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TRANSCRIPT
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By email to all members of Swindon Phoenix Rotary Club, and some members of Foothill Highlands Rotary
Club USA, Tappahannock Rotary Club USA, also Rotary Club Members in Australia, Indore and Bhopal
India and special supporters elsewhere
Secretary; P.P.
John Fisher
The Rotary Club of Swindon Phoenix District 1100 England
weekly bulletin
The Birdy’
Immediate
Past President
Geoff Beale
Issue number 207
Volume number 5
Number 01 of this Rotary Year (excluding special issues)
Next weeks host is
Rotarian Anne Pileggi
Editor; P P Peter Editor; P P Peter Editor; P P Peter
Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy.
P.H.F. Sapphire P.H.F. Sapphire P.H.F. Sapphire
Sub Editor 2; PP Peter
(Grumpy) Newson PHF
Your Editors are delighted to welcome our
New President Nicole Price
to her post and to wish her a wonderful and successful year
on behalf of all the Birdy’s readers.
Also in this NEW Rotary Year, I cannot resist pointing out that this
year’s International Rotary Theme has the
proper BLUE and Gold Rotary Roundel in it!! (but I don’t believe it will be worth entering the Birdy in another
RIBI competition as there will probably be some other reason
we will be disqualified !)
President
Nicole Price
President Elect
Nigel Causton
Club Treasurer
PP David Coe
Sub Editor; PP Paul
(Scoop) Parfrey PHF
Sub editor 3; Rtn Chris
(Super Scribe) Sims
Swindon Phoenix Rotary Club
Honoured Recipient;
2016/17 Pride of Swindon
Team Award
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July 2016
Host Rotarian Chris Sims
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The President is GONE
Long live the President!
Welcome President Elect Nigel
Presidential Handover – 29th June 2016
For club handover the members of Swindon Phoenix Rotary club, our partners and our guests squeezed into the a couple of Marriott’s smaller function rooms, there was some unsightly bulging, but more about President Geoff’s time on the ‘Rebecca’ later.
President Geoff welcomed our many guests, apolo-gies for not listing all the partners in attendance: -
Alan and Shirley Fletcher and Nutmeg
Honorary Rotarian Kevin Brown and Anita
District Governor Tony Horn and Jacqui
Dave Owen
Ian Price
Denzil and Geraldine (Nicole’s Mum & Dad)
Leanne and Jessica Price (daughters)
Margaret Sims ‘Hello Mum’
Steve and Julia Coleman
The Host said Grace.
May we give thanks for this food, for life and health and every good.
May we, more blessed than we deserve.
Live less for self and more to serve
A buffet curry was served and greatly enjoyed by all.
After a break for coffee we started the handover.
President Geoff passed the presidential jewel and the club charter to incoming President Nicole Price.
Nicole accepted and then passed back to Immediate Past President Geoff for his last speech.
President Geoff Beale’s outgoing speech.
They say that things come in threes, well in the last 7 days the UK has opted to leave the EU, the English football team has left the European Football Champi-onships, and tonight I shall be leaving the President seat for the last time.
I really can’t believe that my 12 months have gone by, it seems to have been a very quick year. Just as you into your stride, your time is up and someone else is waiting in the wings to take over.
I have really tried to promote our club, and Rotary itself, at every opportunity in my year – and you have all also done this as a club, notably on meeting nights when we have had a guest speaker. On each occa-sion our visitors have left with a different perception to the one they had when they arrive. We have been described as “incredibly friendly and welcoming” –
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“informal and not at al stuffy” and “a fun bunch of people who are obviously passionate about working for their local community”. We all know that this is the case, but how good is I that others are now pass-ing on this message to their circle of friends and fami-ly. We have made a good impression on a lot of peo-ple again in the last year, and we have delivered a ringing endorsement of what Rotary is all about.
We must continue to educate people about who we are and what we do to shed the public image that Rotary is still a male only dining club.
