Presidential Address

                                              Presidential Message
I was a founder member of Blaize over 40 years ago and served as its President in the year 1990/1991. Today, Blaize is a very different organisation to that which functioned back then. Our membership was approaching 40 and now we are less than 20. Furthermore, we are all 30 years older and although we continue to meet weekly at our new Northcliffe venue and indeed enjoy better regular attendances at our meetings, we cannot do what we used to do as only a few of us are still working and our “connections” are not as plentiful. We are, however, still doing “Rotary” although I feel we could improve on the “Rotary” (service before self) to avoid us becoming a sort of Probus/Luncheon Club.  

Now covid is, hopefully, behind us at least we will regularly be able to meet face-to-face and with parking not an issue, hopefully, our attendances will continue to be good and maybe new members become interested/attracted to join. 
I feel maintaining our membership level (and ideally increasing it) is most important – please Membership Committee keep up the good work. 
For the forthcoming year and noting the above points, I hope we can “make a difference” on various fronts and in order to do that consider “inter alia”:- 

1. Supporting, as we have, a variety of local charities either with donations or more ideally with “hands-on” projects.
2. Undertake our annual tree planting.
3. Hold a charity dinner to raise funds.
4. Hold an “ebay auction” to raise funds – this could be a continuous process rather than a one off.
5. Discuss and decide whether to continue organising and holding our Charity Golf Day at Ilkley.
6. Purchase tangible items with the Blaize Trailers £1 per head per walk fund, now standing at almost £1,500..
7. Find a suitable sales route for the stock of J B Birch “Notelets” thereby raising further charitable money.
8. Support RYLA.
9. Support Kids Out.
10. Continue supplying the “Dictionaries” to local schools
11. Possibly joining up with a fellow Rotary Club to enable a “more beneficial” Rotary event to be arranged. 

This need not be an exhaustive list and any further ideas would be welcomed.  

I appreciate, due to our Club size, age and health we can only do so much and certainly cannot involve ourselves, as we did 40 years ago – I have tried to suggest ideas which don’t involve too much time and commitment from members but achieve a “Rotary” outcome. 

I hope the Committee Chairman will take onboard these thoughts for implementation where possible and relevant to their committee. I thank them all for agreeing to stand and hope as well as “making a difference” they will enjoy their year.  

It is fellowship which, in my opinion, is the core of our Club and I hope in the year ahead we can have plenty of it leading to worthwhile “Rotary” outcomes.  

It would be nice to have a few outside visits and for each of our members to attend at least one of the Bradford 10 Rotary Clubs in the year ahead. 

Robert Allan 
President 
Bradford Blaize Rotary Club 
2022/2023