Friday the 23rd December was the cumulation of 6 days of collecting for Rotary charities. Volunteers were rewarded by raising the amazing amount of £2901.
Our thanks not only go to the volunteers but also to the manager and staff at Tesco Extra, Huntingdon.

The event took place upstairs in The Manchester Room where we socialised, ate, listened to readings, sang carols and made donations to the staff for looking after us during the year.

John Beaton, president of the Huntingdon Boat Club, son of one of our club's founding members, the late Rotarian Ken Beaton, is receiving a cheque for the Huntingdon Boat Club. The donation is for installing fully adjustable rowing shoes in all the club's boats. Apart from making it more comfortable for different oarsmens' feet size, it is also much safer in the worse case of a capsize.

The speaker of the day Geoff Watts gave an interesting talk on "The Role of the Magistrate". He explained the requirements of a layman who wishes to become a magistrate. He also told of his experiences as one. The duty Rotarian was John Hurley.

Picture shows some of the volunteers fundraising by selling raffle tickets for The Grand Christmas Hamper on the occasion of the Huntingdon Christmas lights switch-on.
The stall was organised by Foundation Committee Chairman Past President Philip Bell.

Past President Rotarian John Asher of Rotary Club of Grantham Kesteven receiving a cheque of £425.00 the joint president Margaret as our donation for a 'Carpenter Trade Box' to be sent to a school in Malawi (East Africa) for their Vocational Training Project.
Rtn John Asher is one of the founder members of Rotary Club of Grantham Kesteven(1982). He started the "Trade Aid" project about 11 years ago after the great tsunami to help the fishermen, who lost their boats in devastated areas. It is now a RIBI recognized international project.

The occasion was the performance of Sleeping Beauty Ballet performed by The Cambridgeshire Youth Ballet Company at Hinchingbrooke Performing Arts Centre on Saturday and Sunday 29th and 30th October. A number of Rotarians attended both performances.
The photo shows Presidents Margaret and Gloria with Principal Ballet dancer Keiran Curtin who the club has provided financial assistance for the last 5 years.
He is training with the Royal Ballet and our financial input helps him with his ballet training expenses.

Picture:ADG of Area C Rtn Elaine Sefton, Rotarian Barry Hackett, PP Rtn Philip Bell, Chair, Foundation Committee and President Elect Rtn Malcolm Lyons.

Rotarian Barry gave an interesting audio/visual account of Rotary's 'End Polio Now' movement. He had been to a NID (National Imunisation Day) campaign in India and described the experience as amazing. He said that an incredible number of 172 million children under five were immunized against polio in two days!

Reverend Andrew gave an interesting account at our lunch meeting of the ongoing renovations of Huntingdon's All Saints' Church and where the funding is coming from.
The late Mr William Henry Clayton, a local councillor and mayor of Huntingdon, left about £1.5 million pounds in his will for All Saints Church. About £700.000 will be spent on renovations. Other planned improvements include toilet facilities and making the church assessible to the disabled.
All Saint's Church will be opened to the public sometime early next year (2017).
Reverend Andrew said that some of the money will also be used to improve Huntingdon's St Mary's Church.
Past president Ted Cooper was Duty Rotarian for the day.

At our special evening meeting, PDG Chris gave an interesting two part talk titled 'Hope, Homes and Hospitals'. The first part dealt with the problems of orphans and orphanages around the world especially in Eastern Europe and Africa. He has personal experience of orphans and orphanages in Romania, Bulgaria and South Africa. There are 9 million children in orphanages in Eastern Europe. He has been working with the related charitable organization "Hope and Homes" through Rotary for many years.
In the 2nd part of his presentation PDG Chris talked about the oncoming merger in next year (1st April 2017) of the three hospitals in this area namely Peterborough, Stamford and Hinchingbrooke NHS Trusts. This is for more efficient performance and improved services to the patients. He stated that as Peterborough is a Foundation Trust Hospital, Hinchingbrooke will be raised to the same status after the merger and have more facilities.
Chris took up the post of Lead Governor of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust on 1st August having being a Governor of the Trust since 2009.