It has been a busy, but enjoyable year that I will al-ways look back on with immense pride. I am so proud to have led this great club and now join the other names of Past Presidents in the clubs history. But its time to hand over the baton to Nicole who will be our first lady president and will bring new enthusiasm, and new ideas during her Presidential year. I’m sure she will do a magnificent job, and we all need to sup-port her, as I’m sure her shy and retiring husband, Ian, will also do.
There have been a whole host of highs for me during my year and I shall reflect on a few with you now.
The Dragons Den initiative that I undertook with the proceeds available from last years Dragon Boat Race was a particular favourite of mine. I see the Dragon Boat event as an event in the community, run by peo-ple from the community for he benefit of the commu-nity.
It was an absolute pleasure to share out £3,000 amongst 6 local concerns, where the money made a significant difference to all of them. One of these con-cerns was the Richard Jefferies Museum by Coate Water, used the £600 we gave hem to completely revamp their garden, and to build a platform where the miniature railway from Coate Water can now stop. The Mayor is formally opening this new platform on 31st July. Mike Pringle has extended an invite so that 12 Phoenix members can attend. The local radio, newspaper and TV will be there too, I hope some of your will join me there on the day.
In March of this year, our club won a Pride of Swin-don Team award at a ceremony at Steam. I felt in-credibly proud leading the delegation that attended the ceremony, its great that we have been formally recognized on a plaque in the new Central Library in town.
Also in March, we had Tony Horn’s District Confer-ence in Weymouth. I was a wonderful weekend; the sun shone the whole time. Tony’s address to Confer-ence was superbly delivered a real high point; I hope he felt supported by all that went from our club.
The presentation of the weekend for me was from Leona McKee, who is a member of the Swindon Epilep-sy Support Group, Leona gave a moving account of how epilepsy marched into life out of nowhere and com-pletely took over, leaving her with an incredibly debili-tating condition. Her talk put a lump in most people’s throats, as she spoke candidly about the impact of epi-lepsy on her. Leona went through some very dark days, but after major surgery on her brain, she has ben sei-zure free ever since. Her life has turned around, and she is just about to finish her University degree, and is getting married next year. Leona still attends the SESG monthly meetings, and is a wonderful role model and an inspiration to those suffering with the condition.
Our very own Steve Weisinger, who has a similar story to Leona, and is also a great support to a number of people at the SESG and has been for many years now.
Last month saw us set sail in Rebecca – the 60-foot barge we take out on the Kennet and Avon Canal, tak-ing different groups out each day between Great Bed-wyn and Hungerford.
Now despite having clocked up nearly 27 years service in the water industry, and being a very competent swimmer, I do not like he motion of boats – so I tend to avoid them at all costs.
Having said that, I accepted that in my Presidential year, I should lead from the front so I signed up to b on the barge for the whole week. What happened? I loved it!! This might well have been my favourite activity of the year.
The groups we carried each day were great company, and once again the weather held out – despite Pete Newson being on board. I have learn first hand that both Chris Sims and Steve Coleman are incredible cooks – as I put on around 8 pounds in weight over 7 days, and a lot of that was down to huge fry-ups every morning, which I couldn’t say no to.
I would strongly recommend any that haven’t been in-volved with the barge to try and be there in 2017. I will definitely return, now I have my sea legs.
I said ahead of my year that I wanted club members to bring in some interested guest speakers along to club meetings – and you duly delivered. I can’t go through every one of them, but a few have stuck in my mind for their entertainment level and interest. Alan Nix MBE cam along early in my year to talk about the joys of mo-toring. Alan is such a natural speaker, and hugely funny too. His presentation had a variety of photographs cov-ering Swindon back in the 1950’s and 60’s, which a lot of us could relate to. Remember the Baptist Tabernac-le ?
