NEW PRESIDENT LEADS FOLKESTONE CHANNEL ROTARY INTO ITS 40TH YEAR

This is a very special time for Folkestone Channel Rotary as we enter our 40th year of providing support to the local community; and on 16 June, we also celebrated out 2,000th meeting.  We’re looking forward to an excellent year under the leadership of new President Edwin Beddy and, on 26th June, 70 members and partners welcomed him to the hot seat when he took over from Bill Flavell at our Handover meeting in The Grand, Folkestone.  This was a typical fun-filled Channel Rotary evening with sketches, songs and other homemade entertainments based on Bill’s working life in the hospitality industry and as a life-long cricket fan.  At the end of the evening Bill was presented with the traditional large, framed picture as a permanent reminder of his year.  It showed a battered burger van on the main cricket pitch at Lords surrounded by Channel Rotary members dressed as caterers and cricketers.

New Channel Rotary President Edwin Beddy (right) is congratulated by Past President Bill Flavell

Our new President, Edwin Beddy, was born in Folkestone and has lived in East Kent for most of his life.  He and his wife Barbara have an 11 year old daughter.  Edwin started work in farming but soon decided that his future lay in commercial transport and he specializes in providing back-up and other services to larger companies.  He is always up for a challenge and last year he and fellow Channel Rotary member Mike Simmonds drove 1,500 miles around England and Scotland in the UK Rotary Car Rally to raise money for Rotary’s worldwide programme to eradicate polio.  When the programme started some 500,000 children were afflicted in 125 countries.  This year, through the dedicated efforts of Rotarians worldwide, there is only a small handful of cases in 2 countries.

Having thanked Bill Flavell for an excellent year, President Edwin explained “I’m delighted to say that Channel Rotary has an enviable record of supporting charities and we’ll continue this with the same energy and commitment.  Since June 1980 we’ve raised approaching £1million and given countless hours of hands-on support to local good causes.  We’ll also continue our close collaboration with the three other local Rotary Clubs (Folkestone, Hythe) as, for example, in our joint Youth work.  Included in our exciting 2019-20 programme of fund raising, social events and outside visits are two major events.  We hope our popular, annual Charity Cycle Ride around Romney Marsh on Sunday 7th July will break our record of 450 riders in support of the Royal British Legion and Prostate Cancer UK; and on Sunday 8th September we have our second Channel Triathlon following the great success of last year’s event.  Centred on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm it will showcase key attractions of the area including the Harbour developments and our prizewinning coastal and rural scenery.  This year the Tri will support a range of local charities including the Shepway Sports Trust and we hope that local people will turn out to watch and help us as marshals.  In summary, Channel Rotary is a very special club and we’d love to welcome some new members to share our unique mixture of activity, fun and personal satisfaction so that we can continue the excellent charitable work that has been the hallmark of our Club over the last 39 years.”

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