The Rotary Satellite Club of Gros Islet South met on Thursday January 4th.  Great turn out, excellent comradery.  We helped Rotarian Jenny Chicot Louisy celebrate her birthday as a bonus.  Great presentation by Rotarian Maggitha Jaganath of RCGI on the history of Rotary in the Caribbean and more particularly in District 7030.

Do you know when the Caribbean was allocated a District?  What was the Number of the District? What territories were included? And who was the fist District Governor and what territory that Governor came from?  Where in the Caribbean was the first Rotary Club formed? And in what year?

Tuesday 9th saw our first meeting for 2018.  Good attendance (80%) and good comradery.  

President Angella handing over our new trading banner to Rtn. Dr. Jürgen Allerkamp from the Rotary Club of Berlin.  Jürgen is the husband of Dr. Brigitte Schüling who is the founder of the Child Development & Guidance Centre where the Rotary Club of Gros Islet installed a purpose build playground for children with mobility and developmental challenges.  Jürgen challenged RCGI members to come to the Rotary International Convention in 2019 which will be held in Hamburg, Germany, where he and Brigitte live. 

 

 

 

 

May old acquaintance never be forgotten, let us resolve to, wherever possible, build on acquaintances and make new friends.  Fellowship is the bedrock of Rotary and as true Rotarians we extend the hand of fellowship wherever we can.

 

This year we kicked off with a successful fellowship in July. which followed hot on the heals of the Handing over Dinner.  After that we upped the anti by carrying out a highly successful tree planting project  And when the work was over we went on a River lime A day of great fellowship and acclaimed by all to have been something special.

Later that same month we handed over a motorized wheel-chair and a number of body supports from  Winchester Rotary  And all the while our Regular lunch meetings were interesting and great fellowship  Okay so I caught them in a somber moment!!! And Richard & Yvonne celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary  As promised, we launched the Rotary Satellite Club of Gros Islet South Saint Lucia  This was a huge win for our little club and we continue to build on the new friendships that we have made as a result.

And then came September.  We were on a role by this time and we launched the Reading Scholars Club at the Gros Islet Infant and Primary Schools  And then came September 10th when Hurricane Irma slammed into the US south coast followed on the 18th  by Hurricane Maria with devastating consequences for our sister islands in the Caribbean, most notably Dominica.  RCGI leapt into action gathering food, cloths and tarpaulins from any and every source available. Help came from the UK  from Regina, Canada  from Grow Well from the Dame Pearlette Louisy Secondary School  and from members of the Club and friends. We were fortunate to get help from Captain Corey Devaux who transported our largest shipment free of cost on MV Black Magic Rotarians and friends worked long into the night and early morning to load the vessel.  But not a glum face to be seen at the end.  We raised money from members and we talked strategy with RC Portsmouth and agreed to assist in getting the fisher folk back into production by supplying fish pot wire to make new fish pots to replace the many that were lost in the Hurricane.  We also launched the idea of "Cover a House in Dominica" appeal.  This is ongoing supported by Rotarians District wide.

The beginning of October saw us move to our new home at Sandals Golf Club.   The end of September the Satellite Club held a successful flea market The work to help Dominica continued and still continues today.  In October we inducted two new members, Lenny Cumberbatch fro RC Nassau Sunrise transferred in and Maggitha Jaganath changed her status from ardent supporter to member.  We had slide shows and video presentations at regular meetings and then we had the DG's Visit.  First up the Satellite Club then DG Waddy met with RCSL and Ourselves.  DG visited the Governor General and a CARE agricultural project among other things.  DG Waddy was then joined by the indomitable PDG Hervé as they teamed up to run the Rotary Leadership Institute Parts 1 and 2.  Hats off to them, they did an excellent job!   Together the team pinned the Chair of the Satellite Club, Shermie James-Darcheville  who had missed the grand pinning earlier in the week due to ill health.  The Satellite club presented the Blind Welfare Association with a donation from funds raised at the Flea Market  and of course we shared fellowship  with members finding time to entertain our new Vincie friends as well as PDG Hervé and Diana.  November saw some excellent presentations from PP Dr. Virginia Assan Oostburg  On the effects of climate change and by PP Mary Beth Sutton On Protecting our environment.  A high point was that we managed to find a vessel MV Lovely 1, to take the fish pot wire to Portsmouth Rotary Happily the wire arrived safely.  We also managed to get another boat thanks to Rodney Bar Marina.  AG Konrad once again stepped in to assist with the loading  The Reading Scholars Club held their end of Term party in early December  We had a great Christmas lunch with much singing   Past member PP Mike Thom made a presentation from his Staff for DominicaThanks to PP Gene and PP Malcolm for their combined efforts to keep us in tune.

Our final act of the year was the packing and distribution of food baskets to those most in need.  With the help of the Satellite Club members we extended our reach this year to Canaries, Soufriere, Fond St. Jacques, Migny, Bois Den, Choiseul, Laborie and Vieux Fort.Let us not Forget DominicaAnd finally the fish pots were handed over.

 

While all of this was going on, we fed children breakfast every day at three schools .  The Satellite club ran a second flea market to raise funds for Dominica and for a teacher needing surgery.  Our Vocational talks at schools were thwarted due to weather and school curriculum!  The Major Road Safety Project planned for the 2nd half of the year got approval from the Transport Board, and FLOW signed up as Title Sponsor for our Annual Charity Golf Tournament scheduled for January 27th.  

 

We donated funds to buy the boys at the Boys Training Centre gifts at Christmas and we donated funds to assist a Rotaractor in paying for surgery.  Rotarians lived Rotary in more ways than we can mention here including donating to The Rotary Foundation, both the Annual Fund and the Polio Fund.

Your editor apologizes if any of your pet projects got inadvertently omitted from this whirlwind summary.