"Making connections whilst working for local and international community projects." LATEST CLUB NEWS......................

DECORATED CHRISTMAS TREES NEEDED! If you have a business please join Marks & Spencer and Premier Travel and dozens of other local business organisations in taking part in the Rotary Club of Cambridge's Christmas Tree Festival in Great St Mary's Church in the centre of Cambridge. You simply need a decorated tree for this fund-raising event and are welcome to place an A3 size advertisement beneath the tree. This year we would also like to ask families to supply a commemorative tree to remember a family member or to celebrate an event in their lives over the past year. Please contact our Vice-President John Martin for full details j.martin20111@btinternet.com

Rotary World Polio Day To celebrate World Polio Day on 24th October, Rotary has a day of fun events planned at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, where members from right across the Rotary family will join together to mark the final push to rid the world of polio, and you're all invited!  This free celebration event will include planting more than 30,000 crocus corms in the park, and we will be joined by Purple4Polio Ambassadors Ade Adepitan and Julia Roberts, along with a host of other guests and Olympic Park volunteers. Rotary GBI President Denis Spiller will be bringing his Purple4Polio Beetle ahead of May’s Rotary tour and Rotarian Mark Tredwin will also be showing off his Purple4Polio Caterham Acadamy racing car, which has been helping drive awareness during our polio campaign.

Agrieneth Mascule, an African woman who came to speak to our Club recently, has by her own efforts and with help from her local Rotary Club been able to come to this country in order to promote international understanding and help education in Botswana. Agrieneth is a teacher from a rural area in Botswana who has been working with the Rotary Club of Gaborone for several years. District 1080, the Rotary district for East Anglia, was looking for a suitable candidate for a Rotary scholarship and the Rotary club of Cambridge Sawston agreed to sponsor Agrieneth and apply for a Global Grant.

The third member of Cambridge's business community joins us this year. Welcome to venture capitalist Robert Hook Robert was born in Cambridge and has lived here and in the surrounding villages all his life. After joining Cambridge Consultants he took time off to do research at Cambridge University Engineering Department, joining Trinity College and obtaining a PhD in 1973. Returning to the business world he rejoined Cambridge Consultants, shortly thereafter joining the board, where his focus migrated to the commercial exploitation of technology, principally through the creation of new businesses. In 1985, with the support of his colleages at CCL, he left to form Prelude Ventures, a venture capital company financing early stage technology businesses. He counts himself extraordinarily lucky for being part of the evolving high tech scene, sometimes referred to as the Cambridge Phenomenon, before selling his interest to Esprit Capital Partners and retiring in 2010. He is married with four children and 9 grandchildren. Aside from parenting and grand parenting in his own family, he has also supported for some years an African boy Okeyo and through him his family and village. He has a strong interest in classical music and about 10 years ago became Chairman of the Cambridge Philharmonic.  Our photo shows Robert on the right with President Julian Landy