At it’s meeting on Tuesday, July 9th., the Rotary club of the City of Wolverhampton had several reasons to celebrate. Our second lady President Lorraine McCarthy was inducted and in her acceptance speech Lorraine told us she was honoured to take on the role leading the club which had been a force for good in the local community for over 100 years. She recalled that the club had been responsible for the founding of Compton Hospice (now ComptonCare) and the Wolverhampton MS Therapy Treatment Centre as well as high profile and significant fund raising  activities such as the annual Dragon Boat Race, Best Foot Forward and the Tree of Remembrance. These enabled the club to provide many grants to innumerable deserving causes.

The good news didn’t stop there. We were thrilled to welcome 2 new Rotarians, Doctor Michael Hardacre who has just competed his year as the Mayor of Wolverhampton, together woith his partner Lynn Plant. Michael told us that he had been extremely impressed by the wonderful work done by the club and he and Lynn were looking forward to becoming closely involved, playing an active role.

President Lorraine rounded off the meeting by announcing that Geoff and Carol Lowndes were to be granted honorary membership of the club in recognition of their superb service to the cause of Rotary for over 20 years, having been closely involved in the leadership of so many aspects of its life.

She noted that so many Rotarians had suggested to her that this was a fitting tribute to Geoff and Carol so that, as she said, it was an acceptable ‘breach of protocol’ in that such honours were normally not granted until the Annual General Meeting which is held much later in the Rotary year.