Template - regular public

The Turn of the English

Reading Abbey Rotary member Peter Mason reports on the St George's Day dinner, organised by the Club and well supported by local business and professional folk.

Well if the Irish and Scots can celebrate St Patrick and Burns, how about the rest of us celebrating St George? And at the same time how about a bit of recognition for one of the hugely successful institutions of Reading, the Reading Hockey Club?

And if we were going to celebrate these how about raising funds for British Service personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq? All of this celebration would allow us to raise funds, be entertained and celebrate St George.

So that’s what happened on 23rd April at the Crowne Plaza hotel. 150 of us listened intently to Lt Col John Regan from The Royal British Legion explaining that some of our ex-service personnel find they are now very shabbily treated and rely on a charity to provide some of life’s basics.

The Rotary Club of Reading Abbey is extremely fortunate to have some very generous friends and members who donated prizes to be auctioned and so raised about £4000, mainly for the British Legion's Berkshire Welfare Fund.

Reading Hockey Club has been at the forefront of hockey in the UK and has provided many of the members of the traditionally successful England teams so we thought that they should be recognised with the Rotary Club of Reading Abbey Merit Award.

We were further entertained by Doug Wills, Managing Editor of the London Evening Standard (and a member of Reading Abbey Rotary) and as well as Richard Leatham who manfully led the community singing. This rounded off a very successful and enjoyable evening which went some small way to helping just some of our troops - but also celebrated St George in grand style.