Welcome to a very chilly edition of our Blog. Thankfully whilst the weather has been rather cold outside it hasn't stopped us doing things during what is normally a quiet month for the club (with most people still paying off Christmas)!

One of the highlights of last month was West Berks Rotaract's Blind Auction in Newbury. For those of you who are slightly confused, no this isn't an auction for curtains and blinds, but an auction where all of the Lots are wrapped so you don't know what you're bidding for until you win and open it! "Prizes" were typically rather random and included: a hat and scarf (useful), socks (inevitably), a Rastermouse CD (which was worryingly appreciated by Eleanor), a washing up brush shaped like a punk rocker (don't ask, I'm still trying to work out what to do with it myself) and (most bizarrely) a bag of flour! A good time was had by all who went along and I believe it managed to raise around £250, so well done to them.

The Blind Auction wasn't the only charity thing last month, with the club entering a team in a charity quiz in aid of School Aid. All that practice at the Red Lion every week nearly paid off, but we annoyingly were beaten to victory by a measly half a point! Curses! Thankfully we didn't go away completely empty handy with Gemma winning a bottle of wine in a game of Heads or Tails and Eleanor winning something in the raffle (although sadly not the Comparethemeerkat toy). The evening was a great success, raising a tidy sum of money. Quizmaster Matt also looked particularly fetching in his Headmaster outfit!

Having been to these two charity events the spotlight now falls on our own upcoming event, a Cheese and Wine quiz (in case you were wondering the quiz is not actually about cheese and wine - I couldn't think of enough questions on those two topics) to be held at the end of the month in the dungeons of Windsor Castle! Assuming they don't lock us in there and throw away the key we'll be back next month to let you know we got on (or you could come along to one of other events and maybe you could be joining us there)...

Another month, another blog update...

So how was November? Readers of previous blog posts will notice how I tend to describe each month as being busy and (to be unoriginal) November was no exception!

The month started with an evening at Bex's house, where we tried to introduce the Star Wars to a couple of members who claimed never to have seen any of the films. I'm not sure how successful this was to be honest, but there you go. The "Education" theme continued that same week with Eleanor giving a talk to the Rotary club about her job at Windsor Castle. I believe the talk was well received - which can probably be backed up by nobody falling asleep during it (in spite of the room being incredibly stuffy and everyone having just eaten a massive meal)...

No November would be complete without a Firework display. This year the Rotary club were putting on a Burger stand at the display in Richings Park, which several us went along to help out on. Despite coming away absolutely reeking of burger fat the evening was a great success, raising over £300 for charity (the fireworks weren't bad too...).

Along with trips to the cinema and tenpin bowling, there was also time for a bit of culture this month, with the club going to see the Nutcracker Suite in Windsor - a good way to warm up to the forthcoming festive season. The month finished with a Thanksgiving party at Meganne's house, with an impressive spread of food on offer!

So now it's December, and with a number of festive themed events in the diary it looks to be another, erm, busy month. Why not get in touch and come along!

I think there is one word which sums up this month: QUINGO! Which, for the uninitiated, is a hybrid between a quiz and bingo, and was our first fundraising event of the year. I'm pleased to say the event went really well and would like to say a big thank you to everyone who either came along, or helped out in some capacity. I think everyone had a great time and nobody moaned about the questions (for once), but best of all we managed to raise nearly £250 for our chosen charities!

It's fair to say that organising the Quingo night took up quite a lot of our energies this month, however that doesn't mean we didn't get up to anything else...

Earlier in the month some of went to help with Thames Hospice Care's attempt at breaking the World Record for planting Tulip bulbs. OK, that sounds like a bizarre record, but then aren't they all?!? Sadly we were unable to get ourselves in the Record books, but a fun afternoon was still had by all.

A group of us also went along to Camberley Rotaract's annual Barn Dance. It was really enjoyable evening, if exhausting (particularly for Graham who ended up taking part in nearly every dance). I think the girls particularly enjoyed the "Baskets"...

Finally, towards the end of the month we headed into London to be part of the audience at the filming of a new comedy show for the channel Dave. The evening was great fun, although we're not quite sure how the concept will work on TV - it'll be interesting to see how it turns out when edited down. The highlight was probably seeing Rufus Hound rolling around on the floor in embarrassment!

