Digital Bulletin No 89

November 2025

Panel showing our Club's name, Graham's name as our President and the 2025-26 Rotary theme.

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November 2025

From the editor’s desk

My apologies. As members will know, a fall in early October put me out of action for a few weeks. For a while Pat and our daughter even insisted that I did not leave the house without an escort. Hence there was no Bulletin in October, so this one covers two months. My thanks to everyone who has continued to supply me with material. The next Bulletin will be our December issue. I aim to follow our usual practice and include Christmas greetings from members who have opted to do that instead of sending Christmas cards to everyone. I hope to circulate a list and an envelope for donations at one or more of our physical meetings in November. If you are going to miss those, please transfer the suggested donation of £10 to the Club account using the reference “Xmas greetings” and let me know when you have done so.

Right, now let me sort my notes out and get on with producing this month’s Bulletin….

Words from the President

September 4

Nine members took part in this meeting on Zoom. Two others tried to join but were for some reason unable to do so. The following points were noted:

We have venues booked for the formal meetings up to 18 December. We will consider possible alternatives to the Ivy Hill Hotel. Suggestions from members are welcome.
As in past years, we will hold a jumble sale on 22 November, organise the local heats of Rotary Young Musician, distribute crocus corms to participating local primary schools and take part in Writtle Church’s Christmas Tree Festival. Francis Whitbread will take the lead on the jumble sale, Janice Goodman on Young Musician and Angela Dickman on crocus corms.
Peter Kemp is in touch with Farleigh Hospice with a view to siting the memorial bench to George Harris there.

The Club Council has decided against joining Sanctus’s Centurion Club but we will be proceeding with the application to join Chelmsford CVS and see if we can do more to help the Wilderness Foundation UK.

September 11

On 11 September our speaker was our own David Axon who gave us a talk titled “That’s Entertainment (Part 1)”. David referred back to 1966 when, having just left university, he worked for British Rail as an engineer and was located in Manchester. Employees of BR received various travel concessions. On 18 April 1966 the main line between Manchester and London was completed, which meant the journey was reduced to 2 hours 40 minutes and for David relatively cheap travel.

He recounted that after work he and his pals would travel to London, enjoy an evening frequenting clubs and entertainment followed by a curry at an Indian restaurant. They could then travel back to Manchester on a late train, sleep, shower and have breakfast at the local YMCA and then go back to work, albeit wearing the same clothes as the previous day! David gave us an insight to some of his entertaining activities and exploits in London.

September 25

Entrance to Westminster Underground Sation At lunch on 25 September we were entertained by Peter Kemp and Keith Dabbs who delivered “That’s Entertainment, Part 2”. Peter referred back to the 1980s when he was working in public health and entertainment for Westminster City Council. Part of his role was to ensure individuals and establishments were conforming to the conditions of their licence and Peter outlined various examples of cases with which he was involved. These ranged from a hypnotist show at a theatre, suspected food poisoning at a Japanese restaurant and illegal street trading where hygiene standards were not met. He also worked undercover at various less salubrious premises in the Soho area where he observed illegal and immoral practices and undertook appropriate prosecutions.

Keith, on the other hand, talked about his visits to various theatres as a member of the audience. He highlighted one particular show at a theatre in York where Ken Dodd was the entertainer and how he cleverly included members of the audience in his jokes. He also mentioned various theatres he attended, where some artists and plays went on to greater success and others fell by the wayside. Keith spoke about his love of jazz and the various interesting and influential musicians he had seen perform.

“That’s Entertainment, Parts 1 and 2” proved to be interesting, informative and entertaining talks by David, Peter and Keith.

October 16

The meeting on 2 October was online. We had no meeting the following week so we could join in the Joint Clubs’ Meeting organised by the Rotary Club of Chelmsford Mildmay. This was therefore our first physical meeting of the month. Five members together with our prospective member Warwick Aldham met at the Ingatestone Saddlery. We had a reserved table in The Snug area in the Paddock Café. It was the first time we had met in that location and those present considered the room ideal for an informal meeting and it could comfortably seat 12 or more members. Food was good and reasonably priced. The general opinion was that the Ingatestone Saddlery was easily accessible, had a large car park and besides the café there was an opportunity to shop for clothes and many other pet and household items in the adjoining store. We look forward to visiting again.

October 23

On 23 October we were delighted to welcome back Abbie Freeman from Kidney Research UK as our guest speaker. Abbie spoke about various fund-raising initiatives which brought people together to support kidney research.

But the main purpose of her talk was to inform members present how the money raised was spent.

