This evening, long serving team member Diane Blakeley gave a presentation to the Rotarians of Turton Rotary club, on the work of the Bolton MRT. In her own words here is Diane’s account of her evening in the excellent company of the Turton Rotarians.
“Tonight I attended the weekly meeting of the Turton Rotary Club at the Last Drop Hotel, Bolton, as the guest after dinner speaker on behalf of team. I arrived at 5.50pm for the meeting to be greeted by “you’re not Ged”. Apparently the talk had been initially booked via Team member Ged Clarke, so a female arriving was a great surprise to all except the Speakers Secretary Eric O’Neil. The ice was clearly broken and the jokes lasted most of the evening when I got quite used to answering to the name Ged!
My host for the evening was Peter Gaskell who was tasked with looking after me. To ensure he was fully prepared for the task in hand he completed his research by studying this website and was highly impressed by the detail and how up to date it was (Well done Garry, Paul & Steve in particular).
Before the talk we enjoyed a lovely meal which gave me the chance to chat with the Vice President Alan Smith (Acting President for the evening) as well as Peter. It turns out Alan Smith used to work with Team member Alan James (General) and Peter Gaskell used to live near to team member Dave Marsh.
Then it was my turn to deliver my first lecture on Bolton MRT for over 10 years, since my return to the team. How times have moved on, in those days we had Garry’s slide show which opened with a slide of New York. (Believe me he somehow managed to connect this to Bolton MRT!) It included lots of slides many of which had become out of date having been used for many years. Now I arrived with a lap top, remote mouse and my recently prepared slide show, so up to date was my ’show’ it even included the recent Fire Service assists.
The talk went down very well with lots of comments that although people had heard about the team, they had no idea about the amount and range of work that we did. Following Peter’s vote of thanks I was handed a fantastic and much appreciated donation of £50.00 for the team with a promise of a further donation at the end of the year.
A thank you again to the members for their welcome and the donation. Diane Blakeley.” (Webmaster; Or should that be Ged!)