So that was October. What will November hold? Why not come along to one of our meetings and find out for yourself!

Another busy month for Langley and Iver (aren't they all?)! Whilst things were a little bit quiet on the Socials front due to large numbers of the club deciding to go on holiday, our services were very much in demand.

The month started with us joining forces with the Rotary club in entering a Dragon Boat team at Cookham Regatta. The event was great fun (although some people took it far too seriously) and will definitely be on the cards for next year! For the record we lost the first race, but subsequently worked out what we were meant to be doing and won the next few (despite some interesting steering during one of the races)...

The following week one of our members (Claire) did a fascinating talk to the Rotarians on her job as a medical scientist (hope I got that right), which I believe was really well received - so well done Claire! The Socials side of things was then rounded off with a curry night in Windsor.

Socials to one side, this month was really about the Community with the club's services very much in demand! Starting with helping to marshal the car park at Langley Park's Medieval Pageant, we then followed things up over the following weeks with helping to clear the churchyard at St Peter's, Iver and putting up a stall at Eton Action Fair. A big thank to everyone who helped out, particularly to Amanda's dad for all of his wonderful games that we used for the Eton Fair (you check out some of them on our Gallery).

Finally, I can't end this entry without a quick plug for our Quingo night that is happening on the 12th. It should be a great night - so hope to see you all there!

August was another busy month for Langley and Iver, with one particular event dominating proceedings (more on that later)...

The month started with an "All you can eat" pudding party at Luc's - I don't think I've ever had so much cake in such a short space of time! The following week a group of us visited Windsor Racecourse for an evening at the races. Fortunes were mixed, with Luc discovering a hidden talent for picking winners, whilst Claire sadly went away with nothing. You win some you lose some...

Trips to the bowling alley and cinema (along with our regular pub quiz outings) followed, before August's main event: Banbury Camping Rally. For the uninitiated Banbury is an annual event where Rotaractors from across the country get together in a field in Oxfordshire for a weekend of camping, partying, games etc. There was a big Langley and Iver presence at Banbury this year as the club had somehow wound up running it (which seemed to mostly consistent of buying Tescos out of beer). The theme this year was Space, with some rather imaginative costumes on show - including an interesting use of a Ginsters pasty wrapper! Highlights included lots of dancing, light-saber air guitar, space-hopper football, winning the quiz (all that practice is paying off) and meeting other Rotaractors. There were also a couple of hideous attempts at Karaoke, which although good fun can hardly be called "highlights" - at least not to the people having to listen to us... Finally a congratulations to Bex who gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "massive wanger" by winning the women's welly-wanging competition - I hope the trophy's in pride of place! Keep an eye out on our gallery for some photos.

The month ended with us entering a couple of teams in Bourne End and Cookham's Petanque competition, coming a better than expected 4th and 5th out of 15.

So that was August. September is looking to be another busy month, with our services seeming very much in demand. If you're interested in finding out more please get in touch and come along to one of our meetings or socials.

Finally a quick heads up: our first fund-raising event of the year will be happening on the 12th October, with the return of "Quingo" (a cross between a quiz and bingo). I hope to have more details up on the website shortly, but it would be great to see you there!

Greetings everybody and welcome to the first blog update of the Rotaract year! I'd like to start where the last entry finished, by thanking Luc for all his hard work over the past 12 months.

As is often the case, it's been another busy month in the world of L&I. The main event during July, as with most years, was our annual stint helping out at Uxbridge Autoshow. A few members of the group braved the early start and the inclement weather to man the late entries desk. Despite the rain we were still kept busy selling tickets to last minute exhibitors. Thankfully it wasn't all work and we did get a chance to wander around the show afterwards. Check out some of the photos on our gallery.

Towards the end of the month we went to see Neil performing in the cheese-tastic Eurovision spin-off: "Eurovisual 2" with CAST. It's fair to say the show accurately demonstrated some of the best (and worst) of Eurovision, with songs performed by, amongst others, Teletubbies, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Vampires and Pirates (the latter being a particular hit with the members of our jury). Sadly, despite some very (some would say over) enthusiastic flag waving by Eleanor it was very much a case of "United Kingdom Nil Poi"!

July finally saw our winning streak in the pub quiz come to end. We must try harder next month!