Gavin Jones, the Chief Executive of Swindon Borough
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Council cam along to our club too, and gave a vey open talk. We also had Paul Godfrey come along, who is an armed response officer for Wiltshire Po-lice, who talked to us through his arsenal of weap-ons, and the occasions when he had ben called on to attend incidents in and around Swindon.
Dave King, formerly of the Swindon Advertiser joined us one night and talked about Rotary and the media. It transpired that he was one of the people that started up the Pride of Swindon Awards.
In October last year, during Breast Cancer Aware-ness Month, we welcomed Valerie Sanders to our club. Valerie had been diagnosed with breast can-cer, and she gave us a detailed talk on the impact of her diagnosis and the treatments she had re-ceived.
We have also had Paul Rodgers and Kelly Morgan join us to talk about their boxing exploits – both do a lot of work in the community, and boxing has given some kids a direction in life and got them off the streets.
A lady called Wendy Loames gave a jaw dropping talk about loan sharks and how they operate. Un-scrupulous people charging extortionate levels of interest on loans that people would never be able to pay back.
All of these people were hugely engaging, and they contributed to make our evenings of real interest. Finally, who can forget Lynne Harper’s ukulele band performing for us?
Maybe she’ll have a CD out in time for Christmas, or we might see her on the Pyramid stage at Glas-tonbury next year.
Skittles nights, where chunky chips and dodgy bowling were the order of the day. We won a few games and narrowly lost a few others, but we al-ways had fun and we socialized well with the Rota-ry clubs that we played.
Aside from all the social activities we have under-taken in the last year, we have continued to raise a substantial amount of money for charity.
From last years Dragon Boat Event I allocated £1,000 to our international project – Silver Bells in Kenya. Gail Light went on to hold a quiz night for Silver Bells, which raised a further £650 for this cause.
The remaining money from last years Dragon Boat event, which totaled £3,000, went to 6 local caus-es.
The Barbury Horseless Steeple Chase in August
last year raised £1,500 which we donated to he Wilt-shire Air Ambulance.
Our Santa Run in December, which attracted over 500 runners made £6390.
Club 1000, which is brilliantly looked after by Nigel Causton, raised over £4,000 during my year and has generated a staggering £26,500 since it’s inception.
My fun weekly raffle generated a further £844 for Rotary Foundation.
As you can see we continued to raise great amounts of money for charity during the year, and we did it as a group.
We attracted some wonderful PR on the back of this in the local press, free magazines, Facebook and Twitter and we have a new found talent Elliot Causton broadcasting on Wiltshire Radio ahead of the Dragon Boat event.
It’s been a team effort in my year, and I’m sure this will continue throughout Nicole’s Presidency. Get behind her and lets continue the great work.
Thank you very much.
Geoff Beale
President Elect Nigel Causton accepted his new jewel and said a few words, mostly about squeaky bum time as the 12 months of Geoff’s Presidency have flown.
Next our new President Nicole Price took the floor to deliver her inaugural speech as President.
President Nicole Price’s speech: -
Now to my year – your first Lady President!
Will I rock the boat?
Well that depends….
I hope we will build on what I feel is a vibrant club, with a cooperative and enthusiastic membership. I am delighted with the approach, ideas and sugges-tions already made by my incoming Council and would like everyone to share and participate in club activities.
This coming year should be FUN, bring FELLOWSHIP and FUNDS – funds to be raised and funds to enable us to support worthy causes.
I like the logo:
ROTARY – WE’RE FOR COMMUNITIES
I hope that by participating locally in events orga-nized by others and by us we can raise our profile and achieve our goals.
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I’m grateful to everyone who has taken on a lead role, or who continues with one.