1. Rotarian Eric Nash cutting his 70th birthday cake.
2. Past District Governor Rotarian Ken Parkin was greeted as vice president by the joint president Gloria.
3. A visit to Poppy Fields Care Home in Eynesbury, St Neots by Past President Rtn Anne Dear, Past District Governor Rotarian Dan Connan and Past President Rotarian Tarak Ghosh to meet honorary member Past President Rotarian Trevor Roberts and his wife Jane who were very happy to meet them at their new residence.

Helping children lead safer and healthier lives
On Wednesday 14th September 2016, Past President Anne Dear, Past President John Upham and Joint President Gloria Heywood, visited Great Paxton Primary School, to view the mobile classroom that had been refurbished during the summer. The Rotary Club of Huntingdon was pleased to be able to provide a cheque for £1,000 for this project.
It was a great joy to see the classroom with our club logo on the outside and then spend time inside. We were invited to stay and watch the young children and their teacher hear from Louis Augarde about what makes a healthy, balanced diet and how this gives energy, why it is important to take care with medicines, how to resolve disputes and support one another and much more helpful information.
It was an interactive experience which the children were happy to be involved with.
I feel this is an excellent project that the Rotary Club of Huntingdon have been pleased to support.
Gloria Heywood

Rotarian Adrian Acton, Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club of St Ives gave a presentation on 'Rotary Primary School Quiz'. He has special interest in this project, which is beneficial in so many ways to the primary school children.

Dan Connan, Mike Fowler and Mike Baker celebrate their birthdays within a few days of each other. Judy Gell came to the aid of the party with a delicious cake. The two Mikes treated all to an ice cream desert.

Tania Bingham gave an update on the work of Young Carers, introduced by Duty Rotarian Paul Wells.

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I'm hoping someone will send me a report on this fun event!

Taken from St Ives Rotary Club's Facebook page

"St Ives Romp Home at Huntingdon Race Night
Well who would have guessed it that amongst our ranks we have our very own race winning jockey - the undefeated John Lowey no less. The highly generous Huntingdon Rotary Club bookies certainly didn't, and thanks to the rest of the St Ives squad putting all their remaining £'s on John, we cleaned up.
All this happened last night at the smashing Games Evening organised by the Rotary Club of Huntingdon at Huntingdon Town Hall. Well done indeed to President Mike Fowler and his games team and thanks to everyone there for making it such a good fun evening.
And what was John's secret? Well as the photos below show , it wasn't so much his ability to negotiate Beechers Brook but more a deft touch with string and roller. Well ridden John and also well done to the other St Ives winner on the night, Sue's pal Tricia Graham who cruised to a win in the Anagrams Challenge. Great night everyone - well played indeed to Sue's Squad of John & Majorie Lowey, Moira & Bob Penney, Tricia and John Graham, Sue Duma, John Pilbeam, Alan Smith, Tim Tucker and Alan Ward."

Colin, assisted by Eileen, about to cut his birthday cake.
President Mike presenting a bouquet of flowers to Eileen.

Adam Scott of Huntingdon Gym Club brought us up to date with the progress of the club, the new building, the increase in membership and the work of coaches working in local schools. Mike Fowler presented a cheque for £319 to help promising athletes from disadvantaged families.

Jessica Nix from the Huntingdon Youth Club was presented with the David Rollett Cup and a cheque for £100.

Rotarian John Miles of the Rotary Club of Leatherhead brought us up to date with the progress of the project.
Mike Fowler presented a cheque for £500 to help achieve their aims.

During the Easter Weekend, members and friends of Huntingdon Rotary Club braved the blustery weather outside the entrance to Waitrose to invite shoppers to guess the value of the contents of a trolley of Waitrose goods.
The winner was Sue Cook of Godmanchester with a guess of £117.80 compared to the actual total of £117.83: Sue was presented with her prize on Saturday afternoon and chose to give a significant amount of her prize to the Food Bank.
In the picture, from left to right are Keith Wood, Huntingdon Rotary Club, Stewart Johnson, Waitrose Duty Manager, Sue Cook, prize winner and Eric Nash, Huntingdon Rotary Club.

