District Council Meeting

12 February. I attend the very last Council meeting for District 1140. These meetings are designed to present reports from the various committees and for important issues to be voted on by delegates from all the clubs in the District.  As usual, it was held in the Holiday Inn Surbiton. There are only 3 District Council meetings per year and this was to be the last before the District merges with District 1250 at the end of June. I normally avoid such events, not being a great lover of committees, but on this auspicious occasion I felt the meeting needed an injection of charisma that only the Consort could provide. I assumed I would be on the top table, and had prepared a suitable 15 minute speech to mark the end of an era.

                                                          Holiday Inn Surbiton

The DG had arranged for us to meet Mike Thorn at the Hotel before the meeting for dinner, and we braved the early evening traffic around Hampton Court to arrive in good time. The DG was clearly well known as one of the Hotel managers met us and was very attentive as he showed us to a table. We hadn’t been there long when we were approached by a couple of plain-clothed policemen who introduced themselves to the DG.  After a moment’s panic, when I thought they had come about my parking ticket in the Staines Riverside car park last week (the reason I haven’t paid it yet is because I have appealed it, which they may not have known) I realised they were speakers booked for the meeting tonight. They were Detective Inspector Nigel Howard and DC Kevin Ives from the City of London Fraud Squad.

                                                                  Scene of the crime - Staines Riverside car park

They were here to talk to delegates about Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and internet crime. The DG magnanimously invited them to join us for dinner and they proved very interesting companions. I confessed that I hadn’t heard of Action Fraud, and they said that most people hadn’t, and that is why they were keen to go out and tell potential victims about it, and give advice on how to watch out for online and telephone scams, particularly investment scams  aimed at relieving victims of their money. Kevin said that he has a relative who is a Rotarian in the Birmingham area, and he and Nigel had been up to Solihull to speak at their District Council meeting. They  have identified that the demographics of victims of investment scams matches exactly with Rotarians, in terms of age ranges, where they live, educational background and amount of capital available to invest  (they can’t be talking about me). Accordingly they are looking to speak to groups of Rotarians whenever they can. A propos of nothing,the DG asked them if they are ever tempted to turn on their blue lights when running late, but Kevin said that would be a sacking offence. On our way to tonight’s meeting we were passed by two unmarked police cars with blue lights flashing. It was reassuring to know they were on official business.

There is an Indian chef at the Holiday Inn, and consequently their curries are very good.  We therefore both ordered a Lamb Rogan Josh, and it was excellent (although a bit hot for the DG, but she cooled hers down with some yogurt). The coppers had pasta and a sandwich (it looked more like a burger and chips to me) which they both seemed to enjoy, before disappearing into the Conference room to prepare for their talk. Meanwhile, we had been joined by Pauline Hedges and Mike Thorn, who had ordered his curry by phoning the DG whilst driving down the A3 (I hope the police didn’t overhear that conversation).

                                       Dinner is served - Mike Thorn, John Fletcher, Michael Ziedens, DG

Soon it was time to get things under way, and I told the DG I would be happy to help out in any official way if needed. I had envisaged maybe meeting and greeting VIP guests such as the RIBI President, who was due to visit tonight, or perhaps making myself available for having my photo taken with delegates. They may not get another opportunity. The DG, however, had other plans. She wanted me to collect names of teams for the forthcoming District Quiz. This entailed sitting at one end of the registration desk, speaking to delegates as they came to register. ‘You’ll have to be pro-active’ she said, ‘or people will be in the Conference Hall before noticing you’. I wasn’t so sure. After all, how could anyone fail to spot the Consort? They would be queuing up to register their quiz teams with me, I thought. The DG was a bit worried, because we only had 8 teams registered so far, and we needed a minimum of 12 teams to cover costs, and the quiz is booked for 7^th March. After a long half hour sitting on the registration desk, I made it into the Conference room just in time for the start of proceedings. We still had only 8 teams registered for the quiz.

                                                          Anybody for the District quiz?

There was no place for me on the top table, but Pauline had reserved me a seat next to her.  New Malden Rotary Club were hosting the Council meeting this evening, and their President Peter Skinley welcomed delegates to the Holiday Inn. Each club in the District (46 of them) is entitled to nominate two ‘voting delegates’. These have to register outside the room, where they collect their voting cards. The cards are held up when delegates vote on proposals.

