A Busy Thursday Evening

What an evening. Last night's meeting was in two parts, the first was a rehearsal for the Youth Speaks Competition, where three year 7 pupils from Carnforth High School and their English teacher came to present their topic to our club members. They were the speaker, Bella, chairman Bobby and Dan who gave the vote of thanks at the end. Bella who is a pet lover, has two dogs and three horses. She spoke very clearly and articulately about her love of both pet and wild animals. Bella gave us her thoughts on how they should be treated particularly with regard to testing drugs on them. At the end she gave a reasoned answer to a question from a member of the audience on the ethics of testing drugs on animals. Bobby showed he was a capable chairman and Dan's vote of thanks was well received. Club members gave much praise and encouraging advice. We wish them success in the competition at Kendal on November 6th.

For the second part our own member, Brian Carman-Meakin, gave a very interesting presentation about his holiday to China. The journey started in Shanghai on the Yangtze delta. This is a city of contrasts with skyscapersn the business districts built among traditional chinese dwellings alongside 'Europen style' buildings like the Bourse from earlier times. Moving on to Wuhan an industrial city where the Yangtze runs through the three gorges dams. Brian commented on the 1 million people who were dispersed by the impact of deliberate flooding these dams caused. From there to Chonqing famous for the number of Pandas in captivity that they went to see. Next to Xian famous for the display of the Terracotta Army figures. Brian said this was a favourite place for him where he saw the broken pieces of the images being assembled like a 3-D jigsaw. The last stop was Beijing to make a visit to the Great Wall of China and to Tianamen Square. These journeys involved covering many miles and travelling on planes to see such memorable sites.