Weekly Meeting 23 March 2015

Weekly Meeting 23 March 2015

The club was very pleased to welcome PP Ian Draper back after his stay in hospital. Ian immediately plunged himself into his treasurer's duties.

There were three guests: Ian Fright was a visiting Rotarian from Sandwich who brought greetings from his president.

Jack and Rosemary McKenzie were guests of President Ian Dunkerley

Jack gave an amusing and very informative talk about his almost accidental career as an actor after serving a short time in HM Royal Marines in Deal and subsequently joining the police force.

Jack has an amazing knack of voice imitations and can instantly switch characters. He displayed a paste board of pictures from roles he has played over the years, strangely most of them in uniform.

You can read more about Jack's career and the roles he has played here and here and this link contains some of the text about his early professional years.

The secretary informed the club that there is a vacancy for the post of District treasurer and they are looking for nominations.

He also received confirmation that following the recent appeal for funds to aid the Kenyan crop failure for which we contributed £500, the District has reached its target of donations.

In another announcement he referred to the coach booked by the Sandwich club to ferry those attending the St George's Day dinner in Dover on 23rd April, there are only a few seats left and therefore if others wish to avail themselves of this service they should register their intention to join them.

Rtn Michel Dourthe reminded members of the email recently sent to all urging them to write to their MEP to support the EU's proposal to contribute 200 million Euros towards to end polio now campaign. People power is needed if this is to succeed and a few minutes of your time just might make the difference that will lead to a success.

Rtn Stephen Misson reported upon the All Stars Band concert in which he and PP Ben Finney participated the previous evening. Ben's task is to allocate the sums of monies for various charities one of which this year was Prostate Cancer Support Association Kent. Stephen managed to seize an opportunity to mention to the 750 strong audience that we are planning a Walk of Life over the White Cliffs on Sunday 7th June and urged them to join us. One concertgoer was impressed enough to instantly donate £10.00. Result!

PP Peter Rothschild announced that we have entered a reciprocal deal with the Savoyards, a Deal based Gilbert and Sullivan organisation that is presenting a production of The Gondoliers in the Astor Theatre on 15 to 18 April. Peter has arranged for an advert to be placed in their programme for our Railway Swing Band concert in St George's Church on 29th April.

We are therefore hoping many of the Savoyards members and their audiences will attend our concert and in return we are appealing for our members to support them. Tickets for The Gondoliers are on sale from the Astor Theatre. Please do support them.

Rtn John Morris gave an account of his visit to the Rotary Club of Jumeirah, Dubai where he exchanged bannerettes with their president.

The Marie Curie street collection the previous Friday resulted in a grand sum of £677.70. A further sum of £30 was collected to be donated to Vanuatu following hurricane Pam which devastated many parts of the islands.

We are not sure whether the lack of smiles was because of the blisteringly cold morning or being forced to wear those hats!

Thanks were given to Rtn Paul Robbins for organising the collection at short notice.

The birthday of PP Tony Nicholls was acknowledged. Tony shares his birth date with actor Barry Jackson best known for his part of the pathologist Dr George Bullard in 76 episodes (1997-2011) of the popular mystery series Midsomer Murders. Barry died on December 2013 aged 75.

Tony announced that the membership of the 200 Club now stands at 182 needing only a further 18 people to join to reach the target membership. £48 annual subscription will enable the owner to be entered in a weekly draw for £20 and a chance to win one of forty valuable prizes in the annual draw, the top prize being a cheque of £5000.
This week's winner of the £20 goes to PP Mike Baxter of Sandown Road, Deal.
The winner of the weekly wine draw was Rtn Peter Kingston who won it last week too.

Next Monday's meeting will be in the evening as a fifth Monday 'Evening with Guests'.
The Monday after that, being Easter, will have no meeting therefore the next lunchtime meeting will be on 13th April when the speaker will be our own Rtn Alison Munn on the subject of 'Habitat for Humanity'.