On a sadder note, July also saw Wallingford Rotaract close its doors, finishing with a farewell meal at a local restaurant. We'd like to say a big thank you to all of their former members for the hard work you've put in over the years and hope it won't be too long before Wallingford has another Rotaract club again.

So looking ahead to the 2011-2012 we've got a few exciting things in the pipeline, so keep an eye on our calendar and these blogs for updates. If you're a potential new member and you've stumbled across this site please get in touch as we'd like to hear from you!

Until next time...

So the final few months of the Rotaract year have just flown by, and what have we been up to?

April saw the GSE team head off to Argentina on their 4 week vocational/cultural exchange, so we headed down to the Holiday Inn in Maidenhead to hear all about it, and feel slightly jealous that we weren't going! Anyone interested in the GSE programme can find out more about it here

Having raised all that money for Crossroads, it was then time to hand it over, so Jackie and Trish came along to our meeting to tell us all about their plans for the future, including their new dragon boat. We were able to give them a cheque for £1200 which they said would go towards their summer programme of activities for young carers. It certainly makes all that hard work worthwhile when you hear how it will benefit those less fortunate.

May saw us take a more social path, with a curry night [yum!], pub quizzes, bowling, evening walks now we finally have some sunshine, closely followed by sampling of beer at the end of the route, BBQs, comedy nights and helping West Berkshire Rotaract with manning a barge down the Kennet and Avon with Mencap. All great fun, and a much deserved break!

June is the final month of the Rotaract year, and saw the final fundraiser of the year. As well as helping Rotary with their games, we ran a "Guess the number of sweets in the jar" and "Have you got the bottle" stand at the Poppy Day organised by the Iver Heath branch of the British Royal Legion. Sadly it poured with rain the whole day, so it was not hugely successful, but together with Rotary we were able to give £200 to the Legion. We also went along to Maidenhead's fundraiser, a Senses quiz, testing taste, smell, hearing and touch - all I can say is I'm glad I didn't get tasting!

We ended the year with a series of handovers - district handover was a picnic in Marlow where we were blessed with beautiful weather, and for the club handover we went to GBK in Windsor for a fantastic burger [not that surprising really!] and a few drinks afterwards. We also went to Go Ape in Black Park, where we were joined by 4 brave Rotarians. It was really good to do something together with them, and the team spirit and mutual support was fabulous.

And so ends the year. Thanks to Luc for being an excellent President, and good luck to Graham for his year. I wonder what it will hold in store...

So it's been a busy start to the year for Langley & Iver, with lots happening.

We started the month by being robbed at the quiz organised by High Wycombe Rotaract [for the record, Nelson was NOT pickled in rum!], and didn't fare much better at the cheese & wine quiz organised by Wallingford Rotaract, although that was partly made up for by the great cryptic clue - hide a horse [Marscepone - get it?!]

Burns Night was celebrated in style at L&I Rotary club, with a talk on whisky and several samples, well it would be rude not to! The haggis was piped in and the ode read with proper Gaelic flair - an excellent evening all round.

February came, and we've been bowling, out for meals, games nights, Graham gave an excellent presentation on the audio industry and the making of dead body noises using celery, and we bid on unknown items at West Berkshire's Blind Auction- still not sure what to do with my toy mace...!

Then it was March, the time of pancakes and Moonraker. Members gamely went along to help Rotary with their overnight orienteering challenge - braving freezing temperatures and trying to ensue that no-one got lost! We went along to Pinewood Studios to watch "Would I Lie to You?" being filmed - see if you can spot us in the audience, and then it was the District Conference, held in Birmingham this year. It was a great weekend, with fabulous speakers on a variety of topics, including conservation, education and prison reform - inspiring and motivational. The month ended with our own fundraising quiz, organised jointly with our Rotarians to raise money for Thames Hospicecare. There was a great turn out, and our team won! Not that we were assisted by having written the last round...

So that's the first 3 months of 2011 gone. Why not join us at one of our meetings to see what we've got planned for the next 3 months.

So it turns out I forgot to press "Publish your website" after adding the last blog - apologies to anyone who tried to see what we did in September to November!

But back to December - well, what didn't we do! We started off the festive season with a good old fashioned panto - going to see one of our members, Neil, and his local amdram group perform Babes in the Wood. No snow was going to put us off from the "he's behind you" and "oh no he isn't", and it was a great production. I think my favourite bit was watching Luc get steadily ready as the dame flirted with him!

