Flying tales - Friends & Family Day

The weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy was held at the Dean Park Hotel on Tuesday 16^th August. As this week’s meeting was Friends and Family Day President Mark paid a special welcome to both Nancy Berry and her family and prospective member Zahid and his family. 25 members of the club and eight guest attended the meeting.

President Mark mentioned that he was to be delivering  clothing donations for the Ethiopian Woman programme to the President of Burntisland and Kinghorn Rotary later in the day, and that to raise further funds for the project the Rotary Club was organising a quiz night on the 25^th August to be held at the Sands Hotel. Past President Ken Kelly forwarded a letter from Age concern thanking the Rotary Club for their donation and support.

Secretary’s notices included the latest winnings of the 500 Club in which Rotarian Ken Stahly and his wife had both had independent wins. Mention was made of a fundraising black tie dinner hosted by Kinross and District council in Milnathort town hall, anyone interested should contact PP John for more info.

Ian Ireland had recently returned from Brisbane Australia where he had visited two other Rotary clubs. He mentioned that Australian Rotary Clubs have a problem of an ageing membership together with retention problems as a result clubs were as small as 10 -15 members.

PP Ann Mitchell had visited Inverkeithing and Burntisland Rotary and had the pleasure of handing them a Presidential Citation. Ann also presented the Interactors with a Presidential Citation. Ann was due to be visiting the provisional Club of Methil and later in the day.

Today’s speaker was club member Mark Garland the topic was flying in East Africa, Mark worked as a commercial pilot in Kenya for 10 years. He set the scene for flying in an environment where Hills were 8,000 feet above sea level and rose 3,000 feet above the surrounding landscape, the mountains were between 13,000 and 19,000 feet. Mark highlighted the problems of flying tourists and their luggage in small underpowered aircraft in a hot, high and heavy environment. The dangers of weather were visualised through pictures of dust storms and extracts from his log book showing near crashes as a result of dangerous thunderstorms. Mark explained how pilots navigate and land in bad weather at international airports and then explained how they did it in the bush! Once through the bad weather it was onto the runways from landing on the slopes of Mount Kenya at 10,500 feet to wiggling down the runway on take off to avoid overgrown bushes. Just to keep us awake mark mentioned the take off that went wrong he said he would have crashed had he been able to find a suitable spot, but as there were huge trees ahead he didn’t and managed to get away safely. Mark talked us through some of the emergencies he had experienced and then went on to show us the wonderful places and sights that he was able to visit. Thinking of trying to get a baby Giraffe into an aeroplane then ask Mark, as he went on to explain some of the more unusual flights and passengers. Mark explained the variety of work you do in Africa from working in Sudan with WFP and the Red Cross, escorting a Vickers Vimmy across Ethiopia, parachute drops and a lot more.

Mark’s talk was most appreciated by the Club members and in his vote of thanks President Mark remarked how different Mark’s flying experiences were to everyone’s perception of pilots, jets and international airports that we are all so used to.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday 23^rd August at the Dean Park Hotel.