THE ROTARY CLUB OF BANBRIDGE

Club News

Speakers:
May 13 - Business Meeting
May 20 - Gerry Jones on Banbridge Area Learning Community

2007-08 Rotary Embassadorial Scholar Phillip Londeree from Mississippi visits the club, and exchanges club banners with President George McCaigue. Phillip was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Petal in his home state, and is jointly hosted by the Rotary Clubs of Antrim and belfast.

2007-08 Having already had our annual BBQ and our "stew night", our latest outing on December 11 was our Christmas Dinner. All three evenings are intended as social events, and indeed were successful in that, but the opportunity was not lost to raise funds for our charitable efforts. At the Christmas dinner, guests were invited to support our aqua box appeal for the surviving victims of the cyclone in Bangledesh. Five boxes have already been despatched - more detail on our International page. Click on each photo for a close-up and read further down for President's Night report.

On February 29 we celebrated our Present's Night. This took the form of a Corporate Dinner and was one of the most successful evenings in the club's history. 
Pictured below: President George McCaigue welcomes our second generation Rotarian Sharon Molloy (top left), and he also poses with Irish Rugby star Rory Best (lower right). Featured in the top right is District Governor Ray Cosgrave with his wife Breege; lower left is George with his wife Anne.
Charities to benefit from the considerable surplus are Cancer research (£1,000), Southern Area Hospice (£1,500) and the Rombo Project (£500 - read more on our International page), and the East Timor project £500).

2007-08 President George McCaigue welcomes our newest member Kerry McCaughan. Also in the picture (from left to right) are Joan Davis, President-Elect James Dale, Sharon Currans and Frank Arnold.

2007-08 President George visits the Rotary Club of Tenerife, not for the first time but the first as president of his club, and presents a gift of Irish Linen to the President Rafael Garcia. George is explaining in the photo that the linen was woven in Banbridge. The other photo shows the Banbridge bannerette in the British Isles showcase.

2007-08 District Governor's Annual Visit
President George McCaigue (2nd right) welcomes District Governor Ray Cosgrave. Also included are Past President John Dawson (left) and Past President Eddie Carr

2007-08 Presidential hand-over
George McCaigue takes over the reins from John Dawson while the President-Elect James Dale looks on.

2006-07 ended on a high for the club when outgoing President John Dawson presented a Paul Harris Fellowship to Clifford McSpadden, who thought of and made happen the fantastic response from Banbridge to the people devastated by the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. A Paul Harris Fellow is the highest award a Rotary club can award to anyone, Rotarian or not. 
Also pictured is Clifford's wife Joanne, Vice-President George McCaigue and Past President Victor Jennett.

Through his church connections Clifford made immediate contact with a missionary in South East Asia and established exactly what was imminently most needed - the answer came "clothes" not money but five specific categories of clothing. Over a matter of days, enough for four plane loads made their way from the town to the stricken area. A sum of £35,000 was also raised, which helped greatly in providing the means of temporary accommodation to those who had lost absolutely everything.
Clifford would be inclined to play down his involvement, and received the award "as an acknowledgement of what we can do when we simply step out in faith and follow God's direction."

2006-07 President's Night was a great success. How could it have failed with guest speaker Lord Eames, the recently retired Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland.

Left: Lord Eames in the centre wife lady Eames; to his right is President John Dawson with his wife Jenny and to his left Vice President George McCaigue and his wife Anne.
Centre: President John Dawson with his wife Jenny and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Korah Winn.
Right: Lord Eames and Past President Billy Ferguson.

The club has a long standing and vibrant association with the Rotary Club of Dublin Fingal and no opportunity is missed to maintain this link. Our latest contact was on the Saturday of our Rotary Conference in Belfast in September 2004, when both clubs met up with the Rotary Club of Renfrew. This turned into a very special occasion topped by that marvellous concert in Spires.

We are also twinned with the Rotary Club of Renfrew in District 1230 in Scotland and both clubs make every effort to foster this arrangement. A 14 Banbridge strong party made the trip to Renfrew at the end of May 2002 to join in the 50th anniversary of their charter.
The last get-together in Ireland was our Burns Supper in January 2004 (See Archived reports).

Fellowship is the name of the game, and social activities are not forgotten.
We will have such social events as our annual BBQ in the late summer, our Stew Night in November, our Christmas Dinner on December 11 and our Presidents Night on 29 February 2008 (this year it is in the form of a corporate dinner).

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