Melton Mowbray Rotary Club History

In this section are held items that appeared on the News page of the web site during David Ward's year as President, largely relating to club events and activities.

A further 118 ShelterBoxes have arrived in the Philippines as ShelterBox continues to help people rebuild their lives after Typhoon Morakot.

An initial 224 ShelterBoxes arrived in the country in the immediate aftermath of the typhoon. They were sent to provide emergency shelter for close to 2,000 people who lost their homes when a 1km section of the 5km Bucao Dike collapsed.

The initial ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) members Peter Pearce (AU) and Ross Mackenzie (NZ) were joined by Lizzy Treglown (UK) and Denise Ho (USA) last week. With the help of the local government, the Philippine Army, the police, the Red Cross, local Rotarians and local students the team set up the first ShelterBox camp.

After identifying the need for more ShelterBoxes, the team requested a further consignment be sent. They specifically requested eight ?Classroom in a Box? boxes as many schools were also destroyed when the dike collapsed. The 110 ShelterBoxes and 8 Classrooms in a Box arrived in the Philippines at the weekend.

The ShelterBoxes were packed and shipped from ShelterBox HQ in Helston, Cornwall, UK with Tony Treglown, Lizzy Treglown?s father, joining the team of volunteers to help pack the boxes that were met by his daughter in the Philippines.

On Monday, August 24 SRT members Lizzy Treglown and Denise Ho met Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who was visiting the affected area where ShelterBox tents have been set up.

Lizzy said: ?We met the president briefly this morning and talked with her about ShelterBox. The local government have been a great help, the locals have cleared a large area of land for us, they?ve brought earth to fill in holes and raise some of the land for the tents.?

SRT member Ross Mackenzie has now returned to New Zealand but SRT member Hans Van Dyk (AU) has joined up with the rest of the team.

On Saturday 26^th September an inaugural showcase concert was presented by the town's two Rotary clubs as a big thank you to those young people who, in the previous twelve months, had entered and achieved success in the wide variety of Rotary competitions on offer annually. Monies made on the evening will be used to fund the coming year?s youth opportunities programme.

The large and enthusiastic audience was enthralled by singers and instrumentalists who performed to the very highest standards. In addition presentations were made to:

Highlight of the evening was a rapturously received performance, by the Youth Group of the Melton Musical Theatre Company, of excerpts from their recent, highly successful production of Les Miserables. Following their performance a memento and Rotary community achievement award was presented to their musical director Sandra Tebbutt

To complete a thoroughly entertaining evening Sheila Aston a prominent, local music teacher and an organiser of the evening was presented with a Paul Harris Fellowship, Rotary?s highest accolade. This award was made to Sheila, a non Rotarian, in recognition of her long and enthusiastic service promoting and supporting music in both Melton and the Rotary District over many years.

Roger became involved with Shannon Trust, following his retirement as a Prison Governor in some of the country's toughest establishments. He explained that Shannon Trust runs the Toe by Toe Reading Plan, an award winning mentoring programme, which encourages and supports prisoners who can read to give one to one tuition to prisoners who struggle to or who cannot read. In 2008, it provided resources to teach over five thousand new learners in prison.

He went on to describe how Shannon Trust works with prisons to set up and maintain the Toe to Toe reading plan. They do this by supplying prisons with:

Shannon Trust provides both the Mentor and Learner with a copy of the Toe by Toe reading manual. The manual helps Learners to develop the skills they need to decode written words using phonetics.

A Mentor may have more than one or more Learners and will meet each for just 20 minutes daily, 5 times a week. Together they will work through the phonetics exercises and record progress using the grid system in the manual.

The club were all impressed with the approach and the outcomes described by Roger. We wish them well in their endeavours in a vitally important field.

Thanks are owed to the adjudicators, organisers, and above all to the participants who showed just what talent exists in our town.

We are enormously grateful to all the donors of what is going out to the Philippines. Having visited the Philippines as a club earlier in the year we know how overwhelmed they will be by all you have given us. So many thanks to you all, too many to mention here. We also are very grateful to Tony and Sasha Lord, club members and also the owners of PP Removals, without whom the storage of it all and the logistics of the whole operation would not have been possible.

We are hoping to repeat this exercise in 2010, so please let us know if you have any items at all similar that we could include in our next aid container.

