weeklyreview

Weekly Blog 28th April '08 (with footnotes)

The Scots have Burn’s Night, the Irish have St Patrick’s Day and the Welsh have the Six Nations Trophy. Tonight it was the turn of the English with a celebration of our, and it has to be admitted - several other countries (1) patron saint, combined with the birthday of our national bard.
The evening started punctually, just fifteen minutes late, with a parade of The Beef around the room. David Warburton played ‘The Beef of Old England’ with great panache and Rotarian Holt, dressed rather exotically and brandishing a large cross of St George led a motley assemblage of curiously garbed individuals who looked as though they had just escaped from an Archers’ tribute band.
The nosh was entirely appropriate to the occasion, the potted shrimps and roast potatoes being particularly fine as was the horseradish sauce. Bread and butter pudding to follow, God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. Real English rib-sticking grub.
Each course of the meal was separated by a reading from a stereotypical English representative – Brian Holt as Shakespeare’s lesser known brother Gilbert (no really, I had to look him up just to make sure Holt wasn’t pulling a fast one), Jack Lazenby completely convincing as a hare-fancying Yorkshire gardener, Peter Gehnich, sans box, reminiscing about village cricket and some clod in a bowler hat moaning about commuting. (Editors note: A perfectly credible rendition given by the writer of this piece).


	Go on - you are all thinking it, who's going to say it?

The beef is paraded by 'City gent' ably accompanied by David Warburton on the keyboard	'City Gent' in full cry	No, honestly - he had a brother called Gilbert


Josiah's the name and gardening's the game	Now this is what an enraptured audience should look like	Keep your legs together in all weather

Our speaker for the evening, Terry Heath of the Campaign for an English Parliament presented his case very succinctly. Rotarian Smith then trumped this with an even more succinct vote of thanks involving the ceremonial tearing up of his original, carefully researched commentary on the shortcomings of the British constitution. If ever brevity were to be commended, now was the time (2).
The President used the occasion to award two Paul Harris Fellowships; one to Chris Behan and the other to David Rankin. Both awards highly deserved and very loudly acclaimed by the assembled proles and guests.



	'nuff said - well done Chris!


	Two very worthy recipients of the Pail Harris medal. Well done to Chris and David

The raffle draw is recorded here for the purposes of transparency and public record in case of future audit and the winning numbers listed in footnote (3) below.
Finally, what is the matter with English songs? Folk tried to sing that traditional favourite of ancient times, ‘There’ll always be an England’ (written in 1940 and immortalised by Tiny Tim at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970) but there’s only so much you can do when lyrics and melody seem so unacquainted with each other. Perhaps we needed to warm up with a round or two of ‘Ere we go, ere we go’. ‘Rule Britannia’ followed rather less hesitatingly while by the National Anthem everyone had stopped trying too hard and simply belted it out. Not a dry eye in the house, though that may have been the horseradish sauce.
An excellent, very English occasion and ‘a hit, a very palpable hit’ (Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2).

Rtn John Crowle

(1) Lithuania , Portugal , Germany , Greece , Georgia , Beirut , Palestine
(2) ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, Shakespeare, W; Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
(3) You’re joking if you think I’m going to list all the winning numbers, none of which belonged to me…again.

Weekly Blog 14th April '08

There was an evil glint in the President’s eye as he bought me a drink last Monday. I knew what was coming!
Our speaker was Ross Tyrell who is one of 39 volunteers who have been appointed to act as Finds Liason Officers across the country. She explained that up until the passing of the Treasure Act in 1996 the medieval law of Treasure Trove still prevailed. The problem with the old law was that there was no one around at the time of the discovery of the treasure to record accurately on a map precisely where it was found and in what condition. By the time the finder produced the Find to a museum (if he bothered) for identification and recording, it had probably been cleaned with Brasso and straightened out with a hammer.

The screen was far more visible than this shot shows.
Full of interesting facts and analysis


Ross receiving a well-earned vote of thanks	Me, presenting said vote of thanks

Ross tries to attend all the major metal detecting meetings within her patch. She is then on hand to see the article in its original condition and also be able to record the location of the find. If it is a major find she acts as a go-between between the metal detectorist and the landowner. I was surprised to learn that fisticuffs are pretty rare.
I was very impressed by our speaker’s depth of knowledge and by her willingness to stand in cold and soggy fields for long periods of time all in the interests of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
The Club showed its appreciation in the usual way, although the writer tried to turn it into the last toast!

Rtn Martin Hector

Weekly Blog 31st March 08

Monday nights meeting was held at the usual venue, beef of old England, (or Argentina), was dined upon and following the usual verbals, a fine speaker was produced.
Mr Niall Sloane, the BBC's man in charge of football and the newly acquired Formula 1 coverage, told the tale of how his career went from local newspaper journalism to junior gopher at the BBC sports and report studios, followed by an editorship on the football side.
His evident pleasure in now taking on Formula 1 as well, showed his enthusiasm went alongside the professional approach.

