Christmas Party

We welcomed several guests to our Christmas lunch including honorary member Brian Collings, Angela and Geoff Dickman from the Rotary Club of Maldon and several of our spouses.

Last week we voted for Rotarian of the Year. This week our President presented the Harry Hatcher shield to the winner, John Knott. John added the magic to our grotto at the Hylands House Frost Fair and was Santa to 353 children over three days. If there was an award for the most photographed Rotarian in Chelmsford, John would probably win that too.

Our guest speakers were Neil Richardson and John Jemison aka Dopplegangers Read Poetry. When Neil retired and moved to Braintree he couldn’t understand why people kept calling him John. They met each other by chance on a coach trip and discovered that, not only did they look similar, but they had a lot of things in common. They went to the same college and both ended up teaching RE. They also share a love of poetry. Neil and John entertained us with the story of how they met together with a selection of poetry written by themselves and others. Earlier in the week Neil emailed our President to say “we are looking forward to engaging with you in poetry which expresses joy, doubt, hope, enquiry, challenge, humour, and above all, faith in our common humanity.” They did not disappoint.

After the meeting President Anne and Jenny Black delivered some gifts to Chelmsford Community Transport for their Christmas Present Appeal.