Two Clubs' Fellowship Meeting

In President Francis’s absence, Graham Furnival chaired today’s meeting. We were joined by 17 members of the Rotary Club of Billericay. This is one of our daughter Clubs, having been sponsored by us in 1959. Bert Raven, who was our President in 1936-37, was a leading light in the formation of the Billericay Club. The shield on their banner includes a raven in his memory.

Billericay is linked with the Rotary Clubs of Alba (Italy), Basildon, Beausoleil (France), Karlshamn (Sweden) and Ovada del Centenario (Italy). They described this as their “double triangular” twinning.With the help of the other Clubs in the double triangle, they have run a successful project providing wells for ten schools in Kenya, using local labour and materials and support from the Rotary Club of Embu.

In our turn we told them about our very successful involvement in the Rotary Young Musician Competition. Each year we run the Chelmsford heat, which this year attracted twelve entrants. We select potential participants by attending the relevant classes at the Chelmsford Competitive Festival of Music, Speech and Drama, which takes place every November.

We also described our two annual projects for those of advanced years, namely the visits to the pantomime at the Chelmsford Theatre and the Summer Party in the Chapter House.

But the greatest benefit of this meeting came from the conversations around the tables, which