Polio is more than a Word - 19/10/20

Irvine Seagate Rotary’s speaker at Monday’s Zoom meeting was Rotarian Colin Powell from the British Polio Fellowship.  Colin, born in 1949, got Polio as a baby, and despite numerous operations has spent his entire life in a wheelchair.  After disrupted school years, he did night school and correspondence classes to qualify as an Accountant, and set up his own successful business.  Colin has spent much of his life raising awareness of the devastation that the Polio virus has on people, and has been very active in the Rotary campaign to eradicate Polio worldwide, and also in the British Polio Foundation.  It is believed that there are 120,000 Polio survivors in the UK, with varying degrees of disability, and the Fellowship is there to provide any support they need.  This was a sobering talk which brought home the imperative of eliminating the Polio virus.  It was recently announced that Africa has been free of cases for 3 years, and the only countries with endemic Polio are Pakistan and Afghanistan where difficult local circumstances are restricting immunisation.  There were questions and a Vote of Thanks was proposed by Jim Anderson.  

In Club business there were discussions on events in the next few months, and it is evident that there will be no social activities.  However, Seagate Rotary will continue to support local causes and school competitions wherever possible.