Speaker 3rd July 2020 - Tina Bennett New Presidents address

 Tina Bennett. Presidential Address to Rotary Club of Bradford July 2020

Fellow Rotarians and Guests

Every Rotarian is unique. Every Rotary president is unique. Every Rotary year is unique. But, as I take over as your president today, I have a sneaky sort of feeling that this year is going to be more unique than most. Not because of me, or of you my fellow members, but because of the times in which we are now living.

Who could have believed that when we listened to the bell ringers of Otley at our Christmas meal last year that all the church bells in the country would effectively be silenced just one week after we managed to hold our Charter Lunch at the beginning of March.

And then the lockdown and social distancing started and effectively changed the way that the whole of our daily lives were organised. Many people could no longer go to work, others could not go to their places of worship and Rotarians could not meet in the normal way.

There was an initial shock but pretty soon we Rotarians began to find ways to keep in touch and, albeit in very limited ways initially, to try to provide some small service to the community.

We started Roundup as a way of communicating to all members, every Friday, something about what the club was doing and also giving people a chance to say things to every other member of the club membership, because everybody gets a personal email weekly except the one who is not on email and he gets one posted to him.

Very soon after that What’s App began with just a few members but quickly expanded to over half of the club membership. Of course, What’s App does pass information but also it operates mainly as a light-hearted means of communication.

Then came Zoom. And as with What’s App I would like to pay tribute here to Jane’s efforts in getting both of these media formats working. Zoom has also been accessed as a communication means by over half of the club. It started off as a somewhat messy, talk over one another, meeting, but, fairly soon

President Chris got it structured so that, following the normal club business format, we had a sort of virtual meeting on a Friday every week. We have had speakers and videos and even Club Assembly via this medium.

Finally the new Style Bulletin emerged and again that, like Roundup, goes go to every member.

More importantly Zoom enabled the officers and council members of the club to have their own meeting and to slowly begin to progress the work of the club.

Two Council decisions that have been made relate to Income.

First the Club’s own accounts have always been run prudently with a reserve of between one and two thousand pounds to tide us over in the event of a rainy day. Council agreed that Covid-19 was that rainy day and chose to cut the membership subscriptions to £100 from the previous £120. This was done to try to encourage the continued membership of current members. Next year’s budget will therefore be a challenge because we will have no reserves.

RIBI and District, who take £85 of our membership fee, have only said they will consider the situation in the autumn and that to me is a cop out and I look forward to receiving something of a rebate in due course because they must have made a lot of enforced savings over the period of lockdown.

Secondly we decided that a request should go to members pointing out our inability to collect money from the public or to hold social events to raise money for our Charity account. So we asked members to consider whether or not their reduced expenditure by not paying visits to Rotary meetings might be matched, in part at least, by a donation to the club’s charity account which might otherwise have come via fines or raffle. I thank every one of you who have contributed and are still doing so, and if it has slipped your mind then please feel free to make a donation.

So the club got going again to a limited degree.

And special thanks go to Manoj, Bhavna, Nirmal, Simmy, Chris and Humayun whom we know to have taken part in working for the community during lockdown and if you have been doing so and hiding your light under a bushel

then thanks to you too, especially, if like them, you have done it in the name of Rotary.

For me personally, this lockdown could not have come at a more difficult time in terms of preparing to become President. All of the normal meetings that would have given me information about how to discharge my responsibilities were cancelled. And although a lot of email information was sent to me, and there were some Zoom meetings, it’s not quite the same as being at meetings with other people who are in the same boat as you and you have the same questions and concerns and who can help you by informally talking these through.

I have only been in the club for six years and I am not steeped in the history of Rotary and you will all know that when I agreed to take on the role I did so at a time when I had the full support of my dear Keith, a Rotarian of many years standing who was very active in the work of the club.

I miss him greatly but in the context of taking on this job I miss him more than I can ever say. Indeed, especially given the interruption in my preparation by the lockdown I have to confess that I have at times wondered whether I should continue. But the club has recently suffered the great loss of missing out having Paul Moss become president last year and I feel that I must give it a go. Chris has done more than his fair share! and what a great job he has done.

That said I am in tremendous need of your support and whilst I am very grateful to the help Martin and Geoff Kenure and others have given me, I am going to need a lot more as time goes by. I would particularly welcome the ongoing advice of Chris and President-elect Mike.

At this point I would like to acknowledge and thank all of you who undertake any role on behalf of the Club and especially the Officers and Council members and Chairs of committees.

Turning to the year ahead it is difficult to foresee how things will play out in the country at large in relation to this awful pandemic. Because of that it’s also not fully clear what impact it may have on our club and how we operate. Whenever it is possible, we will try to raise some funds from outside of our membership but this is not going to be easy and we will have to be quite

imaginative if we are to be able to make any money in that direction at all. Any suggestions on this are most welcome

I am planning to support the Theodora Trust who arrange for “Giggle Doctors” to go to Bradford Royal Infirmary on a weekly basis to entertain sick children. Out of existing funds Council have agreed to put up £1000 and we are seeking a District Grant of up to that amount of money for this very worthy cause.

Beyond that we are planning to do as many of the normal things the club usually does, but, this is dependent on the general social situation and the ability of members to discharge regular duties. And here, I must say, I think the club faces a particular challenge. That is the challenge of age, by which I mean that a third of our membership is over the age of 70, an age which has been suggested as one where people should be more careful than others about social interaction. It is also true that of our members in this category many of them have been particularly active in delivering our services to the community.

This brings me to the issue of the proposed Thursday evening meetings which were to have begun in May just passed. Clearly, we need to instate this as soon as it is possible because it may provide us with the human resources to undertake some of the work which may not be able to be done by some of the current members. But we must judge the timing carefully and it may be in the next calendar year before we can fully progress this face to face. That said we have already had one Thursday Zoom Meeting and there is every intention of this continuing to, as it were ‘Model’, the new look of the club’s meeting arrangements. Every Friday lunchtime except the third of the month when instead it will be Thursday at 7pm. Plans have yet to be developed as to how soon and in what way we can most usefully look to include new folk. The change also may open for discussion the format and content of the Thursday to make it more ‘local business person friendly’

Finally, I feel relatively confident about running the regular club meetings initially on Zoom and, later when we can meet face to face. Also I am more than happy to be in touch with members individually. But unlike Keith I am not steeped in Rotary history and procedures and, in his absence, I will need an awful lot of your, help, support, advice and encouragement.

That said I will do my best. Thank you