One piece of research in Oxfordshire related to the formation of kidney stones. Professor Sarah Howles had looked at the DNA of 11,000 people who had suffered with kidney stones, comparing calcium and phosphate levels in blood. Someone holding his painful back Dr M Mehta was researching kidney transplants where there had been rejection and the immune system not recognising the new kidney. The research involved looking at different medications and treatments to reduce inflammation to the donor kidney. Dr Sarah Hosgood was researching changing blood groups to make transplants more accessible to a wider group. Finally, Dr. Karen Nagalingham in Hertfordshire was addressing mental health issues associated with kidney disease.

It was an interesting talk to inform us how the money raised by the charity was used.

October 30

Our meeting on 30 October was an evening event held at Little Channels. We had invited members from other Chelmsford Clubs, including Shenfield who had now joined the Chelmsford group. Forty guests attended a very enjoyable evening and thanks go to Keith Otter and David Axon who took care of all the administration. At the suggestion of Anne, collection boxes were available for guests to contribute towards a Shelterbox for Jamaica. A total of £113 was raised, which is enhanced to £141.25 by Gift Aid.

Our guest speaker was Armin Mahboobi, himself a Rotarian in London and a former member of London Toastmasters. His talk was about public speaking and he exampled a number of tools to enhance our effective speaking in public.

Using the expertise of Winston Churchill and Steve Jobs he talked about the rhetoric triangle of authoritative speaking (ethos), the use of reason (logos) and creating emotion (Pathos). It was an interesting talk and gave us all food for thought in how we may present ourselves in the future.

Friendly rivalry

An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet, when suddenly a Eurofighter with a Tempo Mach 2 appears.

Fighter jet climbing The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: “Airbus, boring flight isn’t it? Now have a look here!”

He rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, and then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks: “Well, how was that?”

The Airbus pilot answers: “Very impressive, but watch this!”

An airbus The jet pilot watches the Airbus, but nothing happens. It continues to fly straight, at the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, “Well, how was that?”

Confused, the jet pilot asks, “What did you do?”

The Airbus pilot laughs and says: “I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the toilet, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate fudge pastry.”

The moral of the story is...........!!

When you’re young, speed and adrenaline seems to be great. But as you get older and wiser, you learn that comfort and peace are more important.

This is called S.O.S.: Slower, Older and Smarter.

Corm delivery

A grey-haired lady taking a box from the boot of a red car Many thanks to Geoff and Angela Dickman for again overseeing the delivery of purple crocus corms to some of our local primary schools. (For the avoidance of doubt, it is not the corms that are purple but the resulting flowers!)

We have been doing this in recent years as a way of getting primary school children and their families interested both in nature and in the worldwide fight against polio, which Rotary has supported for a long time now. With their corms the children receive a Club leaflet explaining the fight against polio.

That fight has been very successful. Many of us are old enough to remember that, when we were children, we would occasionally see other children wearing leg irons because they were suffering from this terrible disease. Some of us may even remember meeting adults who had been crippled by polio. Thousands were affected.

At the last count there had been just 28 cases this year, in two countries. Both countries have seen conflicts, making it difficult for those administering the vaccine to reach vulnerable children. Whilst the tremendous reduction in the number infected since the eradication campaign began is something to be celebrated, sadly the number of cases has increased since last year.

The world won’t be completely free of the scourge of polio until the disease has been eradicated entirely. We need to keep supporting the continuing fight - and tell others about it.

Watch for purple crocuses appearing in gardens around the country - and in the hedgerows.

Wilderness quiz

Flyer for the quiz

Our Club will be organising this quiz as usual to support our newest Corporate Member.

Please contact Francis Whitbread if you would like to help on the night. Alternatively, support the quiz by making up a team. If you have been to one of Francis’s quizzes before, you will know that you are sure to know some answers but highly unlikely to know them all.

Next year

A plate of spaghetti As you will see below, our first meeting of 2026 is still “TBA”. The Ivy Hill Hotel has offered to continue hosting us for our regular meals at £28.50 per head. This is an increase of £1.50 on the price we are paying at the moment, which is a lower than we were expecting. Given the difficulty in finding another suitable venue at a reasonable cost, the Club Council has agreed this for the first half of 2026. We still need to negotiate with the hotel the cost of those meals where the attendance is higher than normal.

We will continue to look for suitable venues for our monthly Fellowship Meetings, where we don’t have an outside speaker. We would encourage members to attend these when they can, as they might help us identify a suitable venue for more regular meetings. Suggestions of places to meet are welcome.