Committees, Social, LUNCH! Donovan, Buffy Sainte-Marie and More.

Last Week
It was the first of our Committee Meetings within a meeting.  I've had almost no feedback.  The major problem was that so many Rotarians weren't there but as that also happens for any committee meeting I suppose that's to be expected.
One major difference is  that we have had practically no Committee Reports. Possibly that is because we are topsy-turvy with the Board Meeting but that'll be rectified next month.  The important thing is that every member of the Club becomes involved in some way or another.

This Week
It's a social meeting. Last year David Bradshaw was asked to stop having a speaker on the last Friday of the month so that we could be sociable and talk to each other.....and tell jokes.....and generally misbehave.

Lunch
I had a meeting with Wanderers after lunch last week to ask why we were being charged more than the bar price for our Chicken Cheese Burger and was told that it was to equalise the more expensive meals we had such as fish.  I pointed out that we have never had fish.  I also commented on the Vegetarian Pasta.  I immediately assumed it would be pasta with a Neapolitana sauce...not pasta with big carrots and vegetables on top!  Quite disgusting!
I have said that we should scrap the vegetarian option as we can order a pizza if necessary and should rather have a choice of ordinary dishes.  We will select two items from the menu each week for the following week.  I have done so arbitrarily this week.

Jean Bernardo's Bottle Top Collection
Jean's home has practically vanished under plastic bottle tops.  She dug herself out last week to say that the collection was coming to an end at the end of the month.  If you haven't gien her the bottle tops and tags by then you will have to start your own private collection. Maybe your great grandchildren will be able to sell it at great price.

Vegetable Growing



Everyone wanted Geoff Green to come back and chat about growing vegetables at home....he's coming on the 7th October.





District PR Seminar
Hugh Rix attended and this is what he had to say about it:

1 The Seminar was attended by thirty clubs and there will be a follow up in October. 

   District is planning a Black Tie Dinner, a Radio Telethon where listeners can pledge donations to the Rotary Foundation and other functions to raise money to celebrate the Foundation's centenary.

    

   Donovan  

  An interesting article about him below.  Buffy Sainte Marie wrote this song in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in 1963 after witnessing wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam. She has described the song as being "About individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all." Though not a hit for her it was covered by British folk singer Donovan in 1965 on an EP titled The Universal Soldier, which was a success and bought attention to the song. In the US it was released as a single peaking at #53. The song became an anthem of the Vietnam Peace movement.

Sainte-Marie naively sold the publishing rights to this song for a dollar to a man she met one night at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village who wrote a contract on a napkin. She recalled to The Guardian July 31, 2009: "Ten years later I bought it back for 25,000 bucks – the good news is that I had 25,000 bucks."

Here's Buffy Sainte-Marie with the original version....for those of you who like this sort of thing

      HALL OF FAME SINGER DONOVAN BECOMES A ROTARY POLIO AMBASSADOR

Hall of Fame folk singer and polio survivor Donovan recently became a Rotary polio ambassador.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Planet Earth Publicity

Legendary singer and polio survivor Donovan Leitch, better known simply as Donovan, has joined Rotary in its fight to eradicate the paralyzing disease that afflicted him during much of his childhood.

Donovan contracted polio at age three in Glasgow, Scotland. The disease weakened his right leg and left it thinner and shorter than the other. Confined to his bed for much of his childhood, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer said his father would read him poetry.

In a recent interview with the Daily Express, Donovan said that listening to poetry piqued his interest in creative writing. “If I hadn’t had that experience maybe I wouldn’t have gone on to write and sing my own songs for the past half a century.

“I feel strongly that having a disability in one area makes you explore others instead. That was the case for me after having polio,” says Donovan, who recently became a Rotary polio ambassador.

Donovan went on to record several hit albums and singles in the UK, United States, and other countries. His top singles include “Mellow Yellow” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” Donovan collaborated with The Beatles on songs including “Yellow Submarine” and has shared the stage with musical icons Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

“Having had polio never held me back as I got older. Although having one leg smaller than the other isn’t much fun I could always get about without any trouble,” Donovan says. “Luckily in the music industry everyone was only interested in my singing and playing and not the size of my legs.”

As a Rotary polio ambassador, Donovan will support the Purple4Polio campaign, a collaboration between Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Horticultural Society. The purple represents the colored dye that health workers use during immunization campaigns to mark the fingers of children who have received the polio vaccine.

“It was very easy to join this campaign because I had polio, and I wanted to tell everybody that it’s almost eradicated around the world,” Donovan says. “This is very important. I want to help with that last push, which is always the hardest. ”