This was swiftly followed by the District Christmas social, this year held at TGI Friday's in High Wycombe. There were around 50 people from across the district, and much food, cocktails and fun was had. The balloon waiters were particularly good, creating all sorts of interesting "hats" for people to wear!

Bright and early the next morning we were up to help marshal Marlow's Santa Fun Run - nothing prepares you for the sight of 1250 Santas running at you at full pelt on a cold December morning. Later that day we went along to our charity's Christmas carol concert at St Mary's in Slough, complete with live donkey and pony, which disgraced itself and was sent out before the concert even began!

The month continued in much the same vein, with a mixture of community and social events to really get us in the Christmas spirit. And now it's 2011 and a brand new year - if you are looking for a new challenge, why not come along to one of our meetings, we'd love to see you.

Well, yet again it has been a very busy few months for Langley & Iver, so it's another combined blog to fill you all in on what we've been up to!

September is generally our month to get started on the fundraising proper, and this we did in grand style with our Traditional Pub Games evening. Think skittles, darts, shove ha'penny and devil among the tailors and you'll have an idea of what the evening was like! It was a great evening celebrating the best of British traditions, including the odd ale and raised a nice amount for our charities for the year so all in all a successful start! Another fundraiser for the month was the Eton Community Action Fair and we tried our hand at "Hook a Duck" this year - a popular choice with the children although I think Tim spent more time on it than anyone!

The main highlight of September though saw us heading up to sunny Cleckheaton and the wedding of one of members. It ws a beautiful day and many congratulations to the happy couple - that's one more Rotaract wedding for the books!

Onto October - socials galore! From Mexican meals, bowling, cinema, pool nights - we really partied hard! On top of that, we didn't forget the community side of things, and helped our Rotarians with their Big Bulb Plant, planting 5000 purple crocuses to raise awareness of Polio Plus. They're purple because when a child is immunised against polio, their finger is dipped in purple ink to show they've been done. Polio is now only found in 4 countries, and Rotary is gearing up to finally rid the world of this crippling disease. Look out for the crocuses flowering in February in Langley Park, Richings Park Golf Club and Iver Village Hall, and maybe visit http://www.ribi.org/thanks-for-life  for more information on how you can help.

November saw us celebrating Thanksgiving, and the Charter Night of our sponsoring Rotary club. It also saw us helping Slough Rotary with one of their programmes, Youth Speaks, a public debating competition between local schools. One of our members was even asked to be a judge! The standard was extremely high making it very difficult to choose, but congratulations to the winning teams who now go on to the District finals and hopefully the national ones.

December will of course see us gearing up for Christmas, and with lots planned, it looks like it is set to be another busy month! Hopefully see you there.

August has passed in a blur and it's September already! So what have L&I been up to in the past month?

We started the month with an outing to the theatre to see Dreamboats & Petticoats, full of 60s classics and a chance to dance in the aisles, a great evening and highly recommended. Continuing the cultural theme, we also went to see an open air performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream - with all the main roles played by men as Shakespeare would have wanted it. It was another great production, only mildly hampered by the proximity to Heathrow Airport! Slightly less cultural was the trip to see Inception, and August also saw a failed attempt to go to the Windsor Beer & Jazz festival [turns out it was last year!] so we decided to hold our own, heading into Windsor to test out some of the town's hostelries.

We joined our Rotary club at one of their meetings to hear Dr David Lewis talking about the history of Windsor and how it survived the Black Death where other towns struggled. It was fascinating to hear more about the area, particularly a certain street known as Grope Count Lane - what could have been practised there I wonder?!

The main highlight of August though, as always, is the Banbury Camping Rally. Organised by this district, it sees Rotaractors from across the country get together for a weekend of camping, fancy dress, karaoke and perhaps a few drinks as well! This year's theme was "It's my party and I'll camp if I want to", with the circus, cartoon capers and a pyjama party to end it all. Sadly L&I did not win the treasure hunt this year, and were robbed in the pub quiz, but we definitely plan to remedy that next year!

Coming up in September will be our first fundraiser of the year, so hopefully see you there.

So it's the end of the first month of the new Rotaract year, and what a busy one it has been!

