Digital Bulletin No 77

October 2024

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October 2024

From the editor’s desk

Our daughter and I have a shared passion for English grammar. A few months ago she challenged me to punctuate the following text. In the end I had to give up. See if you can do any better. The solution appears later in this Bulletin.

Jim whilst Mark had had had had had had had had had had had the teachers approval

Words from the President

September 5

We did not have a face-to-face lunchtime meeting this week but along with a number of our other members I attended the joint Chelmsford Clubs meeting at Channels in the evening, organised by the Chelmer Bridge Club. The speaker was Steve Pateman aka “The Kinky Boots Man”, who gave a very funny and interesting talk about how he transformed his family’s long established Northamptonshire shoe business after much of their traditional market disappeared following the advent of trainers and other casual footwear. Steve’s story has inspired both a feature film and a musical and it was fascinating to hear about the various people he met because of those.

September 11

I had to come to Chelmsford on the afternoon of 11 September for a dentist’s appointment and, as I was returning to Suffolk for our Walk and Lunch the following day, took the opportunity to join DG Anne Moriaty when she visited the Kelvedon Club that evening. They meet at the Blue Anchor, which is actually in Feering, on the Colchester side of Kelvedon, and has a separate meeting room the Rotary Club uses. It was interesting to chat to their members and find out that their Club, which has a similar number of members to us, is facing the same issues we are. They also have an ageing membership and are finding it difficult to recruit new members, while many of the members have served as President. The current President, like me, travels to the meetings from Suffolk each week, in his case from near Lavenham.

September 12

The following day, several members travelled to Debenham to join Jackie, Dixie the dog, myself and some friends from the village on a three mile walk mainly on some of the local footpaths. The weather was good and there were some nice views of the surrounding countryside and of Debenham itself when we walked back down into the village. Dixie certainly enjoyed herself as she had a long spell off the lead, which she always enjoys as she can run, trot or stop and sniff something interesting as she pleases. We got back to the village to find Angela and Geoff Dickman enjoying a coffee in the Deben Coffee House, which is another of our dog’s favourite haunts.

Lunch was at the Cretingham Bell, about four miles away and, as always, the service and food were very good. Angela and Geoff were unfortunately the last to arrive, which I must admit was my fault, as I inadvertently gave them the wrong post code for the pub, which meant they had an unplanned tour of some of Suffolk at its most rural before arriving in Cretingham. My sincere apologies Angela and Geoff!

September 19

Our speaker for our meeting at the Rugby Club was Mike Conyers, a member of Brentwood Rotary Club. Mike is a physiotherapist by profession, with a practice in Brentwood, and has been blind, as a result of suffering detached retinas when playing cricket, since the age of twelve. He gave us a fascinating talk on his life, frequently humorous, as evidenced by the regular sound of laughter around the room, but also serious and thought provoking, as he described the positive attitude he adopted after losing his sight. Some of this was instilled in him by his father who, Mike said, told him in a typical no nonsense Yorkshire way that it was no use dwelling on the loss of his sight; rather he must make the best of things.

Mike has certainly done that. Amongst other things, he has walked the Yorkshire Three Peaks and a part of Hadrian’s Wall, climbed the Three Peaks of the UK, Scafell Pike, Snowdon and Ben Nevis, run numerous marathons and half marathons, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Mike has been a friend of mine since his first visit to our Club, when I found out he grew up in Lothersdale, a small village about five miles from Skipton, where I have owned a small cottage for many years. I have heard him speak on many occasions and his talks are always uplifting, because they make me both laugh and think, in equal measure.

It was also nice to see Mike’s fellow Rotarian from the Brentwood Club, Adrian Phillips, who kindly drove Mike to the meeting.

September 26

CHESS logo I was away in Scotland this week, so my sincere thanks to Mo Sadiq for chairing the meeting in my absence, and also making sure Jenny didn’t find out about the farewell lunch the following week, by telling everyone present that next week’s meeting was at the Rugby Club! The speaker was Rob Saggs, from CHESS, and I have been told it was a very good talk.

[It was a good talk. I first met Rob when he joined CHESS, where I was volunteering, 14 years ago. It has really expanded its work since his arrival.

