Iain Smith: District Governor Jo Pawley

The club welcomed Jo Pawley as speaker at its weekly meeting on Thursday 17^th October. This was her 40^th club visit during her year of office as District Governor of District 1020, which consists of 65 clubs in south eastern Scotland. In her talk she reflected on a particular feature of Border clubs, which is how they work together cooperatively, supporting each other’s projects. Instances given were the support given to the Selkirk club’s Philippines project and Langholm’s Malawi ambulance project. She praised clubs’ ability to find innovative and flexible ways of working and adapting to changing situations.

The work of District 1020 is all part of the work of Rotary worldwide, which in the last year has contributed 45 million “Rotary hours” - volunteer work which if paid for would have cost US$ 850 million.

Rotary exists to serve all aspects of the community, locally and worldwide, but the social aspects of fun and fellowship are at the centre of what they do. In keeping with this principle, a group of Hawick Rotarians and their partners will be travelling to Aviemore for the annual District 1020 conference from 25^th to 27^th October.

In closing the meeting president Linden Warburton thanked Jo for her attendance and announced that an anonymous donation had been received in gratitude for help and advice given as part of the work of Rotary.