Meeting at Cleveden in Ben Rhydding - Speaker Pierre Richterich

Pierre gave a background to our Rotary club which was chartered at Bradford City Hall on the tenth of September 1980. Six people got together and decided that Bradford needed an evening club to allow for people whose work did not allow long lunch meetings. The six were Pirre himself plus Ronnie Farley, Keith Howard, Keith Brown, Barry White, and Russell Williams. The first meeting at Keith Howard office at MCB (which eventually became Emerald Publishing). 

Blaize were in fact the first evening club in district although they were quickly followed by other clubs in the district. 

Of the 31 original members there were 6 accountants and none of them were in same industry. There are still 8 founding members within the membership - Pierre, Robert Allan, John Barrow, Barrie Birch, Keith Brown, David Burrows, Derek O’Hearne and Barry Smith. 

Shortly after formation the club twinned with Vlaardingen 80 in The Netherlands who were formed in the same year and had a similar number of members. Vlaardingen is a small herring fishing port in Holland near to the much larger port of Rotterdam. The twinning led to many visits between the two clubs and long standing friendships were established. 

In the early years members followed the Rotary practice of making up missed attendance at other clubs. Pierre visited many overseas clubs all over the world. 

During those early years  Keith Howard came up with wftg "who would be first to go". Unfortunately Barry White was the first to die but has since been followed by many other founding members including Keith himself leaving Pierre as the oldest member of the club. He asked that we please keep up with our twice annual visits to Clevedon as he does not feel strong enough to visit the Northcliffe Golf Club.