DG Andy Lees - 23/11/15

Seagate Rotarians have all donated children’s toys which are being passed on to Barnardos.  The charity distributes toys at Christmas to families where otherwise there would be no presents.  This affects 1400 children in this area.

Seagate’s speaker on Monday was District Governor Andy Lees.  Andy comes from Lochgilphead, and as his district covers from Stranraer to Fort William, and east to Lanarkshire, he has a lot of travelling to visit all 50 clubs.  He updated members on various district activities, and noted that a new one is a collaboration with a district in north east India to provide sewing machines. 

This will enable women to become self supporting by making and selling clothes.  The situation with the Polio eradication campaign is that so far this year there have been only 56 cases reported worldwide, mainly in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  This compares with 290 at the same time last year, and is down from over 300,000 a year when Rotary’s programme began in 1985.  Andy answered questions, and a Vote of Thanks was proposed by Jim Fairgrieve.