May saw the national Rotaract conference in 2009, held in Cardiff. With several members of Langley & Iver on the organising committee, it was a great weekend held in a 4 star hotel in the centre of the city. Kicking off with the opening ceremony on Friday, there followed 3 days of guest speakers from Go Gambia, Barnados (Cymru) and Aardman Animations to name but a few, along with a treasure hunt, fancy dress disco and spectacular Gala Dinner. It certainly was a weekend to remember!

Club President Eleanor spent the month in British Columbia on the Group Study Exchange, staying in Rotarians' homes and experiencing the real Canada, as well as spending time seeing how her profession worked out there. The highlight was definitely the day spent with the First Nations, canoeing, learning traditional songs and taking part in a sweatlodge ceremony.

The club also visited the Hell Fire Caves in West Wycombe, picniced in The Brocas, continued our efforts in the pub quiz, and went to the cinema, so another hectic month! 

April saw the 2nd round of the District Bowling Challenge, with participants from clubs across the district. It was a hard fought match, but Langley and Iver came out on top! Now we just need to do as well in round 3 and we'll be the champions!

This was quickly followed by the GSE farewell dinner. Club President Eleanor will be spending a month in British Columbia on a vocational exchange program run by Rotary, experiencing the culture and life of Canada and seeing how her profession works in another country. Anyone wishing to follow their antics should go to www.gse1090.travellerspoint.com

Finally in April we had Caversham and Reading's Rotaract Round Reading pub crawl with quiz. It was a great evening with 10 pubs being visited in total, indulging in a bit of karaoke and then dancing the night away to great tunes such as Gina G and Dirty Dancing!

March has been a busy month for Langley & Iver, starting off with World Rotaract Week. In honour of this, Maidenhead held a World Culture Party, bringing the food, music and pastimes of various countries around the world, including deep-fried Mars Bars from Scotland and chat up lines to use in Japan. This culminated in a game of piñata, which ended abruptly when Tim decapitated the poor animal!

The following evening was Burnham’s Beetle Drive and the atmosphere was very intense as everyone prayed that they would roll the number needed to complete their beetle. It is amazing how competitive people get at drawing beetles!

In the middle of the month was Langley & Iver Rotary’s annual Moonraker event, an overnight orienteering challenge held in the Chilterns. L&I Rotaract entered a team, and also assisted in manning the posts. The evening was a huge success with 40 teams competing against each other, and a huge amount of money raised for charity.

Finally the month ended with the District Conference in Torquay. It was a great weekend spent in glorious sunshine, with talks on a wide variety of topics, including overcoming malaria-induced deafness in children, fighting the French with the Mary Rose, issues with modern policing and Canine Partners, a program providing dogs to assist the physically-handicapped. The weekend also included a treasure hunt around Torquay and an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet!

February has been another busy month for Langley and Iver, starting with a cinema trip to see Valkyrie. This was quickly followed by a Rotary quiz hosted by Tim Brooke-Taylor of The Goodies, which we did not do so well at – coming 22 out of 30, although we did beat the other Rotaract team! Then, taking advantage of the dry weather, we went for a leisurely Sunday stroll along Jubilee River followed by a huge lunch at The Pineapple sampling several of its wonderful array of sandwiches.

Bond fever hit town with Casino Rotaract, the conference fundraiser. People from across the district dressed in their finest glad rags for a night of poker, roulette and blackjack, and Neil almost won the grand prize, narrowly missing out in the final hand.

One of our members flew out to Africa for the Rotaract Overseas Project, going out with other Rotaractors from across the country to help build wells and a surgery in a remote village in the Gambia. They spent two weeks living and working with the locals to improve their facilities, and left with an enormous sense of achievement and many great stories of their experiences.

Finally the month ended on a high with the club’s main fundraiser of the year “The Best Pirate Disco in the World...ever!” The hall was a sea of parrots, jolly rogers and eye patches and the walls resounded with cries of “Arrgh me hearties!” It was a great night, with table quizzes and a disco, and everyone who came taking advantage of the opportunity to dress up as a salty seadog or saucy wench.  And most importantly, a brilliant £350 was raised for our charities.

Let’s see if March can top all that!

January has seen a slow easing back into Rotaract life after Christmas, all leading up to Round 1 of the District Bowling Challenge. 33 members of District from 7 different clubs descended on Maidenhead Tenpin to see which club had the most bowling talent – sadly it wasn’t Langley and Iver although I do think we should win something for most individual bowling technique! We’ll definitely have to get in some practice before Round 2 in High Wycombe though.

“He’s behind you!” “Oh no he isn’t!”, December began with a good old fashioned trip to the pantomime to see one of members Neil performing in Cinderella. It was a great evening, and I for one particularly enjoyed the Ugly Sisters’ merciless flirting with Matt, Martin and Luc!

The rest of December was also spent building up to Christmas, helping Rotary with their annual collections around Iver and Langley, Maidenhead Rotaract with refreshments at a Carol Concert in aid of the Alexander Devine Children’s Cancer Trust, and Burnham Rotaract with their OAP Christmas Party.

Finally, there was the Club Christmas meal, wonderfully hosted by Martin, and the 50p secret Santa was a huge success – it’s amazing what you can get with so little (especially when Woolies is closing down!)

November saw the annual Rotary/Rotaract Challenge, which this year was skittles. The rival sides met at the Greyhound in Eton Wick for the battle, which saw Rotary win the prize for the highest score but Rotaract retain the coveted Gauntlet Cup for the 3rd year in a row!

In addition, we helped Maidenhead Rotaract in their Rotary/Rotaract skittles challenge, although that result is still hotly contested! Wallingford Rotaract held their Human Board Games evening, which saw guests becoming amongst other things human hungry hippos – a very inelegant sight! Also on the social side, the First Time Buyers have continued their winning ways in the pub quiz – so far we’ve been no lower than 3rd place!

Finally, we presented the money raised last year to East Berkshire Women’s Aid and Thames Hospicecare, with each charity receiving £1100. It is great to have achieved such an excellent result, particularly as these are both local charities helping those in our own community. And we’re already halfway to raising the same amount for this year!

October started out with some very very hard work – planting an area of grass at Thames Valley Adventure Playground. The ground was rock hard, requiring pick axes to be used before we could even get the spades in! Several blisters and sore shoulders later, they now have a nice flat area to be used as a croquet lawn once the grass has grown. This was followed by helping with the Maidenhead Boundary Walk, based on the custom of "Beating the Bounds". Despite the torrential rain the event was a huge success with many braving the weather in aid of their chosen charities, and at least we had some shelter, unlike poor Adam and Lisa from Maidenhead Rotaract!

Social events took place throughout the district, starting off with sno-tubing in Bracknell involving throwing yourself down the side of a hill on a rubber ring. It was also Maidenhead’s Horsey Hopper evening, which saw members of Rotaract racing against each other on space hoppers dressed as horses – who comes up with these ideas! The evening raised a large amount of money for charity, and was great fun. Several of us went to Virginia Water for a brisk stroll around the lake, followed by a leisurely lunch down the pub, and finally, we ended the month with High Wycombe’s Halloween Party – complete with witches, devils and even death himself!

November will see the annual Rotary/Rotaract challenge – will we retain the trophy for the 3rd year in a row? Watch this space!

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 Charity Trust and Polio Plus. 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!