The Rotary Club of Stourbridge
John Porter's Presidential Year
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The Rotary Club of Stourbridge John Porter's Presidential Year
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LINKS
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Diary of Events (Click on an item to go directly to it) 1st July Lunch with President John and his wife Pat 4th July President John's Induction 12th to 14th October - District Conference at Harrogate 9th November - Skittles at the Fountain Inn at Clent 16th November - Progressive Supper 13th April - Visit to the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway
Our President at Play President John is an enthusiastic engineer who builds, maintains and drives scale model steam trains. He is seen below maintaining and driving one of his engines
John and Pat started their Presidential year by inviting all the members of the Club and their wives and partners to a Salmon and Strawberry lunch at their home, Churchill House.
President John's Induction
President John's Inaugural Address Fellow Rotarians. It’s a great honour and privilege for me to stand before you today as your 85th president. Since 1922 the traditions of service have been paramount in our Club and with your help these traditions will be enthusiastically maintained during the coming Rotary year. I feel doubly honoured today because I was born in Stourbridge, lived there for the first 40 years of my life and own a Stourbridge business which has served the community since 1843, although the rumour that I was the founder is untrue. Today is a day of mixed emotions; you know what a mixed emotion is? It’s when you see your mother in law drive off the top of Beachy Head in your new Rolls Royce. The first emotion is of trepidation of the year ahead which quickly gives way to confidence when I remember the quality of the team I have around me together with the other members. I want to tell you a story – I nearly didn’t bother to join Rotary – Because when I was in my twenties, which was a while ago, I was informally proposed as a member of this Club but was rejected because I was too young!!! So when President Derek Barrett told me I should join Rotary I thought if I was rejected all those years ago why should I bother now. But Derek was persistent and I eventually gave in and accepted his invitation to a lunchtime meeting at The Talbot. Even in those days the food was a bit grim and I thought – have I got to cope with this every week> But I sat near Roy Swinbourne and being a Wolves fan and one time season ticket holder we struck up a conversation and I soon forgot the quality of the lunch and enjoyed the fellowship. So Roy Swinbourne you tipped the scales in favour of my joining and I thank you for that. I soon found the members to be friendly and welcoming and have made some exceptional friends of people I probably otherwise would not have met. The motto or theme of Rotary is “Service above Self” but this year RI is projecting a new image with new gold and blue branding for all correspondence etc. but beneath the Rotary wheel it says “Humanity in Motion” and the RI theme for this year is “Rotary Shares”. So RI has three mottos/themes call them what you wish. So not to be outdone I’ve devised my own its “IFF” – nothing to do with Rudyard Kipling – my IFF has two FF’s as in “SMIFF” It stands for “Informality Fellowship and Fun”. Informality has been found here at the Country Club with I hope you agree has, unlike the Talbot, a friendly, relaxed and informal atmosphere. I shall not be having any strictly formal events in my year. Both the Christmas Dinner here and my ladies night in May 2008 will be lounge suits and won’t have lots of speeches. Which brings me on to fellowship. This is the most important aspect of the Club’s activities and creates opportunities for us to socialise together. In fact Norman Burrows described it recently as the “lubrication of the Club” which sums it up completely so to this end many interesting and mostly economical events have been devised for your entertainment. We shall be doing some regular things such as golf matches, theatre trips, skittles, a trip on the Severn Valley Railway and district 1060 Conference in Harrogate where the speakers will be Michael Portillo, George Alagaya, Kay Alexander and Don McClean, a positive bevy of personalities! And other events which will be revealed as they are confirmed, plus some new ones and I welcome any ideas you may have yourselves so please talk to Norman Burrows or myself as soon as possible as we may be able to fit it in. Fundraising is one of our important activities and 3 events are purely for this purpose. A sponsored bible reading next year with St. Thomas’s Church, Stourbridge and hopefully a play in the park to repeat the successful one in Mary Stevens in 2006 and the Jack Downing Auction. Up until Christmas I hadn’t decided on the President’s Charity or Charities. But personal events and experiences in early 2007 soon made up my mind. So I have chosen two rather large charities which wasn’t my original intention. They are Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. I shall also be supporting smaller local charities. One of the most important aims of the coming year is membership development and retention. It’s a fact that most Rotary Clubs and indeed other similar organisations are losing members and the responsibility for finding new suitable members is down to all of us. But I thank PP Jack Edmonds and his committee in continuing their search for useful new members and I appeal to you all to consider your friends or acquaintances for proposal. But we do need members who will take active part not just turn up for lunch. We also need a Vice President that’s a President for 2009 - 2010 and I shall be addressing that problem soon as a matter of urgency. I’m also enthusiastic about consolidating our relationship with our twin club in Sturbridge Massachusetts and particularly our financial contribution to their project in Peru. I’ve asked Past President Mike McConville to update the Club’s website with the new logos and promote a new up to date look for our information. Our publicity machine in Past President David Collins has had better success recently with the Stourbridge News due possibly to the retirement of the editor and I ask you all to help raise the profile of our club by supplying David with photos and write ups of our events. Before I conclude my address I want to thank you all on two counts. Firstly to all those Rotarians and wives who have written and phoned Pat and myself congratulating and thanking us for our salmon and strawberry lunch last Sunday, it was a joy to see you all there and certainly launched our new Rotary year with style. And secondly all those Rotarians and wives who have continually phoned and asked about my health during the last six months or so. To know that you were thinking of me at what was a difficult time was a great consolation and made the unpleasant treatment more bearable and I couldn’t have done it without you. So now the Stourbridge Rotary Club express has the guards green flag to depart. It will make steady progress down the main line with your President on the regulator and your President Elect Michael Pettigrew cooking breakfast on his shovel. The signals are green all the way to our arrival on time at our terminus in July 2008. I’m looking forward to being your President and I thank you all in anticipation of another outstanding year for the Rotary Club of Stourbridge.