Niall Sloane, another of this years superlative speakers

Our ex-President, Roger Rickard, cobbled together an amazing pile of tape deck / computer / loudspeaker & computer, to show Niall's short film of sporting out-takes.
It is good to know that as some of us show signs of senility, that 'Sparky Rickard' will be able to jump start our pacemakers and amplify our hearing aides.

Rtn Peter Barnes

Weekly Blog 17th March 08

Others get exciting meetings with great speakers. When it becomes my turn on the Rotary Blog rota, what do I get? A business meeting. Ah well, although various members livened proceedings prior to supper being served (an excellent beef casserole with chips and for those who are concerned with such health-giving things: spring greens). Peter Barnes passed on a report he had seen in the Daily Telegraph that shorter people lived longer than tall. This was directed at our Saracens-supporting secretary while Chris Behan stood up to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Footsie 100. This sounded unpromising but he regaled us with obscure statistics on their chief executives. A few examples I noted down: in 1984 five were members of the MCC compared with four today, or in 1984 there were no women chief executives but there are two now. I’m not clear whether he thought this a good thing. As clubmen, many belonged to the top ones in 1984, such as the Athenaeum, the Reform or Brookes, but now none do and indeed a third of the chief executives are not now British at all. Then Keith Smith regaled us with his misadventures with the Inland Revenue and Customs telephone document request line, apparently situated in Bangalore beyond the bailiwick of IRC. I’d better not say any more on this one.
After supper we broke up into our respective committees and the Projects Committee, of which I am a member, discussed our numerous forthcoming activities: Stroke Awareness Day on 26^th April, followed immediately on the 27^th by our Metal Detector Rally on a farm in Brill secured as a venue through one time dairy farmer and milk roundsman, Peter Jones. Kids Out is supported once more and we will be taking 16 children from Booker Park School to Legoland on 11^th June. I hope the bits of Lego are glued together. It will be our first visit there, following Thorpe Park’s increasingly uncooperative approach. Locally we are installing four benches in playing fields but still need £400 of the £2000 needed. We decided to tin rattle in May to raise this sum at Haddenham Station one morning and on Banks Parade on a Saturday morning. All part of raising our profile at our Haddenham epicentre. (Before anyone e-mails me, I know it is illegal to rattle collecting tins: it’s just a figure of speech).
There then followed reports from the other committees, including a splendid head-to-head on recruitment between the Membership Committee and the Publicity Committee. Most enjoyable.

Committee chairmen, Peter Davies and Mike Ginsberg,
present their reports to the members.

The members were pleased to welcome a new maître d' to the R.A.T.
on Monday evening. We wish Monsieur Michel Merde de Boeuf
a long and happy stay in his new position. Oh! and apparently he is over 18.

I will draw this report to an end with the raffle and the Grumpling Trophy. The former was won, (again), by Peter Davies who a couple of weeks ago left the bottle of wine behind and on this occasion kept us all in suspense as he sought his temporarily misplaced winning ticket. The Grumpling Trophy seems to be given out for good works these days rather than to Prat of the Week, which is probably why I don’t seem to get it any more. Brian Holt, after dallying with fun awards such as Chris Behan for indicating earlier that two female chief executives were two too many, (or was that Brian’s opinion?), awarded it in absentia to Jim Fulton for donating his fee as a bagpiper at an Aylesbury Society function to our Haddenham charities pot. He broke with tradition by awarding it to someone who was not at the meeting: Brian always is an unconventional think-outside-the-box sort of character.

Rtn. Martin Andrew

Weekly Blog 10th March 08

An excellent turn out of keen sportsmen attended the Rose and Thistle to face the challenges of a series of pub games set out by the Vice President with the help of Bob, his trainer and pub games expert. All but one of the team members were stripped for action when the games commenced with not a formal suit or tie to be seen.
All the games were keenly contested; arrows were thrown, balls were swung, and halfpennies shoved with energy and skills that belied the rewards in store. With exhortations to “keep your hands of your hapnies” and “strain that chain” all the competitors sought to outwit and score points over their formidable adversaries.

You could be forgiven for thinking Keith Smith was the star of the show. He wasn't.


Despite their level of concentration, Jack and Ron still lost this round to a couple of amateur neer do well's	"Come on my boy", urges Frank to his protege Peter, "you can do it."

One can only summize at what might be going through Martin's mind at this moment.	"I told you to push it Brian, not knock it through the wall into the bar."