Our first meeting was a speaker's night, with Gillian Pearce of Elthorne Hillingdon Rotary talking to us about her experience volunteering in the maternity ward at a hospital in Uganda. It was fascinating to hear of the different ways in which they have adapted to work with their meagre resources, and in many ways quite shocking to see the comparison with UK hospitals. Gillian gave examples of the problems faced, such as goats running through the wards and intermittent power supply at best, and said how one of the biggest problems was malaria. She is now looking into ways in which Rotary can help, and we look forward to seeing how we can get involved. 

This was quickly followed by Wallingford Rotaract's 16th birthday, a celebration of 16 years since they chartered. Jon Hoare spoke about the Rotaract Overseas Project Go Gambia, awards were given out, and memories relived through a slide show of photographs. This was followed by a toast to the next 16 years!

The main event for us in July is the Uxbridge Autoshow, where for the last umpteen years we have run the late entries stand, selling tickets to exhibitors who had not booked in. This year was the busiest ever, with almost 260 late entries to check in! We took advantage of the time off to wander around the show, seeing the displays of vintage cars, perusing the craft stands and of course, enjoying the delights of the icecream van.

On the social side, we've been bowling, route marched around the Great Park in order to make it back before the car park closed at dusk, enjoyed a picnic in Upton Court Park and seen Tim in action as a pike man in the Sealed Knot Civil War display at Shaw House in Newbury. When 100 men with large sticks are running straight at you, it suddenly seems very realistic!

Okay, so it's been a while since the blog was updated, but as you'll have seen from our calendar it's been a busy few months for Langley & Iver - sorry everyone!

We've had games nights, meals out, cinema trips, pool nights, theatre trips - you name it, we've done it these past 3 months! One of the highlights was "Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall" at the Theatre Royal in Windsor, very very funny.

Keeping up with the fundraising, we've been to no less than 4 quizzes organised by other clubs, each raising a great amount for their chosen charities. In addition, one of our members took part in fire walking for Women's Aid - walking barefoot over red hot embers smouldering at over 1200°F!

And on the community side, some of us turned out to help the Sebastian's Action Trust & The Children's Trust with their Twilight Walk around Windsor, hosted by TV presenter Gail Porter on a rather chilly night in May!

All of this has helped bring the Rotaract year 2009-10 to a fantastic close. To celebrate the end of Tim's year as President, and to conduct the ceremonial handing on of the chain from Tim to Luc, we decided the best place to do this was the Rebellion Brewery at Marlow, taking full advantage of their open evening to sample the various brews on tap! As well as tasting the beer, we also got to hear about the history of beer making in the UK, and how they do things at Marlow. It was a great evening, and a fitting end to Tim's year in charge.

This Rotaract year has been a great one, and with plans already underway for the next one, we hope you will come along and join us at one of our next events - see you soon!

March began with a good old-fashioned games of skittles in the latest round of the Rotaract/Rotary Challenge cup. Despite a valiant effort, unfortunately L&I Rotaract were unable to retain the trophy for the 3rd year in a row, narrowly losing out to L&I Rotary. We look forward to taking it off them next year though! Amongst other socials were bowling [at which we fared marginally better than at skittles!], pancake party because you can never have too many pancakes, and a trip down an abandoned Bath Stone Mine - a new experience for Eleanor and one definitely to be repeated!

March also saw members of L&I turn out on a FREEZING cold night for the 2010 Moonraker challenge, an overnight orienteering event organised by our sponsoring Rotary club. A mix of participants and helpers, it was great to better our links with our Rotarians, even if it did mean standing around in a muddy field at 1am!

It was also World Rotaract Week, and members of L&I went along to Maidenhead's World Culture Party where we sampled food from a variety of countries and tried to learn Zulu - I don't think the official interpreters have anything to worry about!

Finally though, March is the month for the annual Rotary District Conference, this time held in Eastbourne. 2 members of L&I went along for a weekend of truly inspiring speakers, including one from Shelterbox [one of our chosen charities for the year] who described the work he'd been doing in Haiti following the earthquake. In amongst the speakers was a chance to catch up with the Bourne End Interactors, and our friends in Windsor St George. All in all, a great weekend and the sun even managed to shine [well, a little bit anyway!]

Roll on April...

