Greetings to Christchurch

Meeting Weekly on a Wednesday at 18:00

Cashmere Club, 50 Colombo Street, Christchurch

We have just seen the Artemis capsule return from its voyage to the dark side of the moon, and we know that the Voyager spacecraft launched in the 1970s is now quite a long way from Earth. I thought it would be nice to send greetings to the furthest place that I could visit that wasn’t on another planet. I looked near and far, we,, mostly far, and I settled on Christchurch in New Zealand, which is about 11,773 miles from somewhere in Hertfordshire.

So, greetings this week go to the Rotary Club of Christchurch South, or is it the Christchurch South Rotary Club, which is one of 31 Rotary Clubs in the upper South Island of New Zealand.

The club, as you might expect, is involved in a variety of activities, some are fund raising, some are based around the community and some are social. 

Earlier this year, the members all came together to carry out some maintenance work on the John Taylor Walkway. 

The John Taylor Walkway was originally constructed in 2005 across the Halswell Quarry Park and is the only project in the club’s 65 year history to be named after one of its members. 

Along with three Park Rangers and some heavy-duty gardening tools, they managed to clear the are and cut down the overgrowth. Much was accomplished during the exercise and and the work ended with a barbeque … and a biography of John Taylor’s life.

On a different note, though still loosly linked to horticulture, the club has recently completed its Annual Chicken Manure Fund Raise, where forward thinking club members raise cash through the sale of the stuff that chickens leave behind.

Sadly, it was all sold out by the 27^th of August, but if anyone is interested, there is always next year.