7:15pm Speaker Meeting - Rotarian Robin Bottomley from Zimbabwe

President Steve Butler opened the meeting on Tuesday 1st  October by welcoming
the members and their guests. He gave a particularly warm greeting to Rotarian
Robin Bottomley and his wife Christine, also a Rotarian. They both were to
address the club in the pre dinner speakers slot and inform the assembly of
life in Zimbabwe. 

They left Britain in 1968 and settled in Zimbabwe  33 years ago. Zimbabwe is a
beautiful place and the slide show Robin used fully illustrated this point.
Robin and Christine are members of different Rotary clubs in Rotary District
9210 which covers Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe The Rotary movement
is strong in these parts of Africa particularly in Zambia. Robin is hoping to
be a future participant  in the introduction of the Rotary Jaipur Limb project
to this part of Africa.

Christine remarked that they are very privileged to live in such a wonderful
climate and it goes someway to compensate for the trials and tribulations of 
day to day existence. Water is a major problem and has to be bought. The
electricity supply is  very erratic and private medical  treatment is
expensive. There is really no satisfactory alternative  The country is
bankrupt, there is no money, pensions are all gone and people will need to
work till they die 

The vote of thanks was given by Rotarian Ian Trevette who along with his wife
Margaret are personal friends of Robin and Christine