Hello my Rotaractors and to others who have stumbled upon
but hopefully purposely sought out our blog! In my first blog post as President
I have probably the most exciting story I will ever have to share with you.
Every year the National Rotary Conference is held, moving
to different locations across the UK each time. This year it was in Belfast and
I was personally invited by the President of RIBI Peter King to come along and
speak about the Chester Rotaract club to over 1000 Rotarians. He had heard me
speak at the District 1180 Conference in Southport last November and I had obviously
made quite an impression! The scale of what I had agreed to do however didn't really hit me until I arrived at the Waterfront Conference centre to attend the Friday session, the day before I was due to speak, and was greeted by this
massive building, a three tiered auditorium!
Knowing I was speaking on the second day allowed me to sit
back and enjoy the first day’s speakers which included President Peter King
himself in an opening address as well as talks from Minister of State for
Ireland Simon Harris, Journalist Claire Savage & Olympian Dame Mary Peters.
That evening I attended a ‘posh-do’ at the Titanic Belfast
which is a museum showing the history of the ship being built as well as the
eventual disaster that followed (it’s building stands by the very dock where
the ship was built and the slip-way is still symbolised by the supporting posts
for Titanic sticking out of the ground). The top floor of the building is only
for private functions and when we went in to this massive dining hall, at the
far end was a replica of the famous grand staircase. We were then served a
lovely dinner and came away with a souvenir replica ticket for the Titanic –
stamped with the day’s date.
After an early night I was up and early to the conference
centre to prepare to be second on stage following a presentation from Cwmtawe
Interact club just before me. Here is me ‘pondering’ before the crowd were let
in and this also acted as a chance for me to train my mum on taking a photo on
our camera without the flash (this is about photo 5 from that training).
What I hadn’t realised until I was ushered backstage is
that I would be sat on the stage whilst the others in our section were doing
their presentation. Luckily this allowed me to calm my nerves further and get a
feel for the stage whilst the Cwmtawe Interact Club gave an excellent and
entertaining presentation.
It was soon my turn to get up there and in true Blue Peter
fashion I can include some short exerts from my prepared speech on this blog
whilst you have a browse through some pictures (shout out to Beryl who was on
the middle tier taking the wide-shot photo’s you can see as well as Mama Scott
who was nearer to the podium).
“As a
home student it was important for me to try and become as involved in the
university experience as possible. A few of my early friends encouraged me to
come along to their next Rotaract meeting and so I went. What greeted me when I
arrived was not only a vast array of free food (students love free food), but
also a room full of ideas – there was a whiteboard with ideas for potential
fundraisers and activities and lots of pockets of discussion as well as a
presence from the Saughall Rotary club (our sponsor club) who were making their
way around the room getting to know us all in turn. As they say the rest is
history and I kept going every week ultimately ending up standing before you
all in Belfast representing the club as its President.”
“This
year has been important for our club in making connections with other young
people within the UK. We had thought we were one of the few Rotaract clubs in
the UK but we were contacted by the Manchester Rotaract club, who are also
university based, and who were arranging a big meet up for Rotaract clubs. We
spent an entire day in Manchester and also had a presence from the Rotaract
club of York as well as Leeds. It was an opportunity for us to form a
collaboration and share ideas to the point where we now are all members of a
joint club Facebook group to share each
other’s activities.”
I will never forget this amazing opportunity and things
will only keep getting better for our club. I made many more useful connections
for us both with Rotarians, Rotaractors and charities and I feel the best
summary to this blog entry can be found in the last line of my speech: “For me Rotaract is the youth club I never
had and I am proud to call myself a Rotarian.” (Scott, 2015 – that moment
when you can reference yourself)
