The weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of West Bridgford tonight had been allocated by President George as a special evening. I accepted his invitation to attend and in fact acted as chauffeur to the main speaker for the evening, Miles Hilton-Barber. Miles is a blind adventurer who devotes his life to raising awareness of blindness.
His philosophy in life is that the only thing stopping anyone from doing anything is the boundaries they set for themselves. Miles gave a most inspirational speech highlighting how he wasted the first thirty years of his life thinking that because he was blind he could not do the things he might like to do. It was only when he realised that being blind should not stop you experiencing the things that you want to experience that his life opened up for him.
Since that time he has climbed mountains, he has run marathons in the heat of the desert, he has walked across the Antarctic, he has set numerous world records for flying various types of aeroplane including flying a microlight plane from England to Australia.
I have heard Miles speak on a couple of previous occasions and this event matched my expectations and exceeded them.
The evening was organised to raise awareness of the charity Diveable, which is run by West Bridgford Rotarian Darren Brookes. Darren was presented with cheques from the club and from the Round Table (sadly representing the monies it had left when the club closed down recently). Diveable gives facilities to people with disabilities to experience Scuba Diving. In accepting the donations Darren spoke about a young woman who suffers badly with rheumatism, but when she is under water and the weight of her body is taken away - the pain goes away as well.
Miles also accepted an invitation from Darren to become a Patron of the charity.
I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and wish Miles and Diveable every success for the future.
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