A Hectic couple of days with National Rotary President

What a hectic few days.  The second day of the visit to District 1220 by the President of Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland, Rtn John Minhinick.  We started the day with an early morning visit to the Rotary Club of Long Eaton Dawnbreakers at Cafe Zing in Long Eaton, leaving Sheila and Gail to have a well earned lie in.    This was an informal visit and President John and myself were made very welcome by the Club President, Simon Davey and all those Rotarians present.

 

This is a very friendly club, that works really hard in the community. I can thoroughly recommend a visit to Dawnbreakers, as, if for nothing else, the bacon butties are superb !!  

 

Once Pres. John and I had said goodbye to Dawnbreakers it was straight back to Belper for a visit to Belper School and presentations on the mentoring scheme that is run within the school. Mr Rob Simms who works in the ACCESS centre at the school explained the scheme and its background. A number of Rotarians and wives act as mentors on a one to one basis for students at the school.    The results have been very positive and John was most impressed by the scheme.

 

After the school presentation we went over to the Edwinstowe area where we met Assistant Governor Michael Longdon who had arranged lunch for us.   We then had a little free time in Sherwood Forest.

 

In the afternoon we met up with The President of the Rotary Club of Matlock Rtn Paul Bacon, who, together with several other Rotarians showed us the "Berry Hill Project".  This project was aimed at getting the local community together in a very practical way to bring Berry Hill Park back to a presentable state, as it had fallen into a state of disrepair.   Local companies supplied labour and goods worth many thousands of pounds and local people turned out in their droves to help.

 

Thanks to Christine Bacon for the delicious cakes and to Yvonne Neville for joining us with Mike to entertain us.

 

We were able to see the park now in its (almost) full glory.    There is still ongoing maintenance work and some building work to be done.

 

In the evening we were all guests at a meeting of The Rotary Club of Mansfield.  Kirkby in Ashfield were also present in large numbers as well as representatives of a number of other clubs from the area.    After the meal a new member was inducted.   President John than gave his presentation to the clubs present, after which we were entertained by a young soprano singer, Lucy Kay, who had been supported by Mansfield.  

 

Just a final note, I was wrongly advised that in the bowls tournament, Nottingham had beaten Wirksworth in the final.   In fact Nottingham beat a team from The Vale of Belvoir.   Apologies to them for getting it wrong.