Addendum 3rd December: having just listed out all the equipment we've sent, to ward the Filipinos what's coming, I am including it here for the interest of all those who helped us:
1.   An ultrasound machine - a Hitachi (not the same model as the ones we sent last time, but suitable for pre-natal use) complete with two probes (a linear 7.5MHz and a curved array 305MHz).
2.   A single, very heavy box containing a range of medical (surgical, maybe laproscopic) instruments.
3.   Disposable "wet wipes" - again, another pallet load. They should be useful in health centre and hospitals
4.   Boxes of tooth care kits - packs with a child's toothbrush and tube of toothpaste - several thousand I imagine - a full pallet load anyway. We remember well Jun taking us to a school where the kids were being shown how to brush their teeth.
5.   Computers (CPUs, monitors, etc) - probably (at a wild guess) about 60 CPUs and 60 monitors. Many of the CPUs are from the schools, where they've been used in the school network. They are not all that old - Windows XP era, and should work fine. There'll be many others of varying ages and states of repair.   There is at least one laptop (minus hard drive unfortunately); maybe more. We hope to send more laptops next time. I've no idea what software they have installed. There are bundles of mice, keyboards, network cables, and other bits, Have fun sorting that lot out! I'd like to think that several of the computers can go to the schools in Leyte that we visited in February (c/o Rico Rentuza and Jane Araneta) and in Boljoon and Granada (c/o Antoinette Gould).
6.   Some printers and other computer peripherals
7.   At least one TV (though it will be a UK standard, so not sure if it will function in the Philippines - apologies if not).
8.   A fully working photocopier.
9.   Small amount of gymnasium equipment including a pair of basketball nets and backboards. The basketball stuff all comes from a school gym - a complete, very professional looking set up. It's in several pieces, so anything in the container that is a light blue piece of metal is probably part of it. There are four sheets of board that all are part of it. And, of course, two hoops and baskets painted dark yellow.
10.   Several boxes (maybe 40) of assorted books including secondary school text books, sets of encyclopaedias, some hymn books. I'd like to think that a good lot of these can go to the schools in Leyte and Boljoon, as above.
11.   Boxes of pens (1000 per box) - a complete pallet load
12.   Some school science equipment (a few boxes of microscopes, a couple of boxes of chemistry lab equipment, and a few boxes containing some sort of electrical meters - not sure what they are for) - can some of this go to Leyte? Rico knows which secondary school it was that we visited that particularly asked for science equipment.
13.   Several bundles of assorted clothing - much of it used to pack out the spaces in the container. Much of it is children's clothing I believe.
14.   Several Disney character soft toys - for the REACH school, perhaps?
15.   Elementary school furniture (mainly desks and chairs for younger children) - about two classrooms' worth, I think
16.   Folding chairs (adult size), promotional items from a pet food company near us
17.   A few bicycles that we couldn't ship last time
18.   Some boxes, marked with a large red "A", which are Allan's and the rest of the GSE team's personal goods

Thank you to all who made such a wide range and large amount of stuff available.

Members and friends of our Club were joined by guests of Sysonby Knoll, plus a group from Melton Round Tablers, to a most enjoyable evening celebrating the Life and works of 'The Scottish Bard Robbie Burns', as well as raising approx Ł250 for Rotary charities.

A most enjoyable event, achieving all objectives set for the evening, Fun, Celebration of Burns, Raising cash for charities, allowing Scots in Club at least once a year a bit of freedom to show off their heritage.

Long Field School's year 7 pupils were concerned by the stories coming from Haiti following the recent terrible earthquake, so decided to raise money to help. They did fantastically well with a wide range of fund raising efforts among their friends and families, including selling cakes, lollipops, filling in the white of a Union Jack with coins and many, many other novel ideas. Rotary International has sent well over 10,000 Shelter Boxes to Haiti to help the displaced families to re-establish some sort of a normal life. The Rotary Club of Melton Mowbray were delighted on 26th February 2010 to be presented with a cheque from the pupils for Ł423.31 which, with some other small donations we have received from other kind donors, will pay the Ł490 needed to send another Shelter Box to people affected by natural disasters.

A Shelter Box contains all the living needs for a family of 10 people - including tent, cooking equipment and eating utensils, water purification equipment, carpentry tools, waterproof clothing, blankets, and even colouring books and crayons for the children.

The induction of Brian Giller as a new member to our club took place on Monday 12th April 2010.
Brian is a vastly experienced Rotarian with many years of Rotary service in UK and overseas. He is married to Barbara, who is a member of Ladies in Rotary Brian and Barbara have already attended many of our functions, and Brian has previously spoken to the Club (in February) about his Rotary experiences in South Africa, so is not unknown to our members.

