President AnnE's Weekly Blog Weeks 14 - 17. (October)

Week 17

Birthdays - "We've had a few, but then too few to

mention."

Some notable celebrations this week  (so proud of our club - do have a glance at our Facebook page! ). Our 47th Charter and my own birthday which I wouldn't have mentioned except I was publicly presented on zoom with these beautiful birthday flowers!

Some other Birthday flowers arrived, looking droopy and a little bedraggled - but I have had previous experience of these and had absolute faith in their potential. They did not let me down and  I took great pleasure in watching them come to life over a few days, blossoming into another but different beautiful bouquet. 

Just as our Mother Rotary  Club of Bradford must have been watching us when we were first formed 47 years ago. 

And now we too are doing the same, looking to our new groups' awakening and flourishing - the E group and our Sidekicks - having faith in their potential, and excited to see how they blossom and grow. 
And all the while hoping that, in 53 years' time, we are still around to celebrate our centenary, as our mother club will do this coming year. 

So, thinking about birthdays and long and healthy lives, my true thought for the week is this:-

Children are alive now who might reach the age of 150 !

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Week 16

Too Close for Comfort. What shall I do?

So, do I stay where I am because I really, really do want to be friends?

Or do I think about my safety and move away from those sharp claws?

How difficult it can be to make the right decision!

This is the dilemma we have had to face this week.

Everyone was looking forward to a night out at last.

We planned to celebrate our Club’s 47th Charter (like a birthday party for our Rotary Club) with almost 100 lovely people sitting down together at Bradford West Golf Club for dinner, entertainment and a few toasts. It was to be a special occasion for us and for one of our founder members, now aged 95 and still a regular attender, as our very first President, Dr David Fieldhouse, was to be our speaker.

That was before the rapid rise this week in Covid numbers and the clear medical advice that we should be taking more precautions NOW. Which means that gatherings as large as this with people coming from afar are not to be advised.

So, we opted to put health and safety first and cancelled our face to face celebration. Not an easy decision to make, but, once over the initial disappointment, we are being positive and working towards having a Zoom celebration instead and making it as good as we possibly can.

We all have difficult decisions to make in our lifetimes and I have always thought it important never to look back and regret that we made a particular decision if it was the best decision at that particular moment in those particular circumstances. 

So, my quote this week is:

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by avoiding it today” (Abraham Lincoln.)

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Week 15

When you spend all those months safe at home, longing to be out and about…..

….and when eventually you can – your diary is too full and you can’t imagine how you used to do so much!

Which is why this weekend was such a refreshing interlude in Scarborough for a Rotary District 1040 Conference that we could have stayed home for and Zoomed in! 

So, on Saturday, we Zoomed in to the excellent one day conference, the organising team headed up by our own member, PDG Robert Morphet.

The rest of the weekend was spent really enjoying each other’s company, walking on the sands, an invigorating swim in the sea, superb visit to ‘Scarborough Fair” museum and funfair, witnessing the naming ceremony and launch of a new lifeboat followed by International street food at Filey, great food at the Cumberland Hotel, dancing the night away, even the Bingo was fun!

Have a peep at the incriminating photos on our Facebook page! 

As Marc Jacobs wrote, “Let’s do what we love and do a lot of it”.

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Week 14

Have you got the bottle to get stuffed?

When you’re tired and just want to surf the sofa, what better way could you spend an evening than stuffing 500ml soft drinks bottles with non-recyclable plastic to make a difference to the world around you? Inspired once again by our Wilsden Youth Volunteers, our club has taken up a challenge!

Beatrice Overend found the time out from her busy Uni schedule to speak to our lunch group about the dreadful effect plastic has on our environment, on our animals and potentially on our own health. We were enthused to help them in their current project and were tutored in how to produce Eco bit.ly/Ecobrickinstr

We all went home with a ‘starter kit’ and instructions on how to save and use our own rubbish. We very soon discovered it is not as easy as it looks to achieve the stuffed weight of 165gm. Our challenge is to produce 100 between us before helping design and construct a spectacular planter for the village. Hoping some of you reading this will volunteer to help us!

“The time is long past when environmental sustainability can be dismissed as not Rotary’s concern. It is, and must be, everyone’s concern.”

         –  Ian H.S. Riseley, Rotary International President, 2017-18