St Lucia Rotary Club Visit (24 January 2025)

While cruising the  Caribbean on Queen Mary in January 2025 I attended a couple of Rotary meetings on board resulting in some splendid fellowship experiences. 

One of my fellow rotarians Bill Jenkins of the Rotary Club of Crosby suggested Kathy and I might like to join him and his wife Jean on a visit to the Rotary Club of St Lucia since it happened to be meeting the same day as our port visit. It was also Bills 80th birthday that day which made the visit even more significant. 

The  Rotary Club of St Lucia meets at the Stolen Time Resort every Friday from noon until 2pm and it was only a short cab ride from Castries where the ship was anchored and we were tendered ashore. 

We were all made incredibly welcome by the St Lucia Rotary club who had never experienced a raid from a visiting cruise ship in the past. In all 4 rotarians and 3 wives made the trip from the ship to the club. 

It was a lively meeting with 15 of their 50 members attending, no guest speaker other than rotarian introductions followed by a fellowship discussion about shrinking population and low birth rate on the island.  

President Lorenzo "Doddy" Francis conveyed his greetings to all the visiting clubs and Bill was presented with a special birthday cake.

We all received an invitation to remotely attend the Charter Celebration event of the newly chartered Rotary Club of the Caribbean Plus. Unfortunately we were unable to join as it clashed with a Burns night Supper on QM2.

After the meeting ended we were allowed to relax in the beautiful grounds of the resort while waiting for our taxis to return to the ship……

Geoff Hogg