He has kindly prepared an article based on his talk. You will find this below. Editor]

Thoughts for the Day

August 22, Geoff Dickman
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.

September 27, Keith Otter
Action is better than inaction.
Discharge therefore thy task in life.
Bhagavad Gita 3:8b

October 10, Mo Sadiq
Why is a car’s windshield so large and the rear view mirror so small?
Because our past is not as important as our future,
So look ahead and move on.

Words from a speaker

Rob Saggs

CHESS Homeless

“CHESS works to ensure that those who find themselves homeless in Essex are supported in ways that enable them to move forward purposefully and in good health.”

A sark-haired man speaking CHESS Homeless is a charity formed by Churches Together in Chelmsford in the early 1990s. Initially it focused on those sleeping rough by offering warm food and items of clothing to help, but soon began to realise that housing with support needed to be a part of the solution.

It was in December 1997 that CHESS Homeless opened its first accommodation site for the single homeless adults it serves.

Following on from those early days CHESS now delivers outreach in 8 local authorities - Chelmsford; Epping; Maldon; Braintree; Rochford; Castlepoint; Uttlesford and Brentwood. Our outreach team respond to StreetLink referrals (https://thestreetlink.org.uk/). Accommodation is currently in Epping and Chelmsford and houses 65 individuals. We partner with Safer Places offering housing and support to Women fleeing domestic abuse. Our support team offer support for those in our accommodation and the rough sleepers 24/7 365 days a year.

CHESS offer support and housing for those individuals who want to gain access to their own front door and away from the street floor. During the financial year of 2023-24 CHESS housed 156 individuals and prevented 106 cases of homelessness.

Currently we are awaiting planning approval for us to develop one of our newest sites to serve the ever-increasing number of those becoming homeless - currently CHESS’ waiting list is 60 pcm (in previous years it has been around 18-24) despite us over doubling in size since the pandemic. This new accommodation will be modular housing and will contain 24 individual properties, each one fully furnished. We are still looking for financial support to help this project alongside the main operation of CHESS Homeless.

Nepalese floods

Keith Otter

The conflict in the Middle East has tended to overshadow public consciousness of other crises. It has certainly overshadowed the war in Ukraine (or the “special military operation” there, depending which side you favour).

There are other overshadowed crises. This came home to me earlier this month when I received an email from The Leprosy Mission describing the damage caused to their hospital in Ananbadan by a landslide resulting from floods in Nepal. I hadn’t really been aware of any floods there. If Chuda Karki had still been with us I would have asked him about them. Instead I carried out some research on the World Wide Web to see what I could discover.

Over four days, from 26 to 29 September, the Kathmandu Valley experienced its heaviest downpour since 2002. During this period 9.4 inches of rain fell. Some areas had over a foot of rain. At least 228 people died and 158 were injured. The emergency services rescued 4,000 people.

There are horrific pictures of the waters of the Bagmati River, swirling brown with mud, sweeping through residential areas of the capital, Kathmandu. Local sources say people were jumping from roof to roof to avoid the flooding. Landslides blocked most major motorways connecting Kathmandu with the rest of the country. Telephone lines, power lines and water supplies were damaged.

Ananbadan Hospital suffered significant damage. Some homes on the site were destroyed, the electricity supply interrupted and the boreholes providing clean water damaged. There was no more than two days’ supply of water left in the water tanks. Food supplies were limited.

Roads to the hospital disappeared under either water or mud. Only the army could get through. The staff worked tirelessly to keep the patients safe whilst dealing with their own traumas. Some of them are suffering flashbacks of buildings and trees cascading down the mountainside in torrents of mud.

At one time it was thought that the entire hospital site would have to be evacuated. Fortunately this has not proved necessary, although patients had to be moved from the wards to the main hospital building for safety’s sake. Temporary repairs have been effected to the water and electricity supplies. The work of recovery continues.

I don’t know what happened to the places we supported. I think these were further up the mountains so they may not have been affected directly. They could still have been affected by the disruptions in the rest of the country.

Why were the floods so bad? Yes, climate change must have been a major contributing factor. The finger of blame has also been pointed at deforestation, encroachment on the river banks by unplanned urban development and a failure to upgrade the drainage system to take account of Nepal’s increasing population.