At this years AGM of 'The Friends of St. Chad's' one of our members was able to present a cheque for £500 in support of the churches appeal to raise £7,500 for repair of the chancel roof. A further unspecified sum may be needed to repair internal damage from the leaking roof. The Rotary Club were happy to provide this much needed support in its local community.

The picture below, from left to right, shows President of the Friends of St Chad's - Vic Gilligan, Chairman Adrian Ennever and our very own Tim Barker making the presentation.

At our meeting on Monday 1st March one of our members, David Smith, gave a most informative talk on Digital Photography.

David demonstrated how to manipulate digitally many photographs and included one of the most common areas being “Red Eye” and in animals “Green Eye”. He then spoke about what can be done to renew old Photos and quite quickly showed the members how to repair and get ride of marks, holes and creases.

Other tips included moving images from one scene to another, improving the smile, retouching and with the magic of digital photography opening eyes that were shut at the time of the picture being taken.

David spoke about Adobe Photo Shop, which is the industry standard, and costs from £400 to £500 but for many Adobe Photo Elements No 8 is available for £40/£50 and will allow you to do all the things David has demonstrated this evening.

The Club's vote of thanks was given by Richard Ransom who thanked David for a most illuminating talk and for the time he had clearly taken to put together his presentation.

The picture below shows President Graham Markwell (right) thanking David Smith.

President Graham Markwell welcomed Greg Maskalick, who is the Director of Music at Ockbrook School, to last week's meeting at the Royal Oak in Ockbrook.

The induction of Greg now brings the Club's membership to 50 and he is looking forward to assisting the Club with its many future activities.

President Graham had also received a letter of thanks from St Chad's for the £500 donation to go towards the repairs of the Church Roof.

Also, the Club has 2 teams taking part in the District Quiz at Belper in the near future.

The picture below show Greg (left) being welcomed by President Graham.

At our meeting on the 1st February our speakers were Alan McConville and Mel Austin from the Derbyshire Association for the Blind (DAB).

Alan spoke initially about “DAB” which is a registered charity and supports 4,500 members in Derbyshire and has 40 employees. Its services include: Hospital helpline, resource centre, a community project, VIP information programme, quarterly newsletter, children services and sports and leisure activities. Alan ended his part of the talk with a practical demonstration for which he required two volunteers. The picture below shows Club members Michael Massie and Patrick Bevan making a cup of tea while wearing "white out" glasses. With their normal vision the task had taken 40 seconds but was considerably longer, at over 2 minutes, when their sight was taken away. The point Alan was driving home very forcibly was that if you added together all of the tasks you might carry out from the point of getting out of bed to leaving the house on a morning it could take over 3 times longer for a visually impaired person.

Alan then handed over to his colleague Mel, who is registered blind and is a trustee and volunteer for DAB. Alan spoke about what blindness means and his experiences since he accidentally damaged his optic nerve in the left eye as a 10 year old. His treatment over the years included 8 cornea grafts with the last 2 failing within weeks. Mel then chose to see what life brings in his decent into blindness. He quickly developed his memory to remember such things as his credit card and bank details. His mobility was helped by the use of his “white stick” and also by the many other gadgets that are now available which includes various softwear systems, a talking watch and microwave along with an item that ensures he can dress himself colour coordinated. In summary Mel said that no one wants to loose their sight but there are now many ways to conqueror it.

Rotarian Geoff Smith, on behalf of the Club, thanked Alan & Mel for a most informative talk and he said his cousin had been registered blind at 20 and had regained his independence with great support and help from DAB.

The picture below shows our President Graham presenting a cheque to Mel and Alan.

At the latest meeting of the Church Wilne Rotary Club, Club member Andy Lord gave his second talk on Alfred Wainwright. In Andy's first talk he traced Wainwright to his retirement and also referred back to his various publications and then went over the last 13 years of his life.

Between 1967 & 1970 three books were published. The Fellwalker, Pennine Way Companion and his most famous book Coast to Coast. 1970 was very productive with 22 titles.

He was given an Honorary Degree at Newcastle University.

In 1972 he raised £30k for the Animal Rescue Centre in Cumbria but needed £60k, so he sold the copy write to his Coast to Coast book to the Western Gazette for £40k but retained a 7.5% royalty for life.

Andy spoke about the 7 pictorial books produced with the final one published just after his death on the 20^th January 1984. Alfred Wainwright's remains were scatter at Haystacks in the Lake District as requested and he said in one of his books “If dear reader you get a bit of grit in your teeth, treat it with respect, it might be me”

The Club's vote of thanks was Mike Key who in thanking Andy also said he had once met AW without realizing.

The picture below shows Club President Graham thanking Andy for his talk.