Handover Night

1st July 2021 First Face to Face Meeting – Handover- held in Alan Folwell’s Garden

President Derek thanked Alan for providing his large garden (& Gazebo’s) to enable this unique first face to face meeting following all the Covid restrictions and Zoom meetings, obviously still complying with the current two metre separations.

The first activity was to induct a new (transferred member) Jill Clarke formerly of Beeston R C and who will be a member of the Community Committee. Proposed by Jane Hart, who accompanied Jill around the gathering to introduce her to the members present.

President Derek reminded us that the main purpose of wishing to have this F2F meeting was to make the Awards proposed to be a special personal event.

He described the first Paul Harris Fellow award background, one of 3 to be awarded this year, outlining the record of activities that justified this prestigious award, roles that this member had performed since his joining in 2001/2, PR, Secretary, Club Service Chair, initiating our Solar lamps project in Uganda, changes to the way the Club operated and finally his famous quizzes, known as “Trevor Quizzes”…..Trevor Richmond.

Second a man who was known to many of our members from his membership of Radcliffe and Bingham Round Table Club some 40 years ago.  Following his emigration to Spain, he returned to Nottinghamshire in 2016 with the specific desire to join our Rotary Club, where his tireless work as Chair of the Community Committee saw him gain District Grants and work closely with Community Groups at The Friary and Tara’s Angels….David Eldridge. Both (TR) and (DE) were warmly applauded on their awards and both thanked the members for their nominations

The third PHF was unfortunately on holiday walking is Scotland, so his award will be made at a future F2F meeting.

Gerry Thompson then presented the Harry Thompson Award, having read out the citation criteria, to David Eldridge for his inspiring leadership in the community, previously mentioned.

The formal ‘Handover’ process then followed, with Derek passing over the Presidency to Gordon Marsh; Gordon presenting the President Elect Gong to Rob Gray and Rob passing the President Nominee Gong to David Eldridge.

So Gordon took over the meeting outlining his confidence in his support team, Committee Chairs and Members and his intention to ‘Lead from the front for his second term as President. He then invited members to raise a toast to ‘Rotary and Peace the World over’, then relax and have some informal “catching up”!                    AR