The month started on a high by welcoming a new club to the District - congratulations to Bourne End & Cookham on their official chartering! Members of L&I, along with other clubs, went along to their charter night to meet the new club and introduce them to socialising Rotaract style!

The main event for L&I for February though was our annual fancy dress disco. This year the theme was the jungle, and Burnham Resource Centre was transformed for the evening into a lush rainforest, complete with parrots, elephants and snakes! As you can see from this photograph, our President Tim got into the theme of the evening, appearing as the King of the Jungle himself! It was a great evening of music, dancing and dressing up, and almost £200 was raised for our charities so thank you very much to those people that came.

With that in mind, we have therefore been able to raise enough for a Shelterbox, and with the tragedy in Haiti it couldn't come at a better time. L&I are very proud to be able to support this fantastic charity, and already more than 8000 Shelterboxes have been sent out to Port au Prince, bringing shelter to 80,000 people who have lost their homes. For more information on this charity, visit www.shelterbox.org

Well, unfortunately the snow put paid to a lot of the community projects we had planned for December, with the Rotary collections, fun runs and OAP Christmas parties all sadly having to be called off. One did manage to take place, and we were very happy to run the refreshments for the Crossroads Carol Concert, especially since they are one of our chosen charities for the year.

However, that didn't prevent L&I from getting in to the Christmas spirit, going to see not one but two pantomimes! The first was A Christmas Carol, starring our very own Neil as Tiny Tim, and taking place at the beginning of December and the second in January was Alice in Wonderland, with costumes by our good friends at Windsor St George. With plenty of "He's behind you!" and booing of baddies, it was a great start and end to the festive season.

Celebrating continued with the District Christmas social in Reading, and the club Christmas "Pudding Party" which essentially consisted of gorging ourselves on delicious desserts - yum!

January was really a month for District events, kicking off with West Berkshire's Blind Auction, getting rid of unwanted Christmas presents and all in the name of charity. A fantastic sum was raised for Shelterbox and we hope to raise a similar amount with our Jungle Disco next month. The month ended with High Wycombe's Burns Night, a celebration of all things Scottish with the obligatory haggis and dodging ceilidh dancing.

November began with the return of the District Bowling Competition, and with representatives from nearly every club there was some tough competition. However, thanks to Luc's amazing 5 strikes in a row Langley & Iver were the winning team for the second time in a row!

The main event for L&I in November though, was the District Short Film Competition, the first we had organised. With simple rules of producing a film between 4-6 minutes long on a subject of your choice, a number of entries from both Rotary and Rotaract clubs were submitted. These were then screened in a special viewing, judged by a panel of expert judges [well, members of L&I have always loved a good film!], and the winner announced. With entries varying from a spoof of a well-known anti-drugs campaign to footage of the Maasai Mara it was a very difficult decision to make, but in the end the worthy receivers of the trophy were Burnham Rotaract with their take on the Blair Witch Project! Congratulations to every club or individual who submitted a film as it was a very close run thing, and we hope that you’ve all got your thinking caps on for next year’s masterpieces!

The month ended with Maidenhead's Charter Night, helping them to celebrate 30 years of Maidenhead Rotaract with a Bond themed evening.

With Christmas looming ever closer, it looks like December could be another busy one for L&I, but that's exactly how we like it!

October has been a busy one for L&I, with a good mix of events, including our first international jaunt for a few years!

On a social side, we started the month at Heathrow Airport Rotary's quiz, where our knowledge of the airport sadly let us down but we did make up for it on the underground tube station round! This was followed by our long weekend away in Berlin, which was bitterly cold but an amazing city. I think we covered most of the sights in the four days we were there, and it was particularly poignant being in the city 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We took the opportunity to visit several of the sights - Checkpoint Charlie, surviving bits of the wall, and the Jewish Museum, which was a great insight into the history of the Jewish people and their relationship with Germany. To lighten things up a bit, we found an absolutely amazing chocolate shop - we all left with much lighter wallets! We also managed to fit in a trip to the zoo, the Pergamon museum, the Reichstag and after hour's hunting, eventually managed to track down waffles in Spandau - as you can see Matt looks particularly pleased! The month ended with High Wycombe Rotaract's Harrowing Halloween, where Tim won best male costume for his mad chef ensemble.

