President Stuart gave his Valedictory address to the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton earlier today to bring his year to a close. Stuart thanked everyone for their help and support during the year. Highlights of Stuart’s year included climbing the Millennium Dome  raising funds for Rotary charities, representing the club at Cosford Air Show, The Young Musicians competition and the Special Rotary lunch, attended by RIBI President Eve Conway, in honour of PDG Fraser Dukes.

Immediate Past District Governor Richard Green presented banners to President Stuart Williams of the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton and others in recognition of their contributions to the Rotary Foundation’s campaign to eliminate polio.

Presenting the banners to the clubs, Richard, said the awards recognised the club’s ‘tremendous giving’ and added that there was ‘good news.’

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“For 30 years, the Rotary Foundation has been spearheading a campaign to rid the world of polio. When the campaign started, there were over 1,000 new cases of polio somewhere in the world every day.

“Since January this year there have been a total of just five new cases and three months have now passed without a single new case being reported.

“To quote a previous adage, we are now very close to eliminating polio, though we cannot relax.  Donations must continue to fund the ongoing programme of vaccinations to be followed by three years of surveillance before we can finally declare that polio has been eliminated.”

He added that Rotary’s polio office in Delhi was closing at the end of June as a result of the successful programme.  India and Africa were now polio free and the disease only existed in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sunday May 21^st saw the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton hold its 17^th Annual Dragon Boat Event at Himley Park21 teams took part in an action packed- fun-filled day of racing down the Great Pool, with frantic paddling and more than the occasional splashing,  entertaining the crowds.

Approximately 3,000 people filled the park with 300 paddlers making up the competing teams.

Each team selects a chosen good cause to raise funds for, by obtaining sponsorship with the total sums raised being split between that chosen charity, and the Rotary Clubs own charitable trust for further distribution.

Racing took place between 10.00am and 2.30pm when every team has three races against two other boats during the heats part of the day, always against different opposition, to find the 12 fastest boats.

Then the moment everyone waits for- to see if they are in the finals……

Two finals then take place- the Minor Final for places 7 to 12, and the Major Final- for the top six boats.

Then two final races took place, each with six boats with up to 15 team members paddling furiously towards the finish line. Both races were incredibly close with only a second separating the first three boats in each race.

The victorious winners- Sedgley Scorpions

This year, the winners of the Minor Final were the Photobooth Hoppers and in the Major Final, receiving two trophies and all the bragging rights, the 2017 champions-The Sedgley Scorpions.

But it really is a huge ‘well done’ to everyone for taking the time and trouble to enter the event, raise the sponsorship, and risk a soaking- all to raise monies for good causes. And also, a huge thanks to all the visitors to Himley Park who came in huge numbers to enjoy not only the spectacle of Dragon Boat racing, but also all the other concessions at the park which help to make the day a really memorable one for all concerned.

In the previous 16 years, over £340,000 has been raised by this event- a truly enormous sum- all for good causes.

It really does put the fun into fund-raising.

If you would like to see more of the action from the day, or to learn more about entering a team- see  www.rotarydragonboats.co.uk  or call Rotary Club member Mike Boyce on 07976612276.

Club President Stuart Williams led the way to a successful ascent and luckily for all concerned, a descent too, of the London O2 Dome.

Sponsorship was raised from fellow club members, family and friends, totalling over £1,135.00. This magnificent total will be split between the Rotary Worldwide End Polio Now, and the water project Roll out the Barrel. Thank you to everyone for their support.

It is an often used cliche to say that our young people have amazing talent and, in the young musicians competition, they get better every year. On February 4th, at the       Wolverhampton schools music service hub, superlatives were very much in evidence. The 6 vocalists and 4 instrumentalists provided a full audience of  parents and Rotarians with stunning performances that did indeed prove that the standards of musicianship and singing just go on reaching ever greater levels of accomplishment. The adjudicators, Jerry Hobbs and James Maddison had a severe test of their judging skills when deciding who were to go forward to the district final, which is due to be held at 2pm on march 5th in the Centenary theatre, Wrekin college, Sutherland avenue, Wellington. The standards were so high that     district organiser Rotarian Robyn Davies readily agreed to 2 of the singers to go forward. The winning   vocalist was Abigail Strudwicke,

sponsored by the Wolverhampton club. Abigail is head girl at Thomas Telford school. She is no stranger to us as she won the competition last year, as a result of which she also performed at the district conference in Llandudno. Her selection of songs this year was ‘voi che sapete’ by Mozart, ‘the child and the twilight’ by Parry and ’til there was you’ by Meredith Wilson. The runner up, also going forward to the district final was Jacob Kohli, who attends Highfields school. Jacob is sponsored by the Wolverhampton St. Georges club and his choice was ‘the vagabond’ by R. Vaughan Williams, ‘down by the sally gardens,’ arranged by Carol Barratt and ‘it’s hard to speak my heart’ by Jason Robert Brown. The winning   instrumentalist was trumpet player Cameron Chin-see, a pupil at St. Peters collegiate school. sponsored by the Wednesfield club, Cameron thrilled us with crystal clear renditions of ‘sonata in d’ by Giuseppe Torelli and ‘ballade’ by John Golland. This was an occasion were a number of clubs in the Wolverhampton area gave enthusiastic backing and we are indebted to the Bilston and   Wolverhampton west, Sedgley and Wombourne, Stafford knot, Tettenhall, Wednesfield, Willenhall and Wolverhampton St. Georges clubs for their generous support. The competition also relies on the wonderful support given to us by the Wolverhampton schools music service in the provision of the facilities at the music school and a     special mention must be made of the redoubtable singing teacher Brenda Arnold who gave piano     accompaniment to every one of the 6 vocalists!     PDG Richard Green