Civic Day In 1988 an invitation was received from the Rotary Club of Sturbridge, Massachusetts the Stourbridge Rotary Club to join them for the celebrations to mark the town’s 250th anniversary. The visit was an outstanding success and formed the basis of the subsequent twinning of the two clubs. In 1993 a further visit took place. On the last night of our visit we were formally entertained by the Sturbridge Club. The Chairman of the Board of Selectmen was present and announced that at a recent meeting the Selectmen had agreed that the 13th October each year would be celebrated by the town as Stourbridge Friendship Day. Greetings would be sent to both the people of Stourbridge and the Rotary Club. We acknowledge these greetings and on the Wednesday nearest 13th October each year we send greetings to both the people of Sturbridge and our fellow Rotarians. At our Rotary meeting this week we entertained the Mayor, Councillor David Stanley, and the Councillors who represent the local wards to lunch at Hagley Golf & Country Club. The occasion was the Annual Civic Day when these annual greetings were exchanged between Dudley MBC and the members of the Rotary Club of Stourbridge with the people of Sturbridge as well as the members of the Rotary Club of Sturbridge.
The photograph shows the Mayor and the President of the Rotary Club, John Porter signing the greetings to be sent to Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
12th to 14th October - District Conference at Harrogate President John and his Lady Pat led 15 Rotarians and their wives to Conference at Harrogate. The Club also took the District Shop that as usual proved to be a popular attraction.
An excellent Conference thoroughly enjoyed by all who went.
19th October Club Golf Each year the Club plays golf matches against the Rotary Club of Dudley and the Rotary Clubs of Hagley and Hasbury and Cradley. It also plays a match against the Stourbridge Old Edwardian Club and the Stourbridge Rugby Club. Finally an internal championship known as the Thompson Cup is played at the end of the season. This year the match against Dudley was played at Enville Golf Club. The result was a draw but as the holders, Stourbridge, retained the Cup. The three way match against Hagley and Hasbury & Cradley took place at the Churchill and Blakedown Golf Club. An excellent days golf with Stourbridge running out the winners. The three way match against The Old Edwardian Club and the Rugby Club was played over the Stourbridge Golf Club course. Another good days golf with the Rugby Club winning the day. Finally the Thompson Cup took place on Friday 19th October at Stourbridge Golf Club. An enjoyable but relatively low scoring day with Bob Lloyd-Jones winning the Cup on a count back on the back nine. The match was followed by an evening meal at the Golf Club.
9th November 2007 Skittles at the Fountain Inn at Clent Each year the Rotary Club of Stourbridge holds a fellowship evening playing skittles at the Fountain Inn at Clent. This year the event took place on Friday 9th November. It was well attended and enjoyed by everyone who took part.
16th November 2007 - Progressive Supper Nearly 40 Rotarians and their partners enjoyed an evening of fellowship taking part in a Progressive Supper on Friday 16th November. Couples travel to different homes for each course with everyone meeting up at the home of President John and his wife Pat for coffee.
13th April The Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway
On Sunday 13th April President John, a railway enthusiast, lead a party of 39 Rotarians and their wives on a visit to the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway. We where welcomed at Welshpool by Ken Fenton, The Railway's Vice-President and a Stourbridge man, and enjoyed a captivating journey reliving the age of steam as we travelled up the notoriously steep Golfa Bank and into the delightful Banwy Valley on our way to Llanfair a distance of some eight miles.
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