The result came as somewhat of a surprise with Team Rickard in Man U colours, coming to the fore but perhaps with the support and experience of Bob, their success should not have been in doubt. Rewards, lavish examples of the chocalteers art ,Yorkie Bars, were distributed and we moved on to the Raffle and Grumpling Trophy. The latter being presented by Rotarian Jones who broke with convention and awarded it 3 times: to Martin Andrew for braving the Chiltern woods in the company of two female Texans, to the president for supporting the Project Fair and to Brian Holt for his excellent photographic support.

Rtn Roger Williams

Weekly Blog 3rd March 08

'Memories of Japan' was the title of a talk given this evening by Joan Lilwall-Smith who, with her late husband and through his work, had spent a few months in Japan. For those like myself who have not yet been to Japan, it was an informed and entertaining evening.

For instance, did you know...?

Japanese have the longest life expectancy. Although when we hear from Joan that our male equivalent there is expected to work all hours under the sun with, it seems, not much time for relaxation, this seems to be a contradiction. (As I have a 103 year old mum-in-law, perhaps I had better check to see if there are any Japanese genes in the family!)

There are 24,000 characters in the Japanese language and youngsters are expected to learn them as part of their homework every day. Joan suggested you could probably get by with learning 3000 characters. A far cry from our modest 26-letter alphabet!

Joan holding an image of the ubiquitous Mt. Fuji, a silk print of Geisha girls, a selection of the 24,000 Japanese characters and a model of a bride wearing her £40,000 wedding kimono - courtesy of a hard working dad!

Geisha girls, (and this is what all the Rotarians were anxious to hear about), are not cheap. All Japanese males, and all males elsewhere, dream of being entertained by a geisha girl but at a suggested cost of £1000 per hour (yes, per hour!), there's no way any foreigner could possibly hide that charge on his expense account!

Joan emphasised the importance to the Japanese of their children and how much parents are prepared to pay for their wedding. (A wedding kimono could cost £40,000). It is also interesting to note that they have black dress for weddings and white for funerals.

Joan interspersed her talk with many humorous anecdotes and brought with her several Japanese items to highlight her remarks, (something of a change from a Power point presentation).

All in all, a very pleasant and informative evening.

Rtn. David Warburton

Weekly Blog Monday 25th February 08

I hate doing the blog. You have to listen intently to the speaker in order to pick up the very occasional item of interest to include in a half page write up of the evening’s events.
Well, this time I had done a bit of homework. The speaker was from Texas. The meal was Mixed Grill and Fries (American for chips) and we would be well set for a talk on cattle ranching, or gunslingers from the old West, from a six foot six bloke in a Stetson, whose spurs went “chink-chink” as he strode into the room shouting “Howdy” to everyone.

How wrong could I be!

Keilah Jacques proved to be the exact opposite to my imagined Texan. Very attractive, poised, intelligent, (I’m running out of superlatives) with an excellent and confident presentational style that is usual amongst Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars.
With the aid of a PowerPoint presentation, Keilah introduced the club to her family, her high school and university in Texas, and graduate school in Connecticut. She also outlined her experiences of social work in Mexico, and her gratitude in being selected for a Rotary Scholarship at Oxford Brookes University on her third attempt.

Keilah Jaques with her favourite montage, her family! Making her presentation and finally answering a question about
America's current foreign policy.

Keilah proved to be a great credit to her sponsors, the Garland Rotary Club of Texas.
The evening concluded with a long winded presentation by Brian Holt of the Grumpling Trophy to Peter Jones for his ongoing work on the Moshi project in Tanzania.
The raffle was won by Peter Davis, who claimed that he had never won before in all his years in Rotary. He then forgot to take his prize home. What a prat!

Rtn. Keith Smith

Weekly Blog Monday 11th February 08

It is sometimes remarked that meetings at this club can be get a little raucous at times, and perhaps a tad intimidating for speakers who may not fully engage the attention of all members. This was not one of those nights. I heard the proverbial pin drop as Bob Keating took us through the history of the Rothschilds family.


	Bob Keating, what a subject, what a speaker!

We have all been round Waddesdon and seen its assembled treasures. And, of course, we are very familiar with the estate where we run our annual fundraising Waddesdon Horse event.
But stories about people are always the most fascinating, especially when it is a primer in how to become the world's richest family in 100 years. Tales of hiding gold coin from Napoleon's army and equipping Wellington's, bailing out the Bank of England, buying the Suez canal, financing Cecil Rhodes, founding modern banking.............. and many more. That was just up to 1900! Thereafter, we focused on the "Waddesdon" branch of the family leading to the present Lord Jacob Rothschild, and some of the official, (and less official), 'coming and goings' at the house.
Bob, who has been a guide at Waddesdon for the last 10 years, was an excellent speaker, whom I suspect has more tales to tell on another occasion.

Bob has obviously gained considerable knowledge of the Rothschild's whilst working at Waddesdon.

We look forward to that!

Rtn Roger Rickard