Meeting Notes
21st November 2017

President Chris welcomed all guests and members to the meeting.
Rotarian Carole Davis said grace.
There were two non-apologies.
Rotarian Jeremy Knight welcomed four guests at today’s meeting; Kathryn Pearson, our RYLA candidate, Gerry O’Donnell, our speaker for the evening and Ann Bartholemew and Claire Conn from the Rotary Club of Tewkesbury.
Greetings were received from Doncaster RC.
Club Service etc.

Richard asked for confirmation of numbers for next week’s ‘Lunch in the Community’ at Working World by the end of Friday afternoon. Lunch will cost £10 and the menu is available on the Club website on the attendance page.
Merlin confirmed that, following discussion at the Committee; the venue for the evening meal following the Tree of Light switch on will be the Blue Lagoon. He passed round a board requesting availability to give assistance on the day and in the evening.
Jan Harris informed everyone that she still has one room available for the District Conference. She will have to release the booking if no-one signs up soon. Please contact Jan direct if you are interested.
Jeremy Knight reminded members that the next Food Bank collection would be held on Saturday 9th December between 11.00 and 15.00. He asked for the maximum amount of help with this collection, given the level of need in our community at the moment. More details to follow.
John Hill passed round a board asking people to confirm their interest in attending ‘Brighton Rock’ next March in Cheltenham. He has 20 tickets reserved at the moment.
Lynne Raymer reminded everyone to the presentation of the Young Writer award, which will be held at De Montfort School at 16.45 on 23rd November. Judging had been completed and the standard of the entries was particularly high. Of course the winners were exceptionally good.

Richard Stackhouse introduced Kathryn Pearson, our RYLA candidate this year by describing in outline the purpose and methods of the Rotary Youth Leadership Scheme. Kathryn gave an interesting description of her experiences as part of the scheme by describing the learning she had gained about leadership and presentation skills as well as the physical challenges that had been presented to the participants. She told us that, looking back, the main benefits she had gained from the programme were several lasting friendships and that she now felt much more self-confidence coupled with the knowledge that she could live away from her home environment.
President Chris welcomed the guest speaker for the evening, Gerry O’Donnell from Evesham Vale Cardiac Rehabilitation (www.evcr.org). Gerry’s fascinating and thought- provoking presentation ranged over the history of the Cardiac Rehabilitation movement, through a statistical analysis of the urgent need for such a service, to the progress and plans that our local organisation had achieved to date and put in place for our area for the future. Approximately 1 in 8 people will suffer from cardiac problems and deaths from the condition reach up to 70, 000 per annum, the biggest single cause of death in the UK. The health care bill reaches £11 billion per annum so clearly anything that can be done, not only to help those who have suffered an incident, but also in prevention would be worthwhile. Historically, the movement owes a debt to Dr Hugh Bethell whose practice in Hampshire highlighted the need for cardiac rehabilitation as well as pioneering interventions and methods of operation. Locally, much progress has been made in co-operation with Wychavon District Council which has agreed to establish a Health and Wellbeing centre during 2018 in new facilities attached to Riverside Leisure Centre. The target groups will include overweight children, diabetics as well as those with severe hypertension. Gerry also mentioned that the EVCR is a community based organisation which operates locally and exclusively as a charity. He closed his address with the assertion that the single most important thing we can all do to maintain and improve our health is …… activity! Following several questions from the floor, President Chris thanked Gerry for his presentation and asked members to show their appreciation in the normal manner.
There being no other business, President Chris proposed the final toast and closed the meeting at 21.00.  

Trevor R Battersby

Hon. Secretary.