Horse Ride Dinner, Bowling To Victory

Once again the past week and a half has been very busy. Finally some time to catch up on things. 

Horse Ride Dinner
First we had our annual Horse Ride dinner where we thanked all the farmers for opening up their fields for us to use back in September. We also thanked our sponsors and of course handed over a very large cheque to our chosen charity for the event - Derbyshire Air Ambulance.

The Air Ambulance is so specialised and all the agricultural community fully supports this charitable service for obvious reasons. The presentation of the cheque was very gratifying as we were able to give over £6,000.00 to Derbyshire Air Ambulance.

Presentation of the BIG £6000.00+ Cheqque raised from the Horse Ride

A cheque for £700.00+ raised at a collection at the Derbyshire County Show

Group photo of Farmers and Sponsors with Me, Roger Graham and DAA Representative

We really must thank the stars of the evening and that is our farming community who without their kind cooperation and support the event could have never taken place.

Bowling VictoryClub Secretary and JVP Tony Beenham led our Club Bowling Team to a major victory over Long Eaton Dawnbreakers this past Thursday evening at Ilkeston Bowl. Tony received high score in both games and it is always good to have someone on your team who bowls for a bowling league. 

My game was pretty dire. I did not instil any sort of good team vibes when my very first ball bowled went for the left side gutter. My second ball wasn't much better, only three pins went down. I gradually got better but nowhere near the dizzying heights of Tony.

Thank you Tony for organising and leading this event and now we wait to hear who we face on the next round. I will go and practise in between time.

Captain Tony

Ray Terry looking the part 

The two Presidents

Tony putting names on score board

The whole gang from both Clubs

Time to go but I will write a new blog this Friday that includes Thanksgiving Dinner this Thursday evening and of course our Monday meeting this past week that involved Derby County Football greats Barry Butlin and John O'Hare. 

Until then stay warm on these cold Autumn going into Winter nights.

Another Busy Weekend

Another busy weekend full of fellowship and fun was had by all at Church Wilne Rotary Club. Saturday evening saw our fantastic Inner Wheel in action with their Quiz Night. There were 13 teams of six present and the questions were very good. Tested us all on our knowledge in many areas. 

The winning team - The Smith's - got the high score of 61. But, my team got 60 and had the lead throughout the 8 rounds of questions and were pipped at the end. Oh well, it was all good fun and for a good cause - Tubular Sclerosis. 

Many thanks to Inner Wheel President Ann Gregory, all of Inner Wheel and her team that assembled and organised the quiz night. Great atmosphere and fellowship.

The winning team The Smiths

The Hall full of teams ready to go!

My team working hard but enjoying the evening.

FIREWORKS & BONFIRE

Ok, so it was a week or so delayed due to the weather but RCCW annual bonfire evening went off without a hitch. Great night weather, food, warm bonfire and fantastic fireworks. 

Many thanks to everyone involved in organising and working so hard on everyones behalf to make this past Sunday evening very memorable.

The Whole Gang @ The Bonfire. Smiles all round

You can see more pictures on the Club's FB page at: https://www.facebook.com/RotaryClubOfChurchWilne

Or, you can visit our website at: www.churchwilnerotary.org.uk

Clay Pigeon Shoot, Concert, Remembrance Sunday

It was an incredible weekend past with three major events happening within 24 hours. Only Church Wilne Rotary Club could accomplish that sort of thing. First off was the Clay Pigeon Shoot that Rtn Andy Cartwright planned and promoted to great success. There were 29 participants of all ages and every last person had a smile on their face. 

What I can't believe is that I actually won the event. Here is the score card to prove it.

Many of the participants were Rotarians and here is a great shot of all who came from the Club to support this superb event.

But, what you got to watch for are the ladies from Inner Wheel. They are a tough bunch with guns in their hands! LOL But they shot very well.

May favourite shot though is of Mrs T rearing back and firing and hitting one of those clay pigeons. Well done!

Of course the men looked the part as well. Here is Pete Wealthdale taking his shot. Well done Pete.

And, here is Andy letting us know how guns work and giving a very good H&S talk beforehand. Andy organised the whole thing and we are very grateful for his enthusiasm for the Clay Shoot and wish him luck in organising the District Shoot in Spring 2014.

The shot of the day is when I asked the Rotarians to pose with their guns. What I did not expect is an assassination attempt. LOL You can tell only one of these guys likes me.

FOUNDATION CONCERT

The very same day (in the evening) was our Foundation Concert where we raised £225.00. That amount has now helped us reach our fund raising target for our Uganda project. My thanks to all who turned out to support the Concert and to our two incredible performers who helped me entertain the audience that evening - Ellie Sheehy-Smith and Chris Hill.

Chris will have a CD out on iTunes shortly so watch this space!

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

I had the great privilege of representing RCCW at the Remembrance Sunday church and memorial services in Draycott whilst IPP Derek Sheehy Smith did the honours in Ockbrook. My most sincere thanks to Derek and to all the Rotarians who came out and supported me and Derek on the day. The pictures below tell the whole story. As per usual the services were moving and thought provoking about wars past and present.

IPP Derek Sheehy-Smith reading names at Ockbrook War Memorial 

Rotarian Wives supporting Draycott Service

All Rotarians at Draycott Service

Well it's time to go and can't wait for the Land Owners Dinner this coming week. Thank you for keeping up with us via this blog and know you can find more details of our Club at our website: www.churchwilnerotary.org.uk.

District Gov Visit & Clay Cross Charter Evening

This past Monday night we had District Governor Peter Moralee as our guest speaker. He was accompanied by our AG Tony Storer. We had all the top brass in that night and had a very lively evening showing the Club at its finest.

It was also an absolute pleasure to hear Peter speak and expound upon the District's year thus far, his own personal experiences and his hopes for the future. Peter had us all discussing why we joined Rotary and how we can use that reason to get others involved in Rotary in the future. 

Peter does deliver a very well thought-out and thought provoking speech. I have seen Peter several times at Charters and District Conference and not once has he used the same speech twice. He does his research on clubs and knows them inside out before he arrives. Personally, I had a great conversation with him over dinner. All in all Peter is a superb example of Service Above Self. He has certainly put his life into Rotary and we are all the better for it.

It was very interesting the part of his speech dealing with polio and his very passionate plea to do all we can to complete the job of eradicating this terrible disease from our planet. His knowledge on the subject is superb and all of us in the room learned things about polio we didn't know before the meeting. I think many of us are now wanting to move forward with a project to help raise the money Peter suggested. 

Thank you Peter for attending our Club meeting this past Monday. We look forward to seeing you at our Charter night in April 2014.

Tony Storer, Peter Moralee, Me

PRESIDENTIAL MOMENT

We did the 16th President of the USA on Monday night and that was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is my favourite president of all time. Known as 'honest Abe' and the fact he was a great orator and speech writer means that the honour of being Abraham Lincoln had to go to DG Peter. 

The other similarity is that both Lincoln and DG Peter have beards. That settles it for me!!!

CLAY CROSS CHARTER
Late last week I attended the Clay Cross Charter. It was a very different Charter and a very successful one too. It was much less formal than the usual Charter but the food was good and the fellowship fantastic. The Clay Cross bunch do make everyone feel welcome.

One of the things they did that was of great interest to me was the fact they displayed their archived items from their Club history from Day One. Very valuable stuff and congratulations to them for keeping up with their own history.

Got a busy weekend and it all seems to happen on Saturday. First the Clay Shoot on Saturday morning and then the Foundation Concert where yours truly will be performing. See you there!