Today Frank Mayhew from the Sebastepol Club in California gave us a very interesting talk on "One Village at a Time". this described how 28 villages in Africa had been helped with clean water, anti-maleria nets and seeds and cows to start to pull themselves out of poverty. The club is most interested in these projects and has resolved to follow Frank's lead.

Saturday 24th January

Several members went to the Burns Night held by the Staines Club and enjoyed a convivial evening with Scottish food and Music. It was a most enjoyable event and the picture shows our group with the pipers.

started well on the 7th January, when our President Joe inducted a new member, Karen Sutton. WE all welcomed Karen into the club and look forward to working with her over the next few years.

The two Rotary Clubs in Shepperton worked together this year and raised an amazing total of £9599 which will go to local and Rotary Charities

This effort shows that everyone in Shepperton thinks of the needy despite the Credit Crunch and our thanks go to all the generous people who contributed.

Each Christmas we collect money at various locations for Local and Rotary charities. This year we have got off to a good start by collecting at Kempton Market on Thursday 27th November and at Notcutts Garden Centre in Staines on Sunday 30th November. We continued with street collections in Shepperton and ended at Tesco on the 23rd December; our eventual total was a massive £5482. This will be handed over to several charities including Shooting Star, Cameo, St John Fisher Lourdes Fund, Mission for Vision and others.

Everyone has been very generous despite the credit crunch, well worth our members standing out in the cold for a few hours!!

Today at breakfast we had a very interesting speaker, Paul Webb from ArtWork Creations, who explained the art of picture framing and the wide range of standards possible from the amateur, through Conservation to Museum standard. He gave a most entertaining talk and showed many examoles of the picture framer's art.

We also would like to thank BP for sponsoring the event and to the Chief Executive of Spelthorne Borough for the use of the Council Chamber and all the schools who took part together with the competitors and their parents and supporters.

Our annual race night is one of our major fund raising events of the year. This year it was held in the Saxon School by kind permission of the Head Teacher. After a hectic round of ticket selling in the Shepperton area, 120 people sat down to an enjoyable evening.

The evening consisted of 7 horse races shown on a screen and people were able to place modest wagers of 50p on their favourite horses. Each race attracted sponsor ship and we would like to give a big thank to our sponsors - Kempton Park Racecourse, Hoads Property Development, Progressive Developing Markets, Timeless IT, The Barley Mow, Audrey Wilson and Desmond Mulvany.
We had a great team from St John Fisher Church running the TOTE and all our members helped with the setting up and clearin away.
We raised over £1500 which will go to local charities including the Sam Beare Hospice in Weybridge and Spelthorne Crossroads.
A great time was had by all - booke early for next year!!

Our President Joe visited St David’s School, Ashford to present every year 5 student with their personal copy of the Rotary Dictionary. The School made us very welcome and the presentation was made at the school assembly in the chapel.

As can be seen President Joe as usual was a great hit with the young ladies. St David’s are well known to our club as they always do well every year in our Youth Speaks Competition. Now with their new Rotary dictionaries the sky the limit.

Des Mulvany and John Dumbrell visited Town Farm Primary School in Stanwell to present all year 5 children with a dictionary. After an interesting history lesson staged by the year 5 pupils, some 48 dictionaries werte presented.

We also managed to donate one to their library, Des is pictured presenting it to the Head Teacher and the Librarian.

After the very successful press launch of the Rotary Dictionaries on Monday, Des had organised, for the following day, the first presentation to year 5 pupils. Janet, Des, & I were greeted very warmly at Saint Ignatius Catholic Primary School in Sunbury. I arrived just after the other two only to find that I had missed out on coffee, I think they got special treatment, one of them being a member of the teaching profession.
When all was ready, a pupil collected us to join school assembly. After singing a hymn & having a reading, the Deputy Head Teacher, Tom Ready, showed the assembled pupils a copy of the dictionary & introduced their Rotary visitors. Des made a short but very appropriate speech, telling them a little about Rotary what we get involved with locally, such as the Christmas floats & Rotary’s three main international projects this year, Polio Plus, Water Aid & Literacy. He explained how the four Rotary clubs would be presenting all year 5 pupils in Spelthorne with a copy of the dictionary.
The Deputy Head then called out the pupil’s name, which had been written by the school in the frontispiece of the Dictionary, Janet & Des then presented them, leaving me free to try & catch this wonderful occasion on camera. As you can see Janet had a big smile & a few words for each young person, I found it a delight & so rewarding to see the youngsters’ reaction to their gift when they returned to their groups.
Our visit ended with a complete tour of the school, conducted by the head girl & boy, two very different personalities but both delightful. This is a school well known to many of Des's family either from teaching there or as pupils, As a first time visitor I was very impressed with the way it was run, & with the new technology available.

