September saw the annual SADSAD games [Slough and District Sports Association for the Disabled] and once again Rotaract was helping our Rotary club with the Petanque event, a sort of boules played in France. This year was particularly busy, despite the weather, and the contest was fierce – the competitive natures of the teams definitely came out!

We also held our second fundraiser of the year, this time a pub quiz. The event was well supported with teams from 5 different Rotary clubs as well as fellow Rotaracters and £130 was raised for this year’s charities, Taplow Traffic http://www.ttcharitytrust.org.uk/ and Polio Plus http://www.rotary.org/en/ServiceAndFellowship/Polio/Pages/ridefault.aspx. Plans are already underway for our next event, so watch this space!

Our hectic social calendar was maintained with trips to the theatre and cinema, and the resurrection of our prize winning pub quiz team, the First Time Buyers. Why not join us on Mondays at the Red Lion, St Mary’s Road, Langley? Hope to see you soon!

August sees the highlight of the Rotaract Year – Banbury Camping Rally! Held over the bank holiday weekend, Banbury sees Rotaracters from all over the country coming together for a weekend of fun, frolics and fancy dress. It is also a chance to meet new people, see old friends, and build up relationships with other Rotaract clubs, so is a great occasion. The theme this year was Retro Rally, with Friday night the 70s, Saturday 80s and Sunday the best of the 90s. Highlights of this year’s Banbury include the valiant efforts of Edinburgh Rotaract to move a full, 10 foot paddling pool from one end of the field to the other using a series of rollers, ground sheets and Snowy’s tractor, Deben Rotaract’s Ghostbusters party piece and of course the catering [well, half of the crew were Langley and Iver members!] Can’t wait until next year when we can do it all again!

July saw the second of our main community events, with Uxbridge Autoshow. Organised by Uxbridge Rotary Club, and this year celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Autoshow is a mix of trade stands, vintage and classic car shows and fairground attractions, and once again we were manning the late entries. The day saw a succession of classic cars [and some that weren’t necessarily classics, just old!] passing by, and a large amount of money raised for Rotary charities, so once again a huge success.

We also finally managed to have a picnic in Black Park, only a year later than originally planned!

June is the month for Heathrow Family Day, one of our annual community events. Organised by Heathrow Rotary and held at the airport, the day consists of stalls and displays by various parts of the airport staff such as the Fire Brigade and Customs, music, miniature railway, petting zoo and of course, the coach trips around the airport. Despite the mix-up with dates, we were able to do our usual manning of the entrance tables and selling tickets for the coach tours – not even George W. Bush could stop us despite arriving in Air Force One that day!

June is also the end of the Rotaract year, and Matt’s Presidency. We marked the occasion with dinner in Windsor, preceded by a treasure hunt to find the restaurant, which eventually, and after many “we’re lost” phone calls, everyone did!  The end of the year was also celebrated by the District with a glamorous awards ceremony, and I have to say I am particularly proud of Langley & Iver’s awards for “First on the dance floor for Oops Upside Your Head”, and “Person most wanted to see you safe home!"

We’re now looking forward to the New Year, and have begun thinking of all the events we can hold to hopefully have more socials, do more community events and raise even more money than last year! We’ll keep you posted!

This May, the World was not enough… for Rotaract! The annual European Rotaract Conference was this year held in London, with a James Bond theme. L&I Rotaract would like to extend huge congratulations to Lisa and her team for a fantastic week of conference sessions, sight seeing, and partying, culminating in the Gala Dinner on the Saturday night, complete with Aston Martin. It was at the RGBI conference session that Lisa handed over the job of conference co-ordinator to Ali, for next year’s RGBI conference. This is to be held in Cardiff, and with several members of L&I Rotaract on the conference crew it’s bound to be a good one – after such a great week in the English capital, let’s see what the Welsh one has to offer! www.rgbi2009.org.uk

May also saw L&I Rotary throw down the gauntlet, and we were challenged to a game of lawn bowls. It was a blazing hot day when the two sides met to see whether we were up to the task. Everyone agreed that bowls is a lot harder than it looks, but somehow we still managed to win so it’s round one to Rotaract! Now we just need to think of something suitable to challenge you back – we’ll let you know soon!

This has been a month of community work for L&I, starting with decorating at Iver Heath Infant School and Nursery. Although many areas of the school were in need of some attention, it had been decided that we would start with the nursery. All materials were provided by the school, we just had to turn up and apply the paint to the walls! We left it looking much better than it had been, and are due to go back and apply the second coat in the summer. A second local school in need of help was Iver Village School, and a couple of hours were spent weeding, clearing litter, and tidying up their playground and field ready for the start of the new term.

To keep up with our hectic social calendar, we had another of our now famous safari suppers, beginning at Matt’s for starters, then on to Tia’s for mains and ending up at Martin’s for desserts. The evening was as always a huge success and we are now planning the next one!

Finally, our new look website has been launched (a huge thank you to Kathryn for all her hard work on it!). We hope you like it!

This has been a busy month for Langley and Iver Rotaract, starting off with our first fundraiser of the year, “The Best School Disco In the World…ever!” More than 60 people turned out to Slough Grammar School, with everyone in uniform and really getting into the spirit of things! To test our brains, there were pop quizzes on History and Geography, followed by a disco. We raised over £500 for our charities, Thames Hospicecare and East Berkshire Women’s Aid, so all in all a very successful evening.

Next we celebrated Rotaract’s 40th birthday and World Rotaract Week by attending a different event every night for the week – from speakers to cinema, from bowling to Sunday lunch. And to round off the month, we continued the celebrations by enjoying breakfast on a raft!

We have no plans to slow down next month, and have 3 community events lined up including decorating at a local infant school, as well as theatre trips and another ever popular safari supper – hope to see you there!