This month has been overshadowed by the sad demise of Jean Oakley on the 15th April a great friend to Witham Rotary and a long serving member of  Inner Wheel since 1964.

A Lady of great dignity with an iron will, it was only their last Inner wheel meeting that she did not attend.

She will be missed, our thoughts and prayers are with her Family and friends.

I will take this opportunity to thank Roger and Janet for their efforts in arranging the Charter Lunch and of course Phil P and Dennis for the support they have given to it.

 Mike Reports  We now have a varied programme until the end of July, thanks to some hard work by Sarah. Having had our AGM I am now busy putting together the jigsaw that is the members on our various committees, and I will shortly be liaising with the new chairmen for the coming year.

Our Club Assembly is on 19^th June, but before that there is the District Assembly at The Maltings on the morning of Saturday 12^th May. All new committee chairmen for the coming Rotary year are requested to attend this Assembly. Please make a note in your diaries. You may be interested to know that the RI motto for the coming Rotary year is “Peace Through Service”. I haven’t quite worked out yet what that means!

Walkers turned out, if not in force, at least in sufficient numbers to help to foot the bill for the Essex Air Ambulance by ambling along Witham’s answer to the London Marathon, about three and a half miles of the river walk, on Sunday April 15.

It turned out to be an historic occasion, the only couple of April hours which were dry. Brian, how did you pick them?

Although this is a Rotary Club event, we do not handle all the money raised but a rough estimate showed that the ambulance would benefit by about £1,200. Not bad for a walk by the river.

Next up is something altogether different, the Pudding Fest at 39 Chipping Hill on Friday May 18. Can we possibly make it two dry days in succession. A fine selection of puddings will be available to give members and friends a taste of summer – it may be the nearest we get to that all year. Remember, what we raise goes to help to pay for the dictionaries we distribute to the final year junior school pupils to feed them food for thought.

Talking of dictionaries, your committee will be handing out duck race tickets shortly for the big day itself, which is on Bastile Day this year to give it an international flavour. Do not duck this opportunity to spread dictionaries through our schools. Keith

The local press highlighted the problem of reading in our local schools. This may spur us on to assist in a listening service to poor readers in our junior schools.

The Committee have agreed to make a collection of old spectacles together with cases where possible.   This was approved by Club Council.   Will all members and friends search their draws and bring any unwanted spectacles to one of the next 3 meetings and give them to Rtn. Roy Pipe.   They will be refurbished and sent out to Africa.

We still have plenty news to publish.  Fortunately the local press is very co-operative. Go to our web site to see all the images of past events including the Charter night. Our web site also has the email version of this News and Views.

Good bye April. Hopefully goodbye floods. Somehow, in this country,  the weather affects the mood. Therefore it was a welcome break to be part of the Clubs Charter celebrations yesterday afternoon.

As the song goes ‘ What a swell party this is’ . Well we were in the ’High Society’ of the North of Essex. !!

Thank you Roger and his organizing team. The venue, meal and company were excellent. The 27% of the members that failed to turn up together with the lack of any representatives from ‘District’ missed a fine event.

 Congratulations also to Paul Conway who was presented with the Paul Harris Fellowship by Tom, reflecting many years of service to the community and to Rotary Admin. Paul’s performance as Auditor of the District finances over many years proves that it is possible to make a snowball in hell. !

Vice President Janet presided over the Meeting in April instead of President Delone, who was unwell.

It was a dual act in that Roger stepped into the place of Peter Silett, who was to have told us about 'puppy walking'.  Roger gave us an insight into training for London Marathons in which he ran six times between 1982 and 1992.  His son Robin would be running on 22nd April.

Members were sad to learn that Jean Oakley had recently been admitted to Beckingham Court Nursing Home, Tolleshunt D'Arcy and it was with even greater sadness to learn that she had died on 22nd April.

Jean had been a member of Inner Wheel since 1964, mainly in Ludlow, Shropshire. Her family became concerned that as a widow and at the age of 78 she continued to drive to Essex to see them.  Around 1998 she moved to Moorfield Court, Bridge Street.  It was there she met Doris Clarke, who persuaded her to join the Witham Club and not Maldon.  In a short space of time she gained the respect and affection of us all.  She joined in wholeheartedly and supported everything that was undertaken and regularly attended the monthly meetings up to and including March. We will miss her.

Her funeral is arranged for 12 noon at All Saints Church, Great Braxted.