Just to reiterate the members of my council are: -
President Elect and 1000 club organizer – Nigel
Club Secretary – John
Club Treasurer – David
Admin Committee Chair – Paul
Foundation – Darren
International – Paul and Golds
Club Service and Project chair – Grumpy
Media, PR and RYLA – Elliot
Membership – Chris
Hotel Liaison – Lynne
Mentor and Advisor – Golds
Almoner – Barbara
As I said at last week’s club assembly our aims are: -
Ensure involvement and participation of members
Keep a balance between Service and Fellowship
Contribute in a variety of ways to local initiatives to enhance awareness of Rotary within the community
Encourage flexibility and challenge tradition when appropriate
Obtain structured feedback on activities to devel-op and / or amend our approaches
Maintain the core values of Rotary
Fund Raising 2016 – 2017
Foundation – End Polio Now
Guide Dogs
Aqua box / Shelter Box
International – Jaipur Limb Clinic
Swindon Carers Centre
Already we have seen ideas put forward and actions taken. Lets keep up the impetus.
Lets hope all goes well and I look forward to your sup-port and patience through out the year ahead.
I have a little gift in the for of a ‘Save the Date’ which I hope will keep you all informed of all the events, both fund raising and fellowship!
Please join me in raising our glasses to the Swindon Phoenix Rotary Club.
President Nicole Price
Nicole invited Susanna Jones the CEO of the Swindon Carers Centre to give a brief outline of the role of the Swindon Carers Centre.
Swindon Carer Centre
SCC is a charity established to provide support to un-paid carers in Swindon
Our mission: to improve the well being of carers in and around Swindon, creating a community where carers are recognized, valued and supported
We currently support more than 3,000 carers, including 700 young carers from the age of 5 years old
Who is a Carer ?
A carer is a person who provides unpaid support to a family member, partner or friend who would otherwise be unable to manage without this support due to ill-ness, frailty, physical or learning disability, mental ill health or substance misuse.
Many don’t see themselves as carers, they may be hus-bands, wives, partners, parents, siblings or friends. However, by providing unpaid care and support they are in fact carers.
About Carers
Carers don’t choose to be Carers even though they do it willingly
The role can happen gradually over time or suddenly without warning
It is estimated that carers save the UK economy £132 billion a year in care costs
Carers have their own health issues – 1:3 report depres-sion, 1:2 disturbed sleep, 1:4 back and other strains, 3:4 worse off financially
2011 Census
580 Young carers – but we know 75% remain hidden
19,500 carers – an increase of 24% since 2001
4,369 do caring tasks for more than 50hrs a week
2,680 do caring tasks for 20-49hrs a week
12,431 do caring tasks for 1-19hrs a week
Carers UK research in November 2015 estimate thee are now more than 21,000 carers in Swindon, who save the Swindon purse £395 million per year
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Queen Mary
Meeting closed…..
Impact of Caring
Physical, Psychological/Emotional, Social, Financial
Importance of Fund Raising
£15.50 pays for an Aromatherapy session for a carer
£45 pays for 3 hours of respite care to enable a carer to attend a self-help group/course/talk/therapy session or just have a break away from caring
£48 pays for a coffee morning for carers, once a month for a year
£210 would allow a carer to have 6 counseling sessions
£240 pays for a professional facilitator to deliver a 6-week course to Carers (e.g. Coping with caring for someone with men-tal health issues)
£300 pays for lunch for 30 carers
£500 pays for a local theatre trip for 30 carers
Thank you Susanna Jones
Briefly we turned to any other business, but not before a level of abuse was directed at the Host regarding the currently vacant position of President Nominee. Dave Coe, Ian Price and particularly Darren Crannis deserve a “special mention”
Editors note; the best quote of the night concerning the vacant President nominee position was directed at the host whose Mother was sat two seats away from him…
“Go on Chris, make your Mum proud!”
The monthly draw for Lucky Lucy was performed.
Peter and Peggy Goldsworthy held a quiz to guess the amount raised from the Champagne Draw and Pro-gram sales from the Dragon Boat event based on a picture of the notes and coins, Char-lotte Causton was the closest with a guess of £1080 versus the actual total of £1089.65.
