Club Chronicle

19 March 2026: Fellowship Meeting

Today we met at the café in the Ingatestone Saddlery for the second time. It is not far from our regular venue, the Ivy Hill Hotel; we normally choose somewhere else for our Fellowship Meetings.

We had a long table in the side room known as The Snug. The photograph shows one of the pictures hanging on the Snug’s wall. We had a good number of members plus a couple of guests.

We ordered at the Café’s counter before taking our seats. The food was brought two orders as a time. The delay between the various orders appearing didn’t cause us any real problems; we urged everyone to eat their food as it appeared. There was no formal agenda but President Graham, back from his recent hip replacement, did go through a few formal points at the end. We were given a table in The Snug on condition that there were no speeches, so he kept what he said short and quiet.

The café is at the back of the Saddlery, which someone described as a department store for things equestrian. As we saw on the way through, that was not a bad description.

Rotary Young Musician District Final

Report by Anne Moriaty

The District Final took place in Brentwood Cathedral on Saturday 28 February in the presence of the Deputy Mayor of Chelmsford, Cllr Smita Rajesh, and her consort.

The audience were treated to a lovely concert with high standard performances from five vocalists and six instrumentalists. Sadly there could only be two winners going through to the Regional Final and after lengthy deliberations the accolades went to pianist Tailin Liu sponsored by the Rotary Club of Bishops Stortford and vocalist Harry Sunderland sponsored by the Rotary Club of Dunmow.

Our Chelmsford winners, Henrietta Lawrence and Chloe Mahler were worthy runners-up.

I had the honour of giving out the certificates and the Deputy Mayoress presented the winner and runner-up trophies.

Collection for Marie Curie

On 25 February 2026 President Graham, Francis Whitbread, Keith Dabbs, Anne Moriety and Steve, worked as a team at Morrisons Supermarket to collect monies on behalf of the Marie Curie charity. We collected a handsome sum, of which £80 was collected via card payment through the “SumUp” device. We enjoyed the day and special thanks to Francis who made the arrangements and remained all day throughout others’ slots. A photo opportunity could not go amiss.