On a community side, Eleanor took part in Thames HospiceCare's Sunrise Walk, beginning at the ungodly hour of 5am on a Sunday morning, and L&I also helped out at Windsor St George's Gala Opera evening, again raising money for Thames HospiceCare.

With lots of events planned in the run up to Christmas, it should be an interesting couple of months ahead!

The month started with a trip to the bowling alley in preparation for round 3 of the District Bowling Competition. Somehow I don't think the other clubs need to worry too much! L&I kept up the social round with the weekly pub quiz, games nights, and cinema trips.

September was mostly a month of community action though - starting with Iver Carnival which took place midway throught the month. At this, we helped Rotary with their "guess the name of the teddy" competition. In addition, we took a stand at the Eton Action Community Fair for the first time, taking along a Shelterbox to raise awareness of this fantastic charity and also raising over £100 with our treasure map game. It was a really good day with hundreds of people attending, and is definitely one to do again next year.

In amongst all this, we also managed to squeeze in a camping trip to Arundel with West Berkshire Rotaract - a weekend of castles, steam engines, BBQs and the sourest sweets known to mankind!

August sees the beginning of the Rotaract year, and what a beginning we have had! It started when Eleanor, our past President, was surprised with a posh picnic as a thank you for her work last year and as the official club handover to Tim, our new President. This was quickly followed by a walk at Virginia Water with a delicious pub lunch to make up for all that exercise! We attended Maidenhead's Senses quiz, guessing what things were by smell, taste and touch - a great evening even if Eleanor's tongue was almost burnt off by the hot pepper sauce!

We have also been busy planning our activities for this year, which will include a short film festival and our usual themed disco in February.

But of course, the highlight of any August is the Banbury Camping Rally. Held over the bank holiday, the theme this year was "Around the world in almost 80 hours" and saw us celebrate Mardi Gras, an Hawaiian Luau and a laid back Australian evening and barbie. L&I won both the pub quiz (must be all that practice!) and the treasure hunt, so all in all a successful weekend!

July marks the start of the new Rotaract year and we celebrated in style with a Best of British themed District Handover. It was a great evening looking back over the past year and reliving all the things we've got up to in D1090. Awards were given out as well, and Langley & Iver got special mention for our fundraising efforts of the year, raising over £2000 for our chosen charities Taplow Traffic and PolioPlus.

July also saw another of our major community events with the Uxbridge Autoshow. L&I again manned the late entries and despite the weather there was a steady flow of entrants in classic and some not so classic cars!

As well as District Handover, we also had club handover, and Eleanor passed on the baton of Presidency to Tim. We have selected 2 new charities to support, Crossroads (Slough) and Shelterbox. For more information on each, their websites are:

http://www.shelterbox.org/index.asp

http://www.crossroads.org.uk/

We have great plans for fundraisers for the year, so here's to an even better year for L&I!

June was a busy month for Langley and Iver, starting off with the Welcome Home Rally for the Group Study Exchange. Attended by clubs across the district, it was a chance to hear how the exchange had gone and the experiences of the team. The highlights were definitely the day spent with the First Nations canoeing and taking part in a sweatlodge ceremony, and the rodeo.

This was quickly followed by the final fundraising event for the year. A cheese & wine with quiz evening held in the dungeons of Windsor Castle, it was a sold out event attended by both Windsor St George and Langley & Iver Rotary Clubs, plus a few familiar faces from Rotaract. The winning team was aptly named More Cheese Gromit, and the evening raised over £400, bringing the total for the year to £2000, a fantastic achievement.

This achievement was followed by receiving a Presidential Citation, an award given out by Rotary International to clubs who have shown outstanding work in achieving the goals of Rotary for that year. L&I was awarded it for our work raising money for PolioPlus, our involvement with GSE and our work on the district project at Thames Valley Adventure Playground.

Following swift on the heels of this was BRUM09, the 100th Rotary International Conference held in Birmingham - a whirlwind of workshops, social events, meeting Rotaracters from across the world, an amazing opening ceremony and speakers including Ban ki Moon, Secretary General of the UN.

Finally, the month ended cooking hundreds of burgers at the Windsor Midsummer Fayre with L&I Rotary to raise money for Great Ormond Street. Despite being slightly smoked out, it was a great day with a lot of money raised for charity.

All in all, a fantastic end to a fantastic year for Langley & Iver Rotaract!

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!