Pat welcomed our guests Keith Williams (speaker) and Sandra who was a Rotary exchange student in 2009/2010.
There were no recorded birthdays or anniversaries and none were admitted to.
Pat reminded the meeting about the upcoming Hong Kong school fundraiser. We are to host Hong Kong school children for one night on 14 April, and two nights on 23 and 24 April. The possible benefit to the Club is about $6,000.
There will be a special announcement at the meeting next week. (Can't wait!)
Sundry Announcements
1.Ken White reminded the meeting that it is (was) Friday Fives.
2.Barbara Whitton thanked everyone for their feedback on the cricket fundraiser (both the positive and the less positive).
3.It was suggested that given that the speaker next week is Larry Bilodeau from the Tauranga Foodbank, we should all bring something for the Foodbank.
4.Bill Holland was welcomed back to the meeting.
5.Rhonda Wisbey reminded the meeting that the K Valley Adventure Races are on Sunday, 3 March. There are two cycle events, the inner event being child friendly and the outer one about 25km. Nine volunteers are needed for challenges on the inner event, two for admin, and two or three cyclists for first aid on the long course. Please contact Rhonda about availability.
6.Bob announced that given the weather, his BBQ will be replaced with a squeezed pot-luck meal. (probably) PLEASE CHECK WITH BOB WITH ANY QUERIES
7.Glenys announced that Vinna has had further surgery but should be back to school shortly and should be home by Easter.
8.Stuart Pedersen has distributed Bridge pamphlets for anyone who is interested.
9.Sandra spoke briefly to let us know she is now a Kindergarten teacher and is really glad she did the exchange. She said she had been asked what difference it made to her – she noted (quite reasonably) that she can’t really answer that because she doesn’t know how she would have turned out if she hadn’t done the exchange.
Speaker
Stuart Pedersen introduced Keith Williams. Keith regaled us with the saga of his participation in the 2017/18 round-the-world Clipper yacht race. Keith was brought up in a sailing family and did some sailing of his own when he was young. However, it was some time since he had been in a yacht. One day at work he was wrestling with a knotty problem about a traffic management plan when he decided to have a quick look at Facebook (as one does). That led him to a decision later in the day that he should do the round-the-world Clipper race. Various trials and tribulations followed, starting with passing this information onto his partner of 26 years (who enquired, amongst other things, whether there was anything else he hadn’t told her about), breaking ribs on the training course and missing the first two legs, having the boat shipwrecked eight hours into the third leg (Keith’s first leg), coming back to New Zealand, turning round and going back to Freemantle to join another boat and finally completing the course in Liverpool.
The vessels are 70 feet long with a 95 foot mast and most of the people on board had done little or no sailing prior to the training courses. There were 14 boats in the race, which took 11 months, including 209 days of racing. It costs £49,000 plus expenses to do the round-the-world event, although you can do individual legs. Keith is going back to do the first three legs of the 2019/20 race so he actually does circumvent the world in a yacht.
Raffle
Won by Les Geraghty.
Sergeant Ken White
Ken announced that he has been having trouble with AAADD which allegedly stands for “Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder”. Ken read a lengthy monologue involving his efforts to do a large number of things while being distracted by new things and ending up feeling exhausted having achieved nothing! I suspect this rang a bell with a number of the people in the room… Ken then moved on to talking about the origins of the names of a number of the members.