The speaker for the lunchtime meeting was Joan Dickie of the Trusts for African Schools introduced by Duty Rotarian Peter Downes.
Joan spoke of her work in Loldia Primary School which is situated on the edge of the Rift Valley, overlooking Lake Naivasha, her aim is to raise money to continue to improve facilities at the school which now has now expanded to nearly 2000 pupils aged 7 to 14 years.
The Club is committed to supporting this worthwhile project.

President Mike Fowler welcomed our visitors including DG D-1070 Rtn Geoff Blurton and DG D-1220 Dr Roger Summers with their wives to our club. Dr Summers presented the Rotary Club of Amber Valley tie to our president.

The 7th annual Technology Tournament organised by the Rotary Club of Huntingdon was held at Abbey College, Ramsey on Wednesday 10th February. This Tournament is open to all of the secondary schools in Huntingdonshire and, this year, attracted a record 21 teams from 5 different schools. The Teams are entered into one of 3 categories: Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced, covering the full age range from 11 to 18. This year teams were entered from Abbey College, St Ivo School, Sawtry Village Academy, Kimbolton School and St Peters School. Unfortunately Ernulf Academy was not able to take part after their school mini-bus broke down on route.
The aim of the Tournament is to give the students experience of undertaking a project to build a specified machine within a tight timescale. They are given the details of the task at the beginning of the day and are expected to analyse the requirement, draw up a suitable design and construct the machine within 4 hours. After lunch, each team has to demonstrate the machine that they have built to the judges. The teams are assessed throughout the day on the way in which they tackle the project and the performance of the machine when tested. This year’s task was to design and build a pair of bridges which had to be capable of supporting a weight of 1kgm. The longer bridge was fixed but the shorter one required a mechanism to allow it to be lifted so that a model ship could pass through. The bridges had to be constructed from a kit of parts, supplied by the Rotary Club, in which the main building material was thin card which could be joined with the glue provided.
All of the teams worked hard to design and build the bridges and a wide range of solutions were produced, most of which were able to operate to the specification and to carry the 1kgm weight. The winning teams came from 3 different schools: the Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced categories were won by St Ivo School, Kimbolton School and Abbey College respectively. All of the students in the winning teams were presented with a Winner’s certificate and the team received one of the engraved glass trophies which had been donated by Computer Miracle Ltd. The trophies were presented by Dr Peter Duffett-Smith who has recently retired from the University of Cambridge where he was Vice Master of Downing College and University Reader in Experimental Radio Physics. It was evident that all of the students enjoyed the event and they gained useful experience in undertaking a project under pressure.

The winning teams were:
Foundation:  St Ivo School  Elin Ball, Erin Maxwell, Abbie Richardson & Ewan Young
Intermediate:  Kimbolton School  Katie Lawrence, Lewis Meakin, Joshua Denton & Adam Goodyer
Advanced:  Abbey College  James Thomas, Michael Wright & Jordan Hunwin

Pictures:
Kimbolton School Intermediate Winning Team
Abbey College Advanced Winning Team
The bridge made by the Sawtry College team.
Past President Gloria and Graham Heywood, the donors of three beautiful trophies.
The North Hall from front to back showing the contestants and the stewards.
Rotarian Roy White presenting certificates of participation.
Abbey College receiving their award.
The guest of honour Dr Peter Duffett-Smith giving his address.

The winning teams were:

Foundation Level: St Ivo School
Intermediate Level: Kimbolton School Team A
Advanced Level: Ramsey Abbey College Team A

Rotarian Geoff Burniston and wife Margaret joined the celebration at the Club's lunchtime meeting on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
The cake was very kindly made by Rotarian Judy Gell and the wine for the toast supplied by Geoff.

Rotarian Margaret Morley gave a talk and presentation on the current polio situation and the efforts towards conflict resoloution.
She also left President Mike Fowler with a thorny problem, a peace rose, to be planted with care.

Mr Keith Grimwade, Director of Learning at Cambridgeshire County Council gave an interesting presentation about the schools especially the higher schools like academies in Cambridgeshire. It was very well appreciated by the audience.
Mr Grimwade was appointed head of the Geography Department at Hinchingbrooke School By Rtn Peter Downes in 1985, who was then the Head Master.
Duty Rotarian Mike Baker MBE was also a teacher at the school and has known the speaker for many years.