would take a lab technician more than four days.

NICK UTTING

THE DEVIL’S PORRIDGE

Tuesday 11^th October

As President Putin builds nuclear shelters in Moscow and the inhabitants rehearse mass evacuation, Sergeant Strickland prepares for any hostile eventuality in rural Yorkshire.

A small group went on a tour of the fascinating Devil’s Porridge Museum which tells the story of the vast World War I munitions factory that stretched from Gretna to Eastriggs.

The Museum detailed the life of the girls who worked there and the difficulties that led to the introduction of Carlisle’s State Management Scheme, under which all the pubs in Carlisle and Gretna were nationalised.

If you haven’t been there – go – it’s fascinating!

CHARLES DICKENS

Peter Yates gave us a fascinating insight into the life of Charles Dickens.

Born Portsmouth in 1812,  He wrote some thousands of letters and 15 novels.

Approximately 14,000 of his letters survive, so we may assume just as many have perished.

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He often complained about the number of letters he was caused to write, but it is quite evident that he enjoyed the task. It must be quite likely that (other than Copyists) he did more handwriting than anyone – and all done with a quill, the metal nib was not available until 1859, and he has been photographed toward the end of his life writing with a quill.

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His letters are informative, amusing and biographical when read in order.

DISTRICT QUIZ

The first round of the District Quiz was played against Wigton in the gloom of the Greenhill Hotel.

Our team, consisting of Brian Armstrong, Peter Tiplady, Tom Dawson and Mike McNally did their best to answer questions on a great variety of topics, including some they knew nothing about! Pop music and some aspects of sport defeated them, but having taken an early lead, which was never seriously threatened, the team eventually won by 89 points to 73.

Sandwiches and very good chips concluded the evening! Thanks to Ian Watson who acted as our scorer.

We didn't need the bribe!! The next round will be played against Cockermouth in the next 6 weeks.

SPEAKERS and PROJECTORS

The best arrangement is for speakers to bring their own laptop and projector.

BUT The Shepherd’s Inn now has a brilliant projector which is available for speakers at our meetings.

To book it, simply tell Stuart Farrer and he will liaise with Shepherd’s Inn.

Arranging a conversation between projector and laptop is a bit of a black art, but the Shepherd’s Inn projector works a treat if there is a High Definition(HDMI) socket on the laptop. The cable is supplied with the projector.

THIS WORKS A TREAT

The projector also has a VGA socket and lead. If you are using this it is better to turn on the projector first and then the computer. If you have any difficulty press the windows key and the letter ‘p’.

Apple laptops tend to have HDMI sockets, but if not use the VGA/mini display connector and press the display icon at the top of the Mac’s screen to select the projector. Moral of story keep Apple macs away from the Shepherd’s Inn projector.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

ANDREW MEGGS

President of The Rotary Club of Carlisle South

Andrew is changing his phone number so please use 01228 547444 or his mobile number 07794 777 534.

He will no longer be using his published phone number which was Carlisle 548310.

A BIT OF LIGHT RELIEF

So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?' and a voice said 'You are.'

And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him. I said 'Do you earn a living doing that?' He said 'Yes, this is my livelihood.'

I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on three counts.

I'm so lazy I've got a smoke alarm with a snooze button.

So I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said "Analogue." I said "No, just a watch."

So I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can't remember his name, it's P something T something R.

You see I'm against hunting, in fact I'm a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox.

This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, "I want you to trace someone for me."

So this lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.

So I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said "Tenpin?" I said, "No, it's a permanent job."

So I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, "Are you having me on?" I said, "Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything."

So this cowboy walks in to a German car showroom and he says "Audi!"
A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it happened, he was chuffed to bits!

I was in the army once and the Sergeant said to me: "What does surrender mean?" I said: "I give up!"

WISHING WELL

The current collection is for The Royal British Legion.

Future collections are for:

• 29 September to 16 November: Royal British Legion; Ken P & Peter Hall.
• 17 November to 4 January: Food Bank; Peter Hall & Simon.
• 5 January to 22 February: Eden Valley Hospice; Simon & Robin.
• 23 February to 5 April: Great North Air Ambulance; Robin & Michael.
• 6 April to 31 May: Jigsaw Children’s Hospice; Michael & Peter Yates. 
• 1 June to 28 June: The Lanes charity ‘One Great Day’: Peter Yates & Ken Dewar.
• 29 June to 9 August 2017: Carlisle Key: Ken D & Joe.  

Membership Challenge

There are now only three weeks to Charter Night and seven weeks to Christmas, that leaves only twenty three weeks to the end of this Rotary Year. Who will be first to complete the challenge and who will be last and who won't complete it at all. Please do not forget to invite you guest to sign the visitor's book.

A good way to introduce a person to Rotary is to invite them to Charter Night together with their respective partner so that each has an insight to Rotary.

 Good Luck.

PICTURE QUIZ

THE ANSWER

As several members spotted this box is part of the bandstand at the side of Carlisle’s Old Town Hall.

But the essential part of the answer is the purpose of the box.

The answer is that the box covers a towing hitch….as, presumably to get round planning restrictions, the bandstand must be on wheels so it qualifies as a temporary building which can be moved to other sites!!

There were no correct answers, so the virtual hat was unused and the bottle of wine undrunk.

THIS MONTH’S PICTURE QUIZ

The question is:

Who would not have this in his bathroom at home?  

All correct answers received by 1^st December by Donald or David will be put into the virtual hat and the first one drawn will receive an as yet unspecified prize.     

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

CHARTER NIGHT

Wednesday 30^th November 7.00 for 7.30pm

Charter Night is the highlight of any Rotary Club’s Social Calendar, and is, in effect a Birthday Celebration of another successful year since the Club’s Charter (formation) date.

This is our 94^rd Charter Night. A lot has happened since 1923.

Our principal speaker will be Les Armstrong MBE, from Kirkoswald who often features on TV and press with Assistant District Governor Wendy Aldred replying to the toast to RI, Rotary GB&I & District 1190.

Dress Formal. The menu to be similar to last year, tomato & basil soup or smoked salmon & prawn salad, followed by baron of beef in sauce plus vegetables with a vegetarian option and for desert an assiette of sweets, with coffee or tea to accompany the cheese board!  All this for £25.00.

We will have tables of eight. If you wish to arrange a table for you and your guests please get in touch with Ian Watson.

Cost £25 - It would be gratefully appreciated if members could pay Ian before the night. Please make cheques payable to the Rotary Club of Carlisle and give them to Ian Watson.

DID YOU KNOW… A Baron of Beef is alleged to have originated when Henry VIII was served a spit roasted double sirloin of beef and was so taken by the roast that he dubbed it Sir Loin, the Baron of Beef

Wednesday 14^th December

CHRISTMAS LUNCH

Council have decided that wine will be provided as part of the cost of the meal.

Thoughts for the month

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

 William Makepeace Thackeray

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

 Edith Wharton

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

W. Jackson Brown Jr

30 years ago this year the M 25 was opened completely.

RECEPTION DESK FOR CLUB MEETINGS:

November  2              Peter Yates

                9              Ellis Amos

                16             Ian Watson

                23             Brian Edmundson

                30            

December  7              Peter Atkinson

                14             John Churchill

January     4             

                11            

                18            

                25            

February    1             

                8             

                15            

                22            

March        1             

                8             

                15            

                22            

                29            

Rotary Club of Carlisle Events

Club Council Meetings

Club Meetings Programme

FURTHER READING

Rotary GB&I NEWSLETTERS

If you want to read Rotary GB&I Newsletters, please click this link:

http://www.ribi.org/updates/members-newsletter