President’s Message:-
Dear Promenaders
Thank you for joining us for the 25th year of our Last Night of the Proms concerts. I wonder if anyone in 1986 thought that Proms would be going stronger than ever 25 years later. In fact, when Rotarian Brian Pilkington came back from London with the idea of holding our own Proms concert I doubt that there were many people who saw it going beyond the first year!
On a personal note, I’m particularly excited about Proms 2010 as it’s the first time that I’ll be seeing the concert. Having been involved with the Street Party since 1997, I’ve heard the music, and how much fun everybody seems to be having, but only at a distance as we got everything ready for interval, or while packing up afterwards (and I get a night off from pouring drinks!).
Having just celebrated our 60th “birthday”, Wynberg Rotary seems to be having another very successful year, with the completion of some of our major projects, the start of some new ones, and good results coming from many of our long term commitments. Some of the highlights of the year have been our involvement in the Retreat Community Clinic and Victoria Hospital, our bursary schemes to assist learners in primary schools and in tertiary education, visits by overseas Rotary scholars, sending Group Study Exchange teams to Arizona and India and students to France and India to promote the Rotary goal of building international understanding, peace and goodwill.
Our partnerships with international and local Rotary have been very important in allowing us to assist in so many different areas, and we were privileged to receive a visit from the King and Queen of Norway, who were keen to see the Norwegian involvement in our sailing project.
Of course, even in working, we have had lots of fun and fellowship, particularly on occasions like taking children on an outing for the day, or to the Uncle Paul’s party, hosted annually by our Rotaract club.
In joining us at Proms this year you are also assisting us in our aim of supporting the community. Our beneficiary this year is the Wynberg branch of Childline, who are doing incredible work under extremely difficult circumstances.
If you haven’t yet been invited to a Rotary club, please consider this as your invitation and come and see what we are doing, and how you can be a part of making a difference.
I hope that you will enjoy the concert, and look forward to seeing you again when we are celebrating our 50th anniversary, or at least at Proms 2011, when I will probably be banished back to the Street Party!
Gordon Knight
President Rotary Club of Wynberg