Finally we had a number of Rotarians returning from holiday:-
Alan and Shirley Fletcher re-turned from Tenerife, Nutmeg returned from Meadow Croft
Dave and Mandy Coe re-turned from a cruise on the
Respecting the new Presidents role in her other
life she was presented with an official cane to
keep naughty boys (and girls.. Equal opportunity
Rotary!) under control during meetings Darren
immediately volunteered to be first to be
flogged—no one thought that was a bad idea at
all!
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Dear Peter, and fellow Rotarians,
Re: Oakfield Project
Thank you for placing in the Birdy
Our Oakfield forthcoming event 13/7/16 our Come Dine with Oak-field...luncheon an annual event based on a chosen themes by the young people and then young people with staff plan and organise a luncheon, cook, and serve, for VIP's and honoured invited guests including the Mayor of Swindon, who are proud to say are regular visitors to Oakfield events and only this week attended our year 11s presentation...see evening advertiser...
As our young people are on their final preparations we would be delighted to know if you will be attending...
As Money raised is for our chosen charity Calm...we wish to be able to keep a tight ship and budget...
K/Rgds
Fellow Rotarian Paul Wainwright Sent from my iPhone
Editors note; Peggy and I are going if you would like to join us, let Paul or Michelle know asap so they can plan ahead
This pic in by email from PP Paul Parfrey.
The hired Garage is nearly full of our clubs equipment and there is another large Gazebo
to go in there that Grumpy & Jenny are drying out for us! (Paul assures us that there is
space set aside for it)
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Phoenix Rotary Charity of the Year – We are delighted to be
chosen as Phoenix Rotary’s charity of the year! Here is SCC’s Susanna, Fiona and SCC Chair of Trus-
tees Ian with the new Phoenix Rotary President, Nicole Price
Whilst going through photos for new officers on
the front page, I came across this one of our
newly installed Club Secretary taken last year
during the Past Presidents Dinner and have to
share it with you.
Here is PP John Fisher monkeying around with
Animal. (we would have been an unlucky 13 at
the table but Animal wearing the late PP Bob
James medal made up the numbers)
(by the way to avoid any confusion John is on
the right of the picture!)
There will be a special edition of the Birdy featuring the Dragon
Boat Event as soon as time permits and to that end please could all
members (yes, YOU!) send me your thoughts, happy
of course and quotes or points of interest on the day
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Finally! Some advice
You can actually use!
DO NOT wash your hair in the shower!
It's so good to finally get a health warning
that is useful!
IT INVOLVES THE SHAMPOO WHEN IT RUNS DOWN YOUR
BODY WHEN YOU SHOWER WITH IT.
WARNING TO US ALL!
Shampoo Warning!
(I don't know WHY I didn't figure this out sooner)!
I use shampoo in the shower! When I wash my hair, the
shampoo runs down my whole body, and printed very clear-
ly on the shampoo label is this warning, "FOR EXTRA BODY
AND VOLUME."
No wonder I have been gaining weight! Well! I got rid of
that shampoo and I am going to start showering with Dawn
Dishwashing Soap. Its label reads, "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS
OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE." Problem solved! If I
don't answer the phone, I'll be in the shower!!!
Thanks Lillian in *Oz
(well she will be back down *there later)
A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding
through the Afghan Desert when he saw something far off
in the distance.
Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the oasis only to
find a Royal Marine selling regimental ties.
The Taliban asked, "Do you have water?"
The soldier replied, "There is no water, the well is dry.
Would you like to buy a tie instead? They are only 5
pounds."
The Taliban shouted, "You idiot infidel! I do not need an
over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must
find water first!"
"OK," said the soldier, "It does not matter that you do not
want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I will show you
that I am bigger than that, and that I am a much better
human being than you. If you continue over that hill to the
east for about two miles, you will find our Officers Mess. It
has all the ice cold water you need.. "
Cursing him, the Taliban staggered away over the hill.