Brian's experience of Rotary stretches back many years in that he was President of his East London Club in South Africa in 1997, then continued his Rotary involvement and became D.G. of District 9320 in 2001. Returning to the UK, they moved to Lancashire where Brian became a member of R.C. of Rossendale in 2007/8, before moving to Melton Mowbray.

President David Ward attended the 15th Anniversary Gala Ball of our 'Twin' Club the Rotary Club of Warsaw Wilanow over the weekend of 14/16th May 2010.

President Jan Papina and our old friend Joergen Hansen royally hosted President David over the three day visit which with the Gala Ball, included a 'Drinking and American food reception' at the American Embassy in aid of the local police and security services charities, a visit to the old city and Royal Summer Palace near Warsaw.

Although the Rotary Club of Warsaw Wilanow also has twinning relationships with the Rotary Clubs of Munich and Milan, President David was the only visiting Rotarian from the 150 Club Rotarians and guests present - so was made exceptionally welcome as the only 'President' wearing significant regalia, having to pose for photographs, and forced to drink copious quantities of fluids to reciprocate greetings and toasts.

Photo's show President David with President Jan and Joergen hansen at Summer palace, and President David, President Jan, wife Barbara, and Joergen Hansen still standing and sober at Chopin Vodka bar around 1.30am with hours to go!

'The 2010 Charter Celebration and President's Handover of the King Edward V11 Interact Club took place on Tuesday 18th June 2010 at the King Edward V11 School, attended by Interact President Ellie Grove, Incoming President Natalie Grindey, District Governor District 1070 Dick Parsley, the two sponsoring Melton Rotary Club Presidents David Ward and Tony Wallis, along with a few members of the two Rotary Clubs and teachers, plus a good representation from the Interact Club members.

After the formalities of the Presidential handover, reviewing a successful year, and setting the plans for next year, light refreshments were served rounding off a most enjoyable and rewarding event.


The Loading Party	Bob Parfitt's contribution	White Board and Basketball

Books	Yes John - more books	Keep going with the books

We decided to leave Sasha to it ...	... while Tony and David chatted ...	... and we ate the bacon butties

Nearly full	Closing Up	Ready to go


Cake and Silverware	Tea party, half of attendees!	Old friends reminisce	Ladies last minute creaming of scones


Great Gable	Scafell Pike from afar	Lunch

Looking into Ennerdale	Descent from the Mosedale horseshoe	The end


Top of William Clough	The views were wonderful

Kinder Downfall	Where do we go now?


Starting out from Sysonby Knoll	Carlisle stop-over	Loch Lomond	Ben Nevis Inn (note - no alcohol!)


John O'Groats - Its a long way from here	Berriedale Braes - I remember this from last time - big big hills	Dornoch - The end of day 1 only 9 to go


Fine way to spend a birthday - climbing hills out of Cromarty Firth	How on earth am I supposed to hold this - please don't light the candles	I've been having nightmares about climbing Slochd Summit


Never ending Shap - wish the wind was helping	In Devon, the suns come out at last - thought I'd never get the shorts on


Hope this is at last the final climb	Still some power in the legs - Lands End here we are!	Does this jersey mean I've got to start again


Past District Governor Ian Vernon with Sioni Kilburn-Platts	Presidents Tony Wallis and David Ward with Sandra Tebbutt and some the Youth Group of the Melton Musical theatre Company	Presidents Tony Wallis and David Ward with Sheila Aston


	Stacking of soups, biscuits, tea, salmon, fruit, biscuits, mince pies etc Mince Pie Mountain - guess how many (answer below) Awaiting loading The delivery crews


Young Farmers	John Ferneley College	King Edward VII / Interact

Casual discussions with some of the Interact members	Interact president 2009/10 Ellie Grove handing over to incoming President 2010/11 Natalie Grindey	D.G. District 1070 Dick Parsley, incoming King Edward VII Interact President Natalie Grindey, Presidents of the two Melton Rotary Clubs Tony Wallis and David Ward, along with outgoing President Interact Ellie Grove


Last minute preparation	The approach to Ben Nevis from the start	Setting off from near the Youth Hostel	Across to the foothills

Bridging the many streams	Views from the top		Nearly there

Snow - Bob beware!	The summit cairn	One down (or rather, up), two to go	Ben Nevis conquered


Setting off before dawn	Summit cairn	The long descent

Over the river	Nearing the finish


The start	Views from the top	Nearing the summit	The summit cairn

Careful descents			Nearing the finish


The photographs show Beth Jackson, Katy Horsman, Michael Fiford and Georgia Pearson. Certificates were presented by Rotarian Maggie Wilson, Also pictured is David Wilson who is Head of Design at King Edward VII School.