District Governor's Newsletter - September 2017

By the time you read this September will be half way through or possibly nearly ended. The time is flying by. The holiday period is coming to an end for many as we look forward to fireworks, and sleigh bells! Yes! they are a long way off, but there is the preparation work to do and tickets to sell. With Autumn fairs and concerts galore coming up, there is plenty to choose from across our District, and of course the Youth activities and competitions which are beginning to happen.

Since my last news letter I’ve breakfasted with St Albans Priory, lunched with Milton Keynes and Potters Bar, dined with Stevenage, Stevenage Grange and Hitchin Tilehouse, attended Dunstable Rotary Antiques Fair and joined the ‘end of hike’ gang with Wendover & District, and of course lots of other meetings along the way.

One of the best parts of being District Governor is seeing the variety of people within our district doing an amazing job of Making A Difference for people within our communities and further afield. Whether it’s a club regularly coming together to garden (oh how nice that would be – to have the garden done – I do not have green fingers at all – ha ha ha!), helping take children out, sending young people on world adventures to help others, fund raising to help world disasters and of course End Polio Now.

£10 Governor Challenge

How is your Governor Challenge getting on? Have you started to grow the £10? Please send in stories about how you are doing this, so I can build a portfolio of ideas for us all to use in the future. The original £10 (from my personal pocket) comes back to me and is given to End Polio Now. Half of what you raise goes to EPN the other half to a charity of your choice. You have until the end of May to grow it as big as you can, if you take up the challenge.

TREES

Ian Riseley has asked us all to plant a tree, one for each Rotarian – saplings of course. There are many ways to do this and it costs very little. Please let me know how your club is getting on.

Comin up…..

Over the next month I have visits planned to Brookmans Park, Baldock,  a District Conference in Harrogate, Buckingham, Amwell, Biggleswade, Newport Pagnell, Interact, Chesham, Luton, District Bowls Tournament, Leighton Linslade, Wolverton and Stoney Stratford, Harpenden, Dunstable Downs, and the Wheelchair Challenge.

I look forward to seeing you out and about in the District.

Cheryl
District Governor.

District Conference 2018 Update

 
We are please to announce that Clive Myrie has been booked as a speaker at the 2018 District conference. Clive Myrie is a multi award winning journalist, one of the BBC's most experienced foreign correspondents and a recognised face as a BBC News presenter.

For further information about the Diamond District conference can be viewed by following the link http://www.rotary1260conference.org.uk/index.html

Paul Manning
Conference Chairperson

The registration forms can be obtained at http://www.rotary1260conference.org.uk/registration.html
Please note that they the form needs to printed-off and then completed and forwarded to Conference Registrar either by email or post.

Polio Update

In the last Rotary year the number of new cases of polio were:-

Afghanistan 6, Pakistan 3 and Nigeria 0.

Get ready for our 5th annual World Polio Day event on October 24th 2017, co-hosted with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There will be a stream live from Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle, Washington to bring together more than 50,000 viewers around the world. Celebrities and global health experts will join us to share our progress on the road to polio eradication.

Youth Services

To all schools and colleges in Beds, Bucks and Herts it’s the start of a new year for you and Rotary. For those of you that already take part in our national competitions such as Youth Speaks, Young Chef, Young Musician, Young Photographer and Writer your local clubs will be holding competitions early in 2018. All details are available on this site. We also run other competitions with finals within Beds, Bucks & Herts. These are Young Artist, Technology Tournament and, new for this year, Junior Technology Tournament. Another new venture this year will be an U12 Football Competition subject to support.

If you do not have any contact with your local Rotary Club we urge you to contact them as they are looking for candidates for The Rotary Young Citizen Award. Most clubs have the expertise within their members to offer free assistance with CV writing, application forms, Career Days, Mentoring, Group Assembly Talks etc. Please just talk to them with no obligation or pressure from them. If you wish to get in contact with your local club please contact us Rotary District 1260 in Beds, Bucks and Herts and we will send you details of a club that can help you.

Roger Phillips
Youth Services