Club Secretary David paid several compliments to outgoing President John during his VALEDICTORY speech as he chose to call it, quite what a valedictory speech was supposed to be no-one knew, but we all agreed with the sentiments he expressed and were pleased to applaud his leadership.

John admitted that his somewhat bewildered reaction to his duties was an act developed of many years of teaching in order to facilitate cunning delegation.

We look forward to Martin’s term of office with great expectation, we are sure he will have just as successful as year as did John.

Graham will be anticipating his year in twelve months time, and no doubt he will have to stand in for Martin on occasion.

We welcomed Honorary Member Wynn Humphreys and visiting Rotarian Basil Morrison from the Altringham Rotary Club.

As we had no speaker and no other business of note the evening came a close at an unprecedented 9:30pm

Very disappointing attendance with only 12 members present out of 22, I guess Summer is here and people are having early breaks.
 

We did however welcome visiting Rotarian . Mike Turner. from the Rotary Club of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. 

Rotarian Patrick gave a talk entitled "A little Brother" on his early life before and after emigrating to Australia in 1954 aged 16, memories of those days were stirred and it was well received.

Part of our meeting was set aside to present cheques to some of the charities that we support from the funds raised on our Criccieth Fun Day, in spite of the very windy weather we managed to raise £1,680 for the four charities, Caring for Young Carers, Hospice at Home, Ysgol Hafod Lon Special Needs School and Hearing dogs for the Deaf, giving each charity £420.

We welcomed Glenys Campbell from Caring for Young Carers, Hillary Bonney from Hospice at Home and Marian Evans from Ysgol Hafod Lon, unfortunately Hearing Dogs for the Deaf were not able to attend due to other commitments.

Kids Out

We were delighted once again to participate in Kids Out, Ysgol Hafod Lon in Pwllheli look forward each year to their day out.

Seventeen children and ten Carers had fully active day in perfect weather once again.

Rotarians President John, Graham, Martin and Phil were in attendance to make sure that the day is a memorable one for these special needs kids, we look forward to doing it again next year.

We were delighted to welcome our Assistant District Governor Jayne Middleton to the club meeting, Jayne is a member of the Rotary Club of Oswestry.

Jayne was very complementary to us in her talk, it is nice to know that our efforts are appreciated by those in District.

This was our Club Assembly meeting and we discussed the various aims and intentions of the various committees for the coming Rotary year the theme for which is.....

June 2nd -2008

We were pleased to invite some members of Aldi's management team along to explain their store policies and to give us an idea of what we may expect when the new store opens on Thursday June the 9th.

Pictured on the right are  Area Managers in Training, Daniel Wilde, Rhiannon Greenwood and Area Manager Holger Hofmann.

Daniel gave us a faultless presentation which was enthusiastically received by all the members present.

May 15th -2008

We were pleased to host a delightful group of New Zealand Group Study Exchange members on a visit to Portmerion.

Rotarians David Medcalf, Gwynne Roberts and Patrick Fisher were in attendance, after a general walk around enjoying the scenery on a beautiful day we all joined up for lunch.

Later on in the afternoon we handed the Kiwis on to the Llanfairfechan Rotary Club, all in all it was an excellent day with a lot of interesting conversation.

From left to right, top row Rebecca Baskett, Joanne Field, Matt Trubshaw, Tracey Wihongi, Chris Macdonald, Dave McLuggage.

Apr 25th -2008
66th Charter Dinner

The Porthmadog Rotary Club was founded in 1942 and has experienced many changes over the last 66 years.

It was our great pleasure this year to award a Paul Harris Fellowship to Rotarian Bill Lacey, Bill has been a member since 1990 and has shown continuous and enthusiastic support to the club's activities for the last 18 years. The presentation was made by our District Governor Tony Cotton who we also welcomed as a guest for the evening.

To be awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship is an honour and shows how much a member is appreciated by the club and by Rotary, - Well done Bill.

We were also pleased to welcome The Right Honourable Reverend Lord Roberts of Llandudno who entertained us with an interesting and witty talk about his experience of becoming a lord of the realm.

The evening was a great success made more enjoyable by the presence of members of other Rotary Clubs in the district.  

Our Treasurer Rtn. John Kerr gave an illustrated slide show featuring the experiences he had during a recent visit to Jordan. The members were surprised and fascinated by Jordan's history going back to several thousand years BC.

 It was a very busy day, the public response to this charity was excellent, we raised an amazing £669.55 probably the highest figure we have ever reached in one day.

Feb 18th - 2008
 

We welcomed local Illustrator Rebecca Kitchen who showed us some of her work and demonstrated some of her techniques.

Rebecca and her father Peter Kitchen run a small family business set in the amazingly beautiful landscape of Snowdonia, Wales (UK). Peter and Rebecca Kitchen are a award-winning father and daughter team who specialise in handmade personalised greeting cards, prints and originals.

For more information about Rebecca and her business go to www.celtic-1.org.uk

We look forward to a Merry Christmas our first meeting of the New Year on January 7th 2008.

Once again the public supported us and we collected a total of £385.77.

A big Thank You to all those who contributed, these donations mean so much to the local charities that we support.

Over the last four months we have raised well over a thousand pounds just in street collections for various causes:

August £382 to help those affected by the terrible flooding.

September £338 for the RNLI to help towards the new lifeboat.

October £220 to go toward local good causes.

December £385 to go toward local good causes.

Being involved in Rotary is much more than a good dinner once a week, it is an opportunity to give a bit back to the local community and enjoy the company of like minded people with the added bonus of an enjoyable social life. Come along to one of our meetings and see for yourself, see contact details on our home page.

We welcomed District Governor Tony Cotton who talked to us about the Family of Rotary throughout the world, he also stressed the importance of increasing membership in these days of longer working hours and increased leisure opportunities.