February Newsletter

HARWICH & DOVERCOURT ROTARY CLUB FEBRUARY 2016 NEWSLETTER On Monday 25th January the Club celebrated Burns Night – the haggis was addressed by Chris Strachan after being piped in by Piper Graham Crockett and Rotatians, their wives/partners and guests enjoyed haggis, tatties and neeps, followed by roast beef, and finished with cranachan with home made shortbread , all washed down with a wee dram and coffee. Chris followed with the Immortal Memory, toast to the lassies by President Andy with a reply by Marion Reeves. Then followed some verses from Neil, and songs by Marion and Piper Graham and finally a bagpipe and trumpet rendition of ‘Scotland the Brave’ followed by Auld Lang Syne. From all accounts a most enjoyable evening and thanks must go to Colin Hance and his helpers for organising the event. ************************ On Monday 15th our speaker was Rtn Roy Rutter, President of Thorpe Bay Rotary Club which is a ‘Breakfast Club’ who meet at some ungodly hour in the morning ! Roy travels around the district giving talks and making clubs aware of Global Sight Solutions, a charity started in 1998 by Rtn S N Das MBE, a member of the Guildford Club. S N Das is an eye surgeon and a consultant ophthalmic surgeon and started the project in and around Kolkata which when we were at school was Calcutta. His ambition is to restore the sight of 1,000,000 people by training eye surgeons, establishing self supporting eye hospitals, providing eye buses, hospital transport and treating glaucoma,retinal detachment, diabetic retinopathy and cataracts. They operate in the Indian sub- continent, Africa and other economically emerging areas and to date 600,000 people have undergone sight restoring operations. I remember at one Rotary Conference that I attended in the early nineties we had a talk from one of the founders of Sightsavers, and I see that the latest figures show that that organisation has now treated 200 million people in 30 countries. Without these organisations there would be an awful lot of blind people in the world, unable to work or look after themselves. A vote of thanks was given by Keith Morris and the Club showed their appreciation in the normal way. ***************************** Reception of Visitors March 7th David Rutson Shane Scott 14th John Wade Richard Wearmouth 21th FOUR CLUB MEETING