19 September. I am
invited to attend a glittering banquet to celebrate the occasion of 3 Rotary
clubs in the London Borough of Richmond reaching the grand age of 90 years. The
clubs are Richmond, Teddington & The Hamptons and Twickenham. My heart goes
out to those presidents, dragging around their chain of office, bearing the
names of their 89 predecessors. They must be exceptionally heavy.
The Richmond Hill Hotel
So it was that I, accompanied as usual by the DG, eased into the Friday evening traffic and headed to
the Richmond Hill Hotel. This hotel, which describes itself as a boutique
hotel, commands a super view over the Thames as it loops round Richmond Park, and
is situated in one of the most exclusive, and therefore expensive, parts of West
London.
View of the Thames below Richmond Hill
On arrival, we headed straight to the drinks reception,
where we met a number of old friends, including
Mukesh Malhotra, Mike Thorn, Nazir Barakzai, and Ron and Helena
Daniels. There was a little confusion
when a raffle ticket seller approached IPC (Immediate Past Consort) Helena and me
to persuade us to purchase some tickets. The raffle was intended to raise funds
for the ongoing fight to eradicate polio from this earth. Helena mis-heard what
was said, and thought the prize was a trip to a Polo match. The thought of
possibly meeting famous players like Prince Charles over a chukka of Polo was very attractive to
her so I thought I had better intervene before a large sum of money changed
hands due to a misunderstanding over the prize fund.
Mike Thorn takes a 'selfie' with Ron and the DG....
........And the outcome
It was the first black tie event I had attended since becoming
Consort, and I must say I have never seen such an array of chains of office,
gongs and other bling. Besides the DG, there were no less than 6 Past Governors (PDGs) of District 1140 in attendance,
as well as the mayor of Richmond, councillor Jane Boulton, 3 Club Presidents,
not to mention Presidents Elect, Vice Presidents, Paul Harris Fellows and Past Presidents.
The DG with PDGs Brian Frith, Peter King, Mukesh Malhotra, Len Smith, Mike thorn and Ron Daniels
I had a long conversation with Len Smith, a most interesting
man, who besides being a Past District Governor is also a Past President of
Rotary International in Britain and Ireland (RIBI). In fact he was District
Governor of District 114, which at some stage in the 1980’s became 1140. Furthermore, when he first joined Rotary in
1958 it was District 14. As Rotary grew over the years, new Districts were
regularly being formed, and their numbers gained an additional digit as part of
the process.
With Peter and Di King and the ubiquitous Mike Thorn
When it was time to move through to the Dining Room, I was
asked to stay behind until everybody else was seated, thus enabling me to make
a proper entrance. So it was that the Mayor,
myself and the DG, RIBI President Peter King, and the three presidents
of the celebrating clubs made our entrance to a standing ovation. I have been to many events where VIPs were
‘clapped in’, but this was my first experience of having my high status being
recognised in this way, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. At least I did until I
leaned over to the DG and said how much I enjoyed being clapped in. ‘Clapped out more like’ was her reply. Whatever did she mean?
With Michael Barton and Angelique's elbow
The tables were all named after famous cities, and we found
ourselves sitting at Rome, as guests of the Richmond Rotary Club, and we were
warmly welcomed by President Michael
Barton and his lovely wife Angelique. It turned out that Michael is a fluent
French speaker, and offered to assist in my communication with Kinshasa in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (a French speaking country) with regard to the Mission for Vision project. At
the table I sat next to Brian Frith, another PDG, and his wife March, a most
entertaining and lively couple.
Rome
As one would expect there were quite a few (thankfully
short) speeches, usually of the toasting variety. During one of them I learnt
the surprising fact that there are 57 Rotary Clubs of Richmond around the
world, including USA, Canada and Australia. It wasn’t really a surprise to find
that those countries had towns called Richmond, but I hadn’t expected to learn
that there was a Richmond Rotary club in India. We actually received greetings from
the 4 Richmond Rotary clubs in Alberta, Canada. The DG was called upon to make
a short speech in response to a toast by Ravinder Sharma, the President of
Teddington and the Hamptons. She mentioned that one of Teddington’s oldest
members was actually nine years old when his Rotary club was Chartered.
The DG makes a speech
The dinner comprised melon followed by Rotary chicken, with
a chocolate mousse for dessert. I
couldn’t help noticing that the gentleman sitting opposite me (I don’t recall
his name) went to another table to eat his main course, and then came back to
our table to eat another!. There’s a true trencherman, I thought, a man after
my own heart.
After dinner there was entertainment from a group called Folk on the Green, which I
believe included a local Rotarian. They sang a number of folk songs and other
sing-along numbers designed to get people joining in. I like singing, even
though the DG tells me I’m not very good at it, and I sang along with gusto.
The group seemed to me a folk version of the pop group which played during the
RIBI handover at The Stoop last year, with probably a similar target audience.
Folk on the Green
Next on stage was a Bhangra group. I hadn’t seen Bhangra
performed live before, but I was aware that it is of Indian derivation and involves loud drumming on a very
large double-headed drum called a dhol, around which music and dancing is performed. Their entrance came
as a bit of a shock to me, as the drummer suddenly started up with his very
loud drumming a few feet from where I was sitting. The group them emerged from
a side door and made their way through the audience to the stage.
The Bhangra performers
I was struck by the force of the drumming, but also by the
accompanying dancers. I don’t know why, but I had assumed the dancers would be
girls, and would perform some dainty dancing moves whilst the drummer played.
However I was surprised to find that the four dancers were in fact young men,
dressed in highly colourful costumes of yellow and mauve, and dancing very
enthusiastically, in a masculine kind of way. .Each of them was burly and bearded, the very antithesis
of the delicate girls I was expecting. They looked as if they would be more at
home in a rugby scrum than a dance floor.
The music was pre-recorded and formed a backing track to the drumming. Later in the performance a vocalist sang what I assumed to be Punjabi lyrics to the music.
For their final number the troupe encouraged members of the audience to join
them in dancing on stage, and a rather unusual disco took place, with the
fabulously dressed young men dancing with middle-aged Rotarians in evening
dress.
An unusual disco
It was a fun evening, for which the organisers had obviously
gone to a lot of trouble. For me, the evening was crowned by winning a raffle
prize of a meal for two at Thai upon
Thames Restaurant in Twickenham. I’ll check whether it will still be valid for
my birthday in November.
Incidentally the raffle raised over £1,000 towards the Polio campaign. This will be increased to £3,000 through our double matched funding arrangement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Susanne Rea, from Cairns Sunrise Rotary Club in Australia was visiting this country to promote her joint project with Mukesh called World's Greatest Meal, which is raising funds for Polio. Since I first met her, at the RIBI Conference in Birmingham earlier this year, WGM has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds towards Polio eradication.
No comments:
Post a Comment