Handover meeting

How do you hand over to yourself? That was a conundrum facing President Francis this week as he handed over the office of President from himself to himself, a first in the Club’s long history. The photograph shows him in the interval between taking off his Presidential chain of office as the 2023-24 President and putting it on again as the 2024-25 President.

He won’t have the same dilemma next year as Graham Furnival is now our 1st Vice President. After his year as President he will hand over to our 2nd Vice President, Anne Moriaty. Both Graham and Anne have been Presidents before and Anne is our District Governor for this year.

President Francis formally announced something already known to most of our members, that our Secretary, Jenny Black, expects to move to Bury St Edmunds sometime this year. Jenny is another Past President and has been Secretary for the last few years. We will very much miss her. Francis commented that it might be best if we split the Secretary’s role after Jenny steps down and offered to take all the minutes of our formal meetings during his Presidency. He said he did not necessarily expect future Presidents to follow his example.

The future plans that had already been discussed were confirmed and Anne Moriaty made some comments in her capacity as District Governor.