Mayor and young visitors to Rotary Club

The Mayor and Mayoress of the Vale of Glamorgan, Cllr and Mrs John Clifford, and other visitors from Atlantic College and Llantwit Major Comprehensive School were welcomed to a meeting of the Llantwit Major Rotary Club on Monday evening held at the West House Hotel.  After dinner Cllr. Clifford spoke to the club about the duties and responsibilities of being mayor.  In chairing meetings of the Vale council he needs to be impartial and would only vote in the event of a tied decision.  He was pleased that when elected to the position of Mayor this was a unanimous decision of all councillors regardless of party loyalties.  He was also pleased that the health of his wife, Christine, had now improved sufficiently for her to accompany him to occasions such as this.  Last year he represented the Vale at the official opening of the Welsh Assembly by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh which he described as a memorable day as was his meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The three students from Atlantic College included Batholomew Giavana from Uganda.  He had been assisted by the Vale for Africa initiative, supported by the Mayor, in being able to study at St Donats.  He was in his first year and hopes after next year to be able to go to the USA to study engineering.  Dumisile Mtambo is from Zimbabwe and hopes to study law if possible at Harvard University.  The third Atlantic College student was Michael Manning from Boston Massachusetts. All three spoke to the club and also thanked the Rotary organisation for the help each had received to study in this country.

The meeting ended when President Neville Farthing presented local comprehensive school student, Danielle Davis, with a framed certificate to mark her successful completion of the Rotary Youth Leadership Award held last summer at a special camp at Dol-y-Gaer in the Brecon Beacons.  Danielle told the meeting about her experiences on the week