November

We played hosts to the local Fire Brigade on the 2nd. Two watch commanders came along to discuss with the Club the latest offering from the Fire Brigade where they will come to your home and discuss all elements of fire prevention and escape which will be relevant to your home. This visit can be arranged by contacting the local fire station (call 01234 351081 and ask to be put through to the Leighton Station, and ask for Jason Hollanby).

October

The Club held an interesting debate on the 12th. It was led by John Halstead & Ian Raisbeck and the debate was whether or not Leighton Buzzard High Street should be pedestrianised. John was on the side of the pedestrians and Ian led the pro-car side. At the end of the evening a vote was taken, with Ian emerging as the winner.
On the 19th October it was 'all hands to the pump' at Cedar School's Raven Theatre for the 7th Brain of Leighton Quiz. For more details of the evening; the winners and some photos, please go here..

September

During the business meeting held on September 7th, President Brian had the pleasurable task of inducting new Rotarian Kevin Molyneuax into the Club.
September 14th saw the Club playing host to Adrienne Staniford and Lorna Taylor from the Leighton Buzzard & Linslade branch of the MS Society. Adrienne is a sufferer and Lorna is a carer (for her husband Mike who has the disease) so we were able to hear about it from both angles. It was even more appropriate as the MS Society is one of President Brian's nominated charities this year.
To see more about the Society visit their web site

Over the weekend of the 19th & 20th several members of the Club and their wives visited our twinned club of Lesquien, near Lille France.
Although the weekend was 'officially' the Saturday & Sunday, those attending went over on the Friday and met up in Ghent for a pleasant day and evening in the town. However they could drink/talk/dance the night away as they needed to be up early as they were requested to meet in Lesquin at 10am to meet the local Mayor. For more details and some pictures please go here.
The last Monday in September saw us venturing to the Snooker Hall in Dudley Street. Seeing the results I don't think Stephen Hendry or Ronnie O'Sullivan have much to worry about.

August

August was a quiet month with the usual business meeting on the first Monday.
The main event of the month took place the following Monday when some of the members went along to Dunstable Archery Club to try their hand at being bowmen. The Silver Arrows ran the evening extremely well and the feedback from everyone who went was all positive. The evening was run like a tournament with 7 different targets varying in size and distance with the members being split into teams. The winning team was "The Hood Family" which consisted of Giles, Joanna, Frazer & Ann. Roll on next year when we'll try and repeat the evening.

July

New Club President, Brian, held his first business meeting on July 6th when he outlined his views for the coming Rotary year.
The following week was entertaining as three of the new members, Ian, Martin and Andrew told the rest of the members about their respective jobs
Graham Lesley paid us a visit and told us about his walk along the North Norfolk Coast path, which he did to raise funds for the Child Bereavement Charity in memory of his daughter Phillipa who had died from cancer at 36. To date he has raised over £5000 from his sponsorships.
Back in March we had a visit by Andrew Beer who talked about keeping bees. On the 27th we had the opportunity to visit one of the sites where he keeps his hives (he has several others scattered around the county). He was ably assisted by Caroline Luxford, who has been keeping bees for about four years. Following the experience of getting close to swarms of bees (with only a couple of accidents) we descended on the Carpenters Arms in Stewkley. When we congregated outside the pub it looked as though a number of aliens had landed! (see the photos here!)

June

On the 8th of June, Syd & Giles organised a Clay Pigeon shoot competition with the 41 Club followed by a meal at The Anchor pub in Tilsworth. The following week we paid host to Carmela Semeraro who talked about a project she was involved with entitled "The Sands of Time in Leighton Buzzard". The project is being generated by the Greensand Trust and aims to document the importance of the sand industry to Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding villages. In the project, Carmela is trying to document the memories of people who were involved in the industry both in writing and also verbally by digitising conversations and interviews with these people. There is also a plan to create a "Sand Trail" to immortalise the history of the industry.
On the 22nd the Club descended on the 10 pin bowling alley at Xscape MK where we were involved in two games each followed by a meal at La Tasca. Overall winner of the evening was Brian closely followed by Giles who, in turn was closely followed by Mike & Trudy.
The following Saturday (26th) saw the Club descend on Brian's house to celebrate the change of President, with Brian taking over from Giles.
To see some photos from the evening please go here.

May

Highlight of the month as usual was our May Day Fayre held on the Bank Holiday Monday. 48 stalls were out on the High Street, supporting a number of local charities and organisations. Unlike last year the weather this year was quite cold so there wasn't the mass demand for liquid refreshment throughout the day. However the hot food merchants did well!
For the second year running we staged the Midland heat of the World's Strongest Man, with the top 4 once again going through to the England competition.
Due to the cold weather we weren't able to reach the record heights of last year with regard to the takings, but we still managed to clear over £7,000 which will be going towards our named charities. The weary Club members finished the day with a meal at the ASK restuarant in the High Street.
To see some photos from the day please go here.
On May 18th we were paid a visit by Jo Yirrell who told us about her son Harry who passed away 5 years ago after contracting malaria whilst on a volunteer mission in Ghana. Following his death, Jo became very active in malaria-preventation/eradication programmes and eventually formed the Malaria No More UK branch of the US group who's aim is to blanket sub-Saharian Africa in mosquito nets within the next two years, and then to eradicate malaria by 2015. Following her presentation President Giles gave her (Malaria No More) a cheque for £1,000 which will be used to purchase 200 nets to be used in an orphange in the area where Harry was working when he contracted the disease.

