Presidential Address

                                              Presidential Message

Compared with much of our membership I am a relative newcomer to Bradford Blaize joining as recently as 2022, having been invited by Rob Askew to come to a meeting here on 19th January that year. I was most impressed (nay overwhelmed) by the camaraderie between members and the welcome afforded to me. So much so that I soon joined.

The day fast approaches when I take the helm and I look forward very much to being your leader for the next twelve months. I know I will have your full support. You will be pleased to know that I have been on a training day for the role and am fully prepared for all (or more likely just some) of the eventualities that may present themselves. Thankfully I have a multitude of Past Presidents and Founder members to put me right if I flounder.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank our retiring President, Ken Senior, for his excellent Presidency including his robust control of our weekly meetings.

Our membership has thankfully remained static at 19, which is good from one perspective, but it would have been good to see an increase. This is an area which we must collectively concentrate on, for it is obvious this club will not survive for more than a few years if we do not bring in more members and not only new, but younger.

We must ask “What do we offer?” – friendship, camaraderie, weekly meetings, raising funds for good causes. Is that enough? Keith Brown, Chair of the Membership Committee of one(!) needs to recruit new committee members to help him take this issue by the horns. Please be sure to accept the challenge if asked. Even if not on the committee take it upon yourself to ensure this club has a long future.

Reports from Committee Chairmen point to a year ahead of supporting the Charities and good causes that we have regularly done and the challenge now is to expand these, and I look forward to constructive thoughts from our ever-resourceful members. One Charity that is particularly close to my heart is the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford and particularly their Hospice Care at Home service following the wonderful support they gave to me when my wife came home from hospital in need of palliative care. As such I will be encouraging members to help raise funds for their services"

Of course, to service this ideal of supporting many and varied causes, our raison d’etre, we need funds, and we are very fortunate in receiving grants from some organisations to fund specific projects and others we support from our own fund-raising activities, the biggest event being the annual Bradford Blaize Golf Day, held this year on 18th June. Our thanks to John Waterhouse and Derek O’Hearne for organising this and to the many members who turn out on the day to assist and a special thank you to Ilkley Golf Club for welcoming us to their course. Another now hopefully annual fund raiser is the Christmas Carol Singing Tour which our President referred to last year as the Blaize Choir, this obviously gave inspiration to Bradford City to form the Bantams of the Opera.

I am very pleased to report that all committee chairmen have agreed to carry on for my year which I hope they enjoy, and I thank John Barrow for taking on the Foundation role and wish to express our appreciation to Alan Arthur for fulfilling this so ably for a number of years and we sincerely hope his health improves very soon.

In particular, I also wish to thank two stalwarts of the club, David Burrows and Mike Clewes for their constant efforts to keep us on the straight and narrow as our Secretary and our Webmaster respectively, both Rotary aficionados. 

I particularly appreciate the help and advice they have given me in the lead up to my presidency.

We are a small club but we need to grow to survive and I charge all members with bringing this about. Aims in previous years have been listed in all good faith, many are achieved but often many are not.

Let’s change this and Make Bradford Blaize Great Again!!