MAF - 10/05/21

Irvine Seagate Rotary’s speaker on Monday was Andy Martin from MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship.  Founded just after the war, 75 years ago, MAF is a church based air service covering large parts of the developing world.  They have 135 small planes operating into 1800 remote airstrips, and transport food, medicines and humanitarian aid to areas not generally accessible easily by road.  The organisation is run overseas by 1200 people who, along with their families, do at least a 4 year service and are sponsored by their home congregations.  They work in close cooperation with other aid organisations such as Oxfam.  MAF also has a technology branch and recently completed installation of solar power to completely run a small hospital in Papua New Guinea, removing the need to regularly fly in diesel for generators and giving 24 hour electricity availability which is particularly vital for the refrigeration of medicines and vaccines.  After a question and answer session, a Vote of Thanks was proposed by Ian Dickson.

In the Business section of the meeting, Fiona Lee reported that work was now complete on the remodelling of the garden at Abbeyfield, with planters and herb and vegetable beds.  Plants and materials were all sourced from Rotarians and colleagues, and everything is showing fresh growth after the recent rain and soon will be fully established for the benefit of residents and visitors.  It was also noted that Rotary is running a national competition for posters to be displayed at the autumn COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow.  Details will be circulated shortly to local Primary schools levels P6 and P7.