                                                      Collectors item - District 1140 Voting card

There were about 100 Rotarians in the room, but only 29 clubs represented, which was a disappointing turn out for the organisers. After some opening remarks by the DG, the floor was given to my new best friends  Nigel and Kevin for their presentation on Investment fraud. They spoke about all sorts of scams (which they generically call ‘boiler room’ fraud), including gemstones, oil, carbon credits, gold. The thing that links them all is that they all revolve around cold calling with the promise that an investment will reap enormous profits. We were even shown a very professional-looking brochure enticing people to invest in coloured gemstones.  It seems amazing to me that anyone could be gullible enough to fall for such scams, but clearly they do, in their thousands. I suppose part of the problem is the very poor rates of interest available for savings generally, so people are looking for a better return.

                                                        Nigel Howard gives an arresting performance

The new thing to be on our guard against, said Kevin, is pension scams. With effect from this April, people can withdraw cash from their pension schemes and do what they want with it. What fertile ground this will be for the fraudsters. The underlying message is an obvious one ‘If it looks too good to be true, then it almost certainly is’. In a brief Q and A session, one member said that she had actually had a call regarding an investment in yellow diamonds, and had strung them along (the caller, I mean, not the diamonds) for a while before declining. The policemen said the best advice is to finish the conversation as soon as possible and put the phone down, then call Action Fraud. It seems if you show any interest in one of these cold calls your details get circulated to other fraudsters and you will get a never-ending stream of bogus callers.

                            RIBI President Peter King talks to Peter Meldrum - are those yellow diamonds?

We then had another speaker, a charming young Japanese lady called Chiho Ishezeki, who is studying at Royal Holloway College Egham thanks to a Rotary Global Scholarship. Her course is in Sustainability and Management, and in her spare time she volunteers for the National Trust at Runnymede. I was impressed with her command of English. Her name translates rather fetchingly into ‘A thousand ears of rice’. She described her home area and spoke about the Japanese culture of finding beauty in the transcience of seasonal events.

                                                                 Royal Holloway College

The next couple of items on the agenda were votes on various topics including approval of the budget next year for the new District. These all seemed to be passed unanimously, although I gather this is not always the case. I’m not surprised the budget was passed. I would certainly have voted in favour on the basis I didn’t really understand it. It’s easy to look wise raising your voting card with everyone else, rather than oppose the motion and risk being questioned about your reasons for doing so. The next item was a report from Peter Dancy, chair of the Conference committee for the new District. The conference will be in Bournemouth in October, and in Eastbourne the year after. These are the only two venues in the South of England that can hold the numbers (800 – 1,000) who are expected to attend the new District conferences in future.

                                                       Bournemouth

The DG then had some certificates to present to a number of clubs who had made significant contributions to the ‘End Polio Now’ campaign. Peter Morley of Sutton  Rotary Club, who is the District Officer for End Polio Now called up representatives from the clubs concerned (which included Shepperton and Sunbury) to receive their certificates, with a bit of ceremony, from the DG. Peter took the opportunity of updating us on the progress of ending Polio throughout the world. The extraordinary story is that 30 years ago there were 7,000 new cases of polio every week. Today there is just 1 new case per week. We are really very close! Of the new polio cases 85% are in Pakistan, where there has been some opposition to the immunisation of children, so that is the country where most efforts will be concentrated next year.

                                                      The DG presents certificates for End Polio Now donations

The final District Council meeting was almost over now, and the DG was clearly enjoying herself as she poked fun at a number of her team during her closing remarks. She accused Mike Thorn of stealing delegate voting cards, Ron Daniels of looking up the latest Harlequins score on his Ipad during the meeting, and Owen Durrett of incorrectly ringing the meeting bell to start her first District meeting. None of them looked particularly upset at these accusations.

                                                 The top table - PDG Ron Daniels, Secretary Owen Durrett, the DG

Just before the meeting closed we were shown the ‘new’ meeting bell for District 1145. It was originally used around 50 years ago when our District was no 14. It was put into storage when the enlarged District became no. 114, and then subsequently 1140. An engraver has managed to change the number on the bell from 14 to 1145, and it will be brought back into use for the new District.

                                                             The 'new' District 1145 bell