The Rotary Club of Corringham Thameside

Richard Wilson and Rick Wakeman eat your heart out. When it comes to Grumpy Old Men, Corringham Thameside are a match for anyone.
On Thursday 25th June, the club held a “Grumpy Old Men” evening which gave the members the opportunity to “sound off” about their beef’s. Who would be declared the grumpiest? The early betting made Brian Price and Peter Burfoot “odds on” favourites, but when it was ruled that Brian could not talk about food or onions (on the grounds that that would come into “the fussy old git” category) the odds lengthened.
Each member had just two minutes to moan about their particular beefs. Subjects as diverse as inconsistant cloud formations, pensions and taxes, centralisation, driving standards, T.V. interviews and the celebrity culture ran off their tongues with ease. Brian Price, having had his wings clipped by the earlier ruling, gave a diatribe about not being able to renew his T.V. licence at the post office. He wasn’t going to do it on line, and then he found out he would have to pay cash. One has to ask, when did he last renew his licence? I bet it was in the days of black and white! Peter Burfoot also fell short with a similar moan about getting his fishing licence, and Peter Mestanek went on about the proposed interception of E-mails that might make him out to be some form of terrorist. We never found out why, because he was deemed out of time.
Doug Nash sounded off about drivers who don’t signal correctly before making a manouvre. what does he expect, no doubt the drivers he was complaining about were busy on their mobile phone and you can’t expect them to do everything. John Wallington bemoaned the tolls at the Dartford crossing whilst the President went on about drivers hogging the fast lanes on the motorways.
Clive yallop expounded on the cost of a Mars bar (£4.50) whilst on holiday and £9 for tea for two. This was also disallowed as he had been going on about it ever since his return from Majorca. John Cooper brought upm the age old problem of supermarket shopping with the wife, whilst Graham Palmer went on about the difficulties of obtaining leather to repair his shoes. (Doesn’t he realise most of us take our shoes to the repairers.)
Pride of place however, went to dear old Sherwin Chase (the definite outsider as far as the betting went) who recalled the occasion immediately after the outbreak of war (the Boer war we think) when he was still living with his grandmother, who told him he should do something. Sherwin’s reaction was to travel to London and demand he be made First Lord of the Admiralty. Unfortunately, they told him that Winston Churchill had lready got the job. Poor old Sherwin, he was so disappointed, he’s held a grudge ever since.
Whereas all the other members gripes were met with howls of derision, Sherwin was applauded by all those present. He was presented with the coveted certificate which proclaimed him as Corringham Thameside’s Grumpiest Old Man. When Winston Churchill returned as First Lord of the Admiralty the powers that be signalled the fllet with the famous signal “Winnie’s Back” we’d like to tell the world SHERWIN WON!

As part of our annual scatter week, six members of Corringham Thameside visited the Rotary Club of Wickford.
Bernie Purver, Clive Yallop, Doug Nash, Brian Price, Graham Palmer and John Cooper all reported back to say how warm the welcome was. After the customary meal the speaker talked about his charity work in Africa.
Meanwhile, club secretary Gerry Buggle rose with the lark to visit the Rotary Club of Chelmsford Rivermead who meet at The Saracen’s Head Hotel in Chelmsford. This is a breakfast club whose meetings start at the ungodly hour of 7.15 a.m. We take our hats off to Gerry for his early rise. He also reported back on a thoroughly enjoyable visit.

Brian Price and David Fenn were keeping their fingers crossed that the rain stayed away as they waited anxiously to play Rayleigh Mill in the second round of the District Golf competition at Lords Golf and Country Club. The weather was overcast but it remained dry when they met their oponents John and Martin. Neither Brian or David had got in much practice, in fact David hadn’t played for a year, so it was more a case of hope than expectation. We narrowly lost the first hole and halved the second before Rayleigh took a firm grip on the tie as they went 4 holes up after 6 holes. Then Corringham staged a major comeback by winning the next three on the trot to reach the turn just a single hole down. Corringham, however were unable to sustain the comeback and lost four of the next five holes. Well done to Rayleigh Mill, they richly deserved their win and we wish them all the best in the next round. Their was plenty of friendly banter on the way round, and much laughter when Rayleigh’s John landed his ball in the bucket of a mechanical digger. I bet he couldn’t do that again if he tried. I suppose the brightest part of Corringham’s day was the bright red trousers David wore. Wherever did he get them from?

One of the advantages of becoming a Rotarian is that you can visit any club in the world. Each year Corringham Thameside members take part in a scatter week during which members are encouraged to visit another Rotary Club.
Robert Waite, Peter matthews, Danny Lawrence and David Fenn decided to visit The Rotary Club of Isle of Sheppey on Tuesday 2nd June 2009.
The Sheppey Club meet at The Flying Dutchman pub in Queenborough and the Corringham four arrived a few minutes early for the meeting, just time to have a beer and soak up the atmosphere of this hostelry. It wasn’t long before our hosts started arriving and they soon embraced us as one of their own. The meeting was chaired by Vice President Margot Bronger in a warm and friendly manner. Each one of us in turn had the opportunity to say a few words of introduction and we were presented with a club banner to mark the visit. It was interesting to hear the speaker talk about his recent visit to India which took in Amritsar, Delhi and Mumbai and in particular he told us about his visit to The Jaipur Limb Project. A project which our club had supported for a number of years. At the end of the meeting we felt that we were very much a part of the club and had made some new friends, just what Rotary is all about and the reason why we organise scatter weeks.
We will bring you news of other members visits as soon as we hear from them.