General Meeting - Live

ROTARY CLUB OF CHESTFIELD

Breakfast Meeting 0730 for 0800 Thursday 3rd March 2022 @ The Golf Club

Present:           Lesley, Margaret, Andrew M, Pippa, Spyros, David K, Iain, Paul, Pat, Jackie, Robert, David M, Godfrey, Nick, Chris, Jackie, Andrew B, Dave C.  On Zoom:  Marian, Kathryn, Jean M.

Apologies:       Elaine, Myfanwy, Pete, Reggie, Sue, Trevor, David B, Maureen, Hilary.

Grace:             Said by Iain.

BREAKFAST

Business Items:

Lesley welcomed Andrew M, back to meetings after a period of being isolated.  Andrew confirmed that Jean is recovering well.

Everyone should have received the circulated email inviting our members to attend Margate’s centenary celebration.  Lesley said she will be going.  Margate want one form only from clubs, so anyone else wanting to attend, please let Lesley know by March 11^th.

Re breakfast meeting format, we have recently moved the start time back a half hour to 8.00am.  This however inconveniences members who work and can only attend on zoom.  The extra half hour delay does make things easier for the golf club staff who come in just to do our breakfast.  Various suggestions were made for adjusting the timing of meetings.  Eventually, a compromise was agreed: the meeting will start at 07.45am and take a number of business items before breaking off at 08.00am for breakfast.  Then we will resume after breakfast (about 08.15am) to finish off the business items.  The whole meeting will be recorded on Zoom, so anyone can watch it later.

Godfrey said how pleased he was with the excellent result from car parking at the week end - £640.  We took £90 using the card reader, but it’s worth noting that while someone is dealing with the card reader he/she can’t do anything else.  In particular he/she won’t be able to stop excess drivers coming in if we are full.  So if we anticipate being busy we will need two people at the top end.  We were full at different times last week end, and the walkie talkies were invaluable in coping with this.

Any Other Business:

Chestfield PC have indicated they want a street party on 5th June, and we have discussed having a stall.  However they are no further forward with planning.  They don’t know how many might attend nor what other street parties are planned locally. 

Re the Ukraine emergency.  Rotary International and district have circulated advice about how local clubs might help.  They are trying to work out what our best response might be.  One avenue would be to go through the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC).  Also, it is possible to sponsor individual refugees.  Probably we can’t do anything in Ukraine itself until the fighting stops, but aid might be sent to the countries sheltering refugees eg Poland and Moldavia.  British Red across are asking for help in the form of cash donations.

Herne Bay are possibly hosting an evening meeting with a speaker from Mercy Ships.  No date yet.

Reminder for those bowling on Friday, meet at the venue at 6.00pm.

Robert said Gill sends her thanks for members’ best wishes following last weeks’ meeting.

Pippa said that members might like to know that the Three Mariners pub at Oare have resumed doing lunches for walkers.

Greetings from Other Clubs:  At the car parking, our members encountered visitors from Ambleside.  They have only accepted female members in the last couple of years!

Raffle:             Was won by Chris (again!)

Master-at-Arms:          Nick told us that today is World Book Day (oh, no it’s not, said the teachers present) and also World Wildlife Day.  It’s also the birthday of the athlete Fatima Whitbread.

Final Toast:     Said by Lesley

Next Meetings:

Board Meeting 6.30pm Tuesday 8th March @ Andrew’s house

Breakfast Meeting 07.45am Thursday 10th March @ the Golf club. 

Dave C will be doing his Life Talk entitled ‘Panorama, Paedophiles and Me’