Digital Bulletin No 88

September 2025

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

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September 2025

From the editor’s desk

Pat and I spent the first five days of this month in Yorkshire on a coaching holiday organised by the Chelmsford & District National Trust Supporter Group. While there we visited a church which claims to have the country’s best alabaster effigies of knights and their wives. Someone had scratched on to a leg of one of the knights his initials and the year - 1804! It’s sad that people were leaving graffiti two centuries ago but I gather some has even been found in the ruins of Pompeii.

What mark do you think our Club will leave for posterity?

Words from the President

August 14

At our luncheon on 14 August at the Ivy Hill Hotel, Members enjoyed a talk and film show from our Secretary, Francis Whitbread. Francis recently celebrated his tenth wedding anniversary and, together with his wife Jackie, set off from Dublin on a cruise to Iceland. After time spent sightseeing in Dublin, which included Dublin Castle, they travelled up the East Coast of Ireland via the Giant’s Causeway visiting Oban, The Isle of Skye, the Outer Hebrides and Faroe Islands before arriving at Iceland. Showing us photographs of beautiful landscapes and idyllic towns, he treated us to a glimpse of the environment and lifestyles. In Iceland they experienced the short nights and the abundance of wild lupins. We heard about various attractions such as the Waterfall of the Gods, the Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík’s avant-garde church, and the edge of the Arctic Circle. A wonderful way to celebrate a wedding anniversary and a treat for those present to witness the lovely scenery.

August 21

Our speaker was my son Oliver (Olly) Furnival, who talked about Living in Japan. His lively insight into aspects of Japanese life was accompanied by photographs. His journey began after University intending to spend a year in Japan but after meeting his future wife the year extended into many years interspaced with teaching spells at a secondary school in Rainham and the Anglo European School. He is currently head of International Bacalaureate at an international school in Tokyo and a frequent visitor back to the UK. His daughter attended Essex University and is currently a group leader in Essex Social Services. His son currently attends university in Tokyo. Both are bilingual.

Olly mentioned fundamental differences, such as always taking outside shoes off when entering a house, placing them in a door well, and putting on simple slippers. He showed photographs of the trains jam packed with people but the difference being that no one spoke to each other; they travelled in silence.

He lives with his wife in Kamakura, once a capital of medieval Japan. Located near to the coast it has dozens of Buddhist Zen temples and Shinto shrines. Showing photographs of temples and shrines in beautiful surroundings, Olly highlighted the tradition of leaving messages on wooden tablets and charms hoping for good luck and fortune. As opposed to Christmas, the most important holiday in Japan is New Year where families spend time together and on New Year’s Day will visit shrines or temples and of course drink sake!

Olly went on to talk about various superstitions and the historical tea ceremonies still enjoyed today in traditional surroundings or at home. Popular in Kamakura is the cherry blossom, or sakura, symbolising renewal, hope and the beauty of life and Olly’s photographs typically illustrated how the Japanese flock to see them during their brief blooming season. Finally, Olly quoted messages from two of his friends who had received Rotary scholarships as part of their educational studies.

This is only a snapshot of Olly’s talk. There is so much more interesting information on the internet or as I found when I visited Kamakura, Kyoto and Tokyo a number of years ago.

August 28

Our informal friendship and fellowship meeting was held on 28 August at the Fox and Raven. We welcomed new member Jo Roberts, CEO of the Wilderness Foundation UK. Jo gave a few words by way of introduction to the role and work of the Foundation. We look forward to hearing more from Jo in the future and how our Club can support the Wilderness organisation.

The Fox and Raven is an excellent location for our meetings. It has a private room for a maximum of 18 and the food is very acceptable. However despite pre-ordering our meals from their menu the service was again disappointing, to the extent that we may need to rethink future meetings there. Nevertheless it was a convivial and enjoyable meeting and especially so to welcome back Janice and Philip who had been absent due to medical reasons. It was great to see them back with us.

Poppy pin 2025

A lapel pin with a large gold V and the poppy and Rotary symbols The Rotary Club of Chelmer Bridge has been producing Rotary poppy pins for the last seven years. So far £93,000 has been raised for the Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland.

Each year the poppy has a different theme. This year it commemorates the 80th anniversary of VE day, when World War II came to an end in Europe.

The pins cost £3 each. If you would like to buy one and show your support for both the British Legion and Rotary, please tell President Graham as soon as possible so that we can order pins for Club members in good time. He will collect the money and order the pins on our behalf.