Several hours later he staggered back, collapsed with de-
Jokes
‘on the B
irdy’s
win
g’ hydration & rasped...
"They won't let me in without a bloody tie!"
A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper, Gui-
do, has cheated him out of $10,000,000.00.
His bookkeeper is deaf. That was the reason he got the
job in the first place. It was assumed that Guido would
hear nothing and would therefore never have to testify
in court.
When the Godfather goes to confront Guido about the
missing $10 million, he takes along his lawyer, who
knows sign language.
The Godfather tells the lawyer, "Ask him where the
money is."
The lawyer, using sign language, asks Guido, Where's
the money? Guido signs back, "I don't know what you
are talking about."
The lawyer tells the Godfather, "He says he doesn't
know what you are talking about."
The Godfather pulls out a pistol, puts it to Guido's head
and says, "Ask him again or I'll kill him!"
The lawyer signs to Guido, "He'll kill you if you don't
tell him."
Guido trembles and signs back, "OK! You win! The
money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed
at my cousin Bruno's house.."
The Godfather asks the lawyer, "What did he say?"
The lawyer replies, "He says you don't have the balls to
pull the trigger and you can go and get stuffed."
*DON'T YOU JUST LOVE LAWYERS**?*
Thanks Chris Durie also in Oz
FIVE RULES FOR MEN TO FOLLOW FOR A HAPPY LIFE:
1. It's important to have a woman who helps at home, cooks from time to time, cleans up, and has a job.
2. 2. It's important to have a woman who can make you laugh.
3. 3. It's important to have a woman who you can trust, and doesn't lie to you.
4. 4. It's important to have a woman who is good in bed, and likes to be with you.
5. 5. It's very, very important that these four women do not know each other
Thanks Mike Slipper
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FOR YOUR DIARY
28th August – President At Home
at the home of Nicole and Ian
7th September – (with Partners)
Dragon Boat cheque presentation
night
5th October – (with Partners) Spe-
cial Guest Speaker who is a com-
mentator for 5 live at the coming
Olympics
27th October – Past Presidents
Dinner in which Nicole is invited
as special guest of the P.P’s
12th November – North Petherton
Carnival
27th November – the WINGS will
be hosted by Ian Price at the
home of Nicole and Ian
4th December –
Annual Santa Run
18th December –
‘Phoenix Christmas Do’ at the
home of Nicole and Ian
2017
29th January – (with Partners)
Special Fundraising Evening to
celebrate Burns Night
15th February – (with Partners)
Special Guest Speaker Al Sylvester
who walked from Lands’ End to
John O’Groats amongst many oth-
er adventures
18th March – Friends of Swindon
Young Carers Ball at the Cotswold
Four Pillars Hotel
April (date tbc) Know Your Blood
Pressure Day
13th to 19th May – Annual Barge
Week with a possibility of a sec-
ond week from 20th to 27th May
25th June – Annual Dragon Boat
Event
Other items will be added as this
list is not exhaustive!
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of
service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to
encourage and foster:
1)The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for
service;
2) High ethical standards in business and professions, the
recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and
the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity
to serve society;
3) The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s
personal, business, and community life;
4) The advancement of international understanding, goodwill,
and peace through a world fellowship of business and profes-
sional persons united in the ideal of service.
(It is not usual to read the numbers aloud when reciting the object)
That’s all Folks !- but remember, we are a
Rotary Club of the 21st Century
Find more information on Swindon Phoenix Rotary on your pc;
Just control + click on these hyper links below
swindonphoenixrotary.org.uk
Previous bulletins thephoenixbulletin.weebly.com
Our Santa Run swindonsanta.org.uk
Dragon Boat Event www.dragonboatswindon.org.uk
Ffind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SwindonPhoenixRotary?ref=hl
On twitter https://twitter.com
Swindon Phoenix Rotary Club
Pride of Swindon
Awardee 2016/17