The Rotary Club of Turton

President Mike Croft and his wife Jean, Rotarians David Howarth and his wife Irene, Alan Wilkinson and his wife Denise and Eric O’Neil and his wife Pat attended Rotary District Conference at Llandudno over the weekend of 25th-27th September.

In addition to speakers from RI and RIBI, the Conference included excellent entertainment by Bolton‘s Smithills School Senior Brass Band on the Friday evening and Norman Prince of Houghton Weavers fame together with Paul Johnson previously with Fivepenny Piece closed Conference on the Sunday morning with great Lancashire songs and humour.

Conference amongst others hosted two inspiring speakers being: Dr Janet Gray MBE who is totally blind but has been World Disabled Water Ski Champion four times despite also suffering serious multiple injuries whilst training at her sport. Also speaking was Simon Weston OBE who returned from the Falklands War with horrific injuries including 46% burns. His speech was both humorous and inspiring and it was worth the conference fee just to listen to him.

We stayed at the Dunoon Hotel, Llandudno. It was Club’s first time at this hotel, what a find! Excellent service, great staff, good food and reasonable bar prices. What could be better?! You may have gathered, a good time was had by all. And both Bolton and Preston won as well, what more could we have asked for!

Overall an excellent weekend!

Sunday 13th September, the day started early for me (the Chef), 6:30am with the words from my beloved “I think you should power wash the terrace”. Seemed like a good idea at the time but FOUR hours later with a quarter still to do, the novelty had definitely worn off. Only TWO hours to go before our guests start to arrive, so just enough time to set out the seats, prepare the salad, marinate the chicken, mow the lawn, set the BBQ up etc. etc… On the up side the weather was great and the drink was all set up and ready.

We had about 30 guests including Rotarians and their partners, friends, neighbours and some organisers from Marie Curie. By 1:30 every one had arrived and were tucking into the BBQ feast… burgers, chicken legs, sausages and even steaks, thanks at this point to those very kind wives who were good enough to bring some absolutely delicious desserts. I think I can say with confidence that no one left hungry. the drink flowed and later in the afternoon we sold raffle tickets, not that the two are connected!!!! Some great prizes were won and gradually our friends and guests wandered off home. A fantastic day and very successful as we managed to raise well over £200 for Marie Curie Cancer Care Trust. Big thanks to all those who supported us by attending, helping and sending raffle prizes.

A special mention must go to Neil who selflessly entertained our newly acquired parrot. Well done Paula and Stephen, a great event!

Kate is the daughter of an ex member of this club, Eric Tarrant. Eric left the club as we changed to evening meetings as his optician‘s practice in Bury had late night opening on Thursday. Eric maintained contact with the Club through attending Charter Nights & Ladies Evenings. In addition, several members were also patients of the practice so he kept up to date with what was happening at the Club!

Sadly as Eric was about to retire some four years ago, he was diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA). It is a degenerative disease which leads to problems with balance, mobility, speech and automatic functions of the body. In some cases it‘s very similar to Parkinsons but the effects can vary greatly depending on the patient. There is only one support charity for people living with this disease, The Sarah Matheson Trust. Kate wanted to raise money for the trust so she entered The Great North Swim 2009 to cover one mile of Lake Windermere on the 12th & 13th September.

She was one of about 6000 taking part over the two days. The first wave of 250 swimmers entered the water at 9-00am on Saturday and the final wave of 250 swimmers entered at 3-30pm Sunday. Kate‘s wave was at 4-00pm on Saturday and they all wore blue swimming caps for identification. She completed the course in 40 minutes and one second! The Club together with 18 individual members (who knew Eric well) raised £220 for her effort. To date Kate has raised about £1250 which will be donated to the Sarah Matheson Trust, hopefully to enable it to provide more support to those suffering from MSA.

On Thursday 10th September, Mark Pollitt was inducted into the Club by President Mike Croft.

Mark is 36 years old and lives in Heaton with Regan, his fiancee, and their three children. His classification is Telecommunications – Management and he will join the Community Services Committee.

Welcome Mark and may you have a long and happy association with this Club!