Keeping royal company

Four suited men with the King F

Member Geoff Dickman pictured at a Gordon Highlanders’ dinner in Ballater, close to Balmoral. Judging by Geoff’s youthful good looks, we guess that the King was still Prince of Wales when this photograph was taken.

Postcard from BSE

Jenny Black

We have been here for very nearly a year now, it has flown by, and I’ve been reflecting on our move. We recently had visits from Anne and Steve as well as Angela and Geoff, and we see Francis and Jackie from time to time so they have kept me up-to-date with news from Chelmsford so I thought maybe you would like to hear how we have settled in.

Bury St Edmunds is a bit of a mouthful, so it’s generally referred to as BSE. It’s a great place to live - a vibrant town with lots happening and everything within a mile or so of our apartment. We can be at Waitrose or M&S or any of the other shops within 15 minutes by walking through the beautiful and well-tended Abbey Gardens. We have most of the usual shops plus a lot of small independent ones tucked away down side streets. There’s a busy street market twice a week (and sometimes an extra one on a Sunday) and we have just had a two-day beer festival in the Cathedral followed by a two-day food festival in the town. In addition there are over 200 restaurants and cafés and we have sampled a fair number of them! Working on the rest.

Our apartment (we were told in no uncertain terms fairly early on that we must NEVER call it “a flat” and we must NEVER refer to the Abbey Gardens as “a park”) is of course very much smaller than our house in Writtle, and that has taken some getting used to. We now have a new kitchen and the dressing room, which used to be the third bedroom, has been fitted out with storage space. What should have been the second bedroom is a shared study. We have managed to fit in everything we brought with us now, in fact, we have some cupboards which still have space! We are just waiting for a decorator to finish the painting. We have three large doors which open onto a communal garden - we share this with the other residents, who don’t often use it, and a number of Muntjac deer which eat all the flowers and anything else they fancy. Anything not eaten by the deer is liable to be dug up by a horde of squirrels! Behind the garden is a little river and then the Abbey Gardens; we can see the Cathedral through the trees and we can certainly hear the Cathedral bells.

Just as we hoped, the apartment is a lot less work, we don’t have to do any gardening and we see our son and daughter and their partners much more often. It’s a very quiet and peaceful place to live; if the doors are closed we can’t even hear the Cathedral bells. Having given up all the other things I did in Chelmsford life is very much more relaxed - although I have acquired a couple of volunteering jobs (Richard’s comment was a rather disgusted “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”) Well, I would get bored otherwise!

One big advantage that we didn’t appreciate is that although we don’t have a garage we do have a fair-sized carpark. Parking in BSE is a big problem - there are car parks around the edges but they are no nearer to the town centre than we are here. Many people rely on on-street permit parking - but having a permit doesn’t mean you can find somewhere to park. Much of the town centre is traffic-free, which is nice for pedestrians but less so if you need to park near the shops.

Rotary in BSE has all the usual problems - ageing members, difficulty in recruiting new members and problems with finding suitable meeting venues. Having been determined to keep a low profile I suddenly found I had been made Chair of the International Committee while I was on holiday! So I’m organising an Aquabox demonstration in the market place at the end of September, the committee is also very involved in Lend with Care (microloans) - and I’m still collecting ring-pulls for the Purple Community (thank you Geoff, your contribution is much appreciated). We have a wine-tasting event in October.

Regrets? Well yes, one or two. The main one is that I miss all my friends. It takes a long time to build friendships and although I’m working on making new ones I really, really miss everyone in Chelmsford. So if any of you are passing through BSE don’t forget to come and see us - although we can’t offer a spare room we do know a lot of very nice restaurants!

You will find photographs below.

Christmas Party

A Christmas wreath with Rotary cogwheels in it Our Christmas Party will be held at the Ivy Hill Hotel on 18 December, starting at 12:30. We will be entertained by Prestige Conjuring in the person of President Graham’s former colleague Paul Clancy, who is a member of the Magic Circle.

Spouses and other guests are welcome to join us for the party. The menu and booking information will be available nearer the time.

Photographs from BSE

Courtesy of Jenny Black and Geoff Dickman. Richard and Jenny live in the brick building pictured; the three doors you can see are into their apartment. You’ll recognise the people in the next two. (Well, not the bloke with the baby buggy.) The final photograph is of the Abbey Gardens.

Four photographs taken around Bury St Edmunds