Friday 26th March: Ladies Night

Ladies Night at The Chase Golf Club, a black-tie dinner with partners, as a thank-you for their support / tolerance of our Round Table activities. After the meal I do a speech on behalf of the gents, and this is followed by a response on behalf of the Ladies (from the wife of the Penkridge 41 Club chairman). This year instead of a singer, we then have Nick Owen from Midlands Today as a guest speaker. He’s very good, entertaining and funny. The evening rounds of with a disco. It’s a good showing and between Table and 41 Club, with guests, we have around 110 people.

Thursday 18th March: Quiz Night

Last night's table meeting was a Quiz night, compiled by Pete D (or in fact his wife and daughters) it was up to the usual fiendishly difficult standards. With teams of two it got highly competitive, with some excellent banter and barracking of