Based in the grounds of the Aldersley Stadium and with two tracks it offers adults and children of all abilities the opportunity to build and race slot cars. Its amazing how far the cars have come since the time when most of us were playing with Scalextrix tracks at home and it is now a competitive sport with intentional teams visiting the Wolverhampton Club to race.
Needless to say that the members of the Tettenhall Club will not be posing a serious challenge on the international stage in the near future but the racing did make for fun night with John Margetts crowned Club Scalextrix champion.
It's August and for the Tettenhall Club that means its Fellowship month - when our regular monthly meetings are suspended in favour of social events. These events offer a further opportunity for members to build on the friendships which are such an important part of Rotary.
This first fellowship meeting of the year saw the staging of the Club's Crown Green Bowls competition at the Summer House pub in Wolverhampton.
The competition took the form of a doubles competition this year but despite that and the attempt to level the playing field by matching last years champion Greg Instone with one of the Club's worst players Greg still charged his way through to regain the Club title for further year in what we hope will bode well for the Club in District competitions.
Only five Brits have had the honour of holding the top job in Rotary as the President of Rotary International. One of those was Tom Warren who was a member of the Rotary Club of Wolverhampton. Taking over the job in 1945 Tom is credited with helping to steer the Rotary movement through a very difficult time. Each year the Rotary Clubs in the City hold a dinner to honour his achievements and this years meeting was hosted tonight by the Rotary Club of Bilston.
In his keynote speech to the Rotary Convention in 1946 Tom encouraged Rotarians to work towards solving the problem of learning how to live together as good neighbours in a rapidly shrinking world and so Bilston took as their theme for the night the issue of Fair Trade.
Wolverhampton has been a Fair Trade City since 2004 and the Churches of the City having been instrumental in bringing this about it was fitting that the Right Reverend Clive Gregory, Bishop of Wolverhampton, led us in Grace.
We were joined for the evening by Lord Bilston, Dennis Turner, who is Chair of the Fair Trade Association in Wolverhampton. Fair trade gives a better deal to farmers in developing countries to ensure that they receive a fair price for their goods which enables them to further develop their businesses, to invest in health and education projects and to better care for their community's environment. Lord Bilston explained the development of Fair Trade in the City and the importance of trade and not aid in improving the lives of people.
Paul Birch perhaps better known for his association with Revolver Records but who now is heavily involved with fair trade products in the Co-operative organization through Revolver World then spoke about the difference which Fair Trade can make to the lives of people in the third world and of the power of individuals to effect change on a large scale simply by changing their own buying decisions.
Bilston certainly believe that Fair Trade would have had the support of Tom Warren if it had been around in his day and the Club hopes now to encourage other Rotary Clubs around the country to become Fair Trade Partners.
District Governors are expected to attend meetings of each Club in their District at least once during their year in office. Fortunately we've managed to get hold of our new District Governor, Barry Preen, at the beginning of his year in office before the miles take too much of a toll on him.
As the representative of Rotary International one of Barry's jobs is to communicate to Clubs the thinking behind this years Rotary theme, Reach Within to Embrace Humanity - a theme which has caused a little puzzlement amongst many Rotarians. To help members make more sense of the theme Barry told us of a meeting with a District Governor from Sweden who had translated the theme into Swedish and back into English after which it reads Listen to Your Heart to Help Others - a theme which the members of the Club can certainly relate to.
Rotary International President Banerjee is not a fan of change for its own sake and he is encouraging Clubs to continue with their long established programmes but to be conscious of the ways in which a little more can be done to help those causes which we support - as with Tettenhall's commitment to raise an additional £10,000 to support the new Rotary Suite at Compton Hospice.
It was clear from District Governor Barry's presentation that he does not take a one size fits all approach to matters and that his views of Rotary are very much in step with the members of the Tettenhall Club and we look forward to supporting him in the coming year.
