Black Ties and Brotherhood

Not only were Basildon Club celebrating 58 years at their Charter Night on November 16,  but they made it a Children In Need event, raising more than £300 – a worthy sum - from a special raffle.

Six club members and their wives attended the customary black tie event at the Chichester hotel at Rawreth, president Les and Val, Michael and Sue Ginn, Roger and Sarah Kettle, Patrick and Carol Rothon, Peter and Wendy Greene and Bert French.  As usual, we received a warm reception from our good friends.

Special Relationship

Also present were the president of the Rotary Club of Basildon Concord, a representative of the Rotary Club of Billericay Mayflower, the chair of Basildon Inner Wheel and guest of honour Lesley Sulley, our District Governor and her husband Martin.

President Les proposed the toast to Basildon. In response Basildon president Peter gave a short address, and the chair of Inner Wheel replied on behalf of the guests.  DG Lesley then spoke briefly in praise of Basildon Club.

We have a  special relationship with our fellow Rotarians in Basildon, not just because the club is only one year younger than ours, but also because we share so many objectives and twinning relationships with clubs in Italy, France and Sweden.  We all recently returned from a twinning visit to Alba in Italy during which much fun was had.

Star Filled speech

Speaker on the night was James Wilkinson, billed as an artist who had painted many rock stars.

He talked of and illustrated his life, which was much more than artist to the rock stars, but included being a director of Deutche Bank, owner of an auction house, a member of a rock group despite as he said “having no talent”, and much more. Entertaining and humorous - noted also for the record amount of “name dropping” in one speech!  He had spent time with many of the principle rock stars of our generation and since.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening with friends and fellow Rotarians.