Autumn Lunch Raises over £4,000
for Local Charities

Bay House Care and Bexhill Rotary Club were joint partners in arranging a very special Charity Lunch with Speaker Kim Hollins KC in aid of Macmillan, Sara Lee Trust and St Michael's Hospice. Our aim was to raise over £3,000 towards these causes. 

Naz Manji had arranged to host the event at his excellent Bay House Care home in Middlesex Road Bexhill. The residents had been taken to another location for their own Autumn Lunch with magician and bingo. 

We were greeted by the Bay House staff who offered sparkling wine or soft drinks to start the event giving us all time to mingle and meet our friends and guests. Harpist Lexi Knight played delightful music to add to the atmosphere of the event. MC John Cooper called us to table, we had five tables of eight each laid out very carefully with our starters appetisingly awaiting, 

President David Dixson gave a welcome and explained how this event had come about and thanked Bay House for making such excellent preparations for our meal David also explained the Online Auction which had been organised and opened one week earlier and was now running at over £2,000 which had enabled us to already exceed our first target of raising £3,000. 

Barry Edwards, chair of Macmillan South East, gave a short introduction to his organisation and explained the services which Macmillan continue to supply for carcer patients.    

After our main courses we prepared ourselves to listen to Kim Hollis KC, John Cooper introducing her and giving a short outline of her career as a Barrister, Queens Councillor and Director of Public Prosecutions for British Virgin Islands. 

Kim explained her family background her grandfather having been a barrister in Lahore at the time of the Indian Pakistan separation, she told of his first hand experience of the Lahore Massacre, where troupes fired indiscriminatingly on the protesting crowd with no sense of responsibility. 

Her family's expectations for Kim were that she would become a barrister and after her schooling in The Forest of Dean she studied Law in London University and Grays Inn. Many of her coworkers did not believe that the system would enable her to become a fully fledged Barrister, as a woman the best she could expect would be to practice Family Law. 

Despite this discouragement Kim did attain her ambition and was was successful and in 2002 became the first Asian Woman to become a Queens Councillor and she wore a Sari to he inauguration.

After a successful career following both Prosecution and Defence cases Kim became the Director of Public Prosecutions for British Virgin Islands(BVI) in 2016. In 2017 two devastating hurricanes hit the BVI destroying most of the islands infrastructure and enabling the prisoners to escape. Kim played a vital role in the process of restoration of justice and stability in the islands.

The talk Kim gave was uplifting and illustrated just how far the opportunities for women have progressed during our lifetimes, however, Kim reminded us there is still a long way to go.

Rotarian Patrick Donaldson gave a vote of thanks and gave some insight into his own family's connections with the West Indian justice systems. 

Bay House Care owner, Naz Manji gave a big thank you to all his staff, who had managed the entire event so smoothly and made the event a complete success. Tim Pilbeam, Fundrasing Chair, was able to announce that we had raised over £4,000 for the whole event and thanked everyone for their generous  contribution to the Online Auction.