District Governor Maggie Hughes' Visit

Last week Llantwit Major Rotary Club had a visit from the area’s District Governor, Maggie Hughes.  Although most clubs meet either at lunchtime or at evening meetings many  newer clubs meet for breakfast or even for coffee mornings.  Maggie is a member of the Cardiff Breakfast Club and for the past year has been busy visiting clubs in District 1150 which covers the whole of south Wales.

This year Rotary was celebrating its centenary in Wales after its first club was established in Cardiff in November 1917. The movement was established in Evanston USA in 1905 and quickly spread  first to the UK and Ireland and then around the world.  It now has well over a million members world-wide.  Maggie outlined the ways that Rotarians get involved with

local activities many designed to help and encourage young people to succeed in life.  She was particularly impressed with the large and successful Interact Club which has been formed at Llantwit Major Comprehensive School and which has been doing much in the town in support of good causes. She also was able to announce that the Rotary Polio Plus initiative was close to achieving its goal.  Over thirty years ago when the scheme started the numbers of people contracting polio were numbered in the hundreds of thousands world-wide.  Many died or were crippled for life.  Last year only three cases were reported in Afghanistan.  Two other countries where the disease is also endemic have not reported any cases again this year.  It is a happy development that now when speaking to young people about polio it first has to be explained what the disease is all about. ‘You have to be a certain age to remember the fear that accompanied outbreaks of polio in Britain where there were 8,000 cases in 1958’, she said.   The Bill Gates Foundation is now an active partner with Rotary in helping to achieve this success.

The numbers of Rotarians had increased this year very much as a result of the formation of satellite clubs comprising younger members linked to existing Rotary clubs. These clubs are independent of each other but are able to come together to support larger events in the community.  President of Llantwit Rotary, Charles Anderson thanked Maggie and her husband, Bill, for their visit and congratulated her on all she had achieved during her year of office.