April

April 6th saw the usual monthly business meeting, though this one was slightly different as we had two new members inducted into the Club. Welcome Andrew White and Martin Addrison.
On April 20th the Club was given a talk about Big Game Hunting in Africa, to a somewhat mixed reaction. The following Monday the meeting was given over to final discussions about the May Day Fayre.

March

The highlight of this month was our Rotary Ball, held at Leighton's Golf Club. A great evening was had by all. The meal was followed by dancing to 60's musicplayed by "Carnaby Street". There was an auction halfway through the evening with Mike Birdseye proving to be a very able auctioneer, managing to sell off two bottles of champagne for nearly £70 that went towards the RNIB.
On the 9th March we played host to Sara Kelby from Vandyke School who gave a presentation entitled Dreams and Teams which was a follow-up to show how our donation was spent. Sara was accompanied by Matt Lee who went out to South Africa with the project, and Chloe Turner who was involved in the return visit by the South African students. Both raved about the experiences they had from being part and want to be involved in the next set of visits, which may be next year to tie in with the 2010 World Cup that is being held in South Africa.
The following week the ladies joined us for a great presentation from Sara Raisbeck called "The Dog Man" which was a documentary she had put together for a course that she took part in. It was based on a street performer on London's South Bank and Covent Garden who dressed up as a dog and had his head in a 'pet carrier'.
On the 23rd we were given a very interesting talk and discussion on the topic of bee-keeping with Andrew Beer. Although I didn't personally attend the meeting, I was told that it was highly informative, and has started a couple of our members thinking about keeping bees. We have also arranged to visit Andrew's establishment in Stewkley later in the year to see first- hand what it takes to be a successful bee-keeper.
The month ended with a talk by Nick entitled "A Matter of Taste". It turned out to be all about the history of the humble potato chip! Nick also brought along 10 different samples for us to try and identify - not a very easy task, even when we knew what they were supposed to be!

In the District Darts contest the 'A' team were resting on their laurels still. Meanwhile the 'B' team were victorious in their two games against Chesham and Dunstable. In both games we won 3-0 and also managed to win the 1001 so scooping the pot for charity. We will have to wait for the other teams to finish their games to see if we progress into the next round along with the 'A' team.

February

On Monday February 2nd about 60 members and their guests braved the snow and cold weather to go to Il Maschio in Mentmore where we were holding a New Members Night. Here, following a good meal. we were entertained by Mark Webber the Formula One racing driver. Rather than just talking about his experiences, Mark fielded a number of questions on all aspects of motor racing from the 60 or so members and guests. Following this President Giles had the great experience of inducting two new members to the Club - Ian Stephens and Ian Summerfield. District Governor Les Lee was also on hand to welcome them to the District 1260. The final event of the evening was the raffle for items donated by Mark, all in aid of RNIB. We were able to raise £445.

On the 16th we had an 'Indian Themed' evening where The Hunt provided an Indian style meal which was followed by a presentation by a past President of the Club, John Trotman. He described a three week trip he recently had to India with his son, where they travelled down the west coast visiting various places of interest.
The following week, the 23rd, Dave Bowater talked to us about his experiences of the ailing British motor industry.

This month has also seen the return of the District darts competition. The staging of the competition had been badly hit by the recent bad weather but it's starting to get back on track. The 'A' team beat the Milton Keynes club and have managed to get into the next round as the other two clubs in their group have withdrawn. The 'B' team initially played Aylesbury 100s at Wendover and were narrowly beaten, 2-1, 2-0 & 2-1.

January

As usual the first meeting of the New Year was our monthly business meeting.
On the 12th we played host to Ken Russell from The Italian Job. This is a charity that is currently raising funds for Kids Out by driving Minis from Italy to Brighton in the form of a rally. Ken gave us a good insight into why a number of teams (54 at the last count) who will sit in Minis and drive them a) out to the starting point in Italy, and then b) drive them all the way back to Brighton. They have been running these events since 1990 and this year's event will take place in October and start from Turin, hoping to finish on October 31st. For information on what they can do please go to their web site.

We were visited on the 19th by Allison Waterhouse, who is the Community Fund Raiser for the Willen Hospice. Willen was one of the charities nominated by outgoing President Alan Bradley and Allison came along to tell us about the Hospice. Following her talk President Giles presented her with a cheque for £1000.

The following weekend 12 members and their wives packed their suitcases and headed away to Vienna for a long weekend organised by Peter Priggen. It was quite a cold weekend but we all had a good time with good food, good wine and good company.

Past diaries

To see what we have been doing over the years, look at the appropriate year - 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2008 for our past activities.