Ken H

The fun of a Rotary Sleigh

It's not just at Christmas we work on the Sleighs, after last Christmases outings we found a half shaft required repairs, this work was done by Brooklands College though the good auspice's of Mike Gicquel. Further repairs to the Sleighs bodywork was left until late summer’s better weather, "ha ha" The Sleigh was finally brought out of store in late August when this repair work, also adapting the rear to accommodate the new generator, & even more importantly, the building of a new frame to support the all weather cover was undertaken.
This work was completed by members of the Sleigh team in early September, as always taking longer than expected, a total of 5 full working days. The photos show the new generator in position, this was purchased with money donated by two local councillors from discretionary funds available to them & was reported in an earlier addition of Ship Ahoy, The second photo is off the completed new removable support frame of copper tube & wood, with it's innovative solution to keeping the heavy cover away from the Sleigh, by hanging pipe insulation down it's sides. Finally the blue all weather cover, now tailored to the new frame is fitted, ready for the Sleigh to return to storage.
May I take this opportunity to thank the sleigh team of, Joe Delahunty, Douglas Dick, John Dumbrell, Dave Good, & Des Mulvany for all there hard work, & the fun we have together.

Ken H

The Rotary Institute.
or a trip to Brussels

Every year at the time the District Governor Elects from several zones meet for their first training session in September, there is also a “Rotary Institute” meeting. This year both were held in Brussels and Jean and I went along to the Institute part. The Institute serves as a discussion and information forum where, in the past, past District Governors met to learn what is new and give their ideas on how to improve things. This year it has been opened up to all Rotarians although the vast majority of attendees had been DGs at some time.

We had presentations from the President – DK Lee, Bob Scott on Polio and the future of Foundation, talks on membership, Public Relations and many other subjects but the most interesting part is in the workshops where the views of other nationalities are interesting and instructive and there is usual a good debate. The workshops covered membership, community mapping, the Bill Gates Polio Challenge and how we are going to raise the money, Public Relations and communications and how to decrease Child Mortality.

All in all it was an interesting event but spoilt, to some extent, by the poor administration. One highlight however was the home hospitality where six of us visited the RC of Brussels Europe. We were treated to an interesting evening and an excellent meal by a club which is also celebrating its tenth anniversary.

John Dumbrell

22nd September. The four Rotary clubs in the Borough of Spelthorne launched their Dictionaries 4 Life project which will give all year 5 children in Spelthorne a new illustrated dictionary. The project was launched in the Council Offices in the presence of the Mayor and school representatives

The weeks coaching costs £50 including lunch, next year they are hoping to run two courses, the limiting factor being coaches. The Club is thriving and the Ladies team are doing particularly well, with a number of current internationals on their books.

The bookings programme for the Club House is doing equally well. You may remember we were their first commercial booking last year and they now have a healthy income from Christenings, Birthday and Anniversary bookings. They have plans to carry out further work to improve their facilities.

All in all Joe and Ken had a good morning out and saw many local youngsters enjoying themselves.

Our guest speaker today was Karen Sutton - a Commercial and Event Photographer- who entertained us with the story of how she took up photography. At one time Karen spent much time on the F1 circuit, photographing McClaren cars. A great talker with many interesting snippets of life behind the lens.

Today we had an excellent BBQ organised by Vivian with the expert chefs, Nigel and Henry in attendance. It was held in John and Jean's garden and 27 people attended. There were fun and games for everyone and an excellent selection of food with everyone supplying something to make the day memorable.

The weather was a little windy but the rain held off for most of the time.

Our thanks to everyone for making it such a success.

This morning our Immediate Past President, Ken Dennis presented cheques to his nominated charities of the year.

Hugh Mackenzie recieved the money on behalf of the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher and Mick Hey received the cheque for the Shooting Star Hospice.

The monies had been raised by the club in the period July 07 to June 08

We met as usual for breakfast at 7.30. Our second meeting of the new Rotary Year with our President Joe Delahunty in the Chair.

Two guests were welcomed, one of whom, Eric Painter - the President of the Shepperton Club - had a sorry tale to tell. He was sitting in his house on Monday when it was struck by lightning. Not only did this destroy all his electrical equipment but the roof caught fire and he is temporarily homeless. When he has need, the club will help as much as possible. Our picture shows him telling his tale to our club Secretary, Des Mulvany. A full story appears in the Surrey Herald.

However the highlight of the meeting was the induction of our latest member, Janet Matthews. Shown here being welcomed to the club by our President - he is not always like this, he does smile sometimes. Janet will be a great asset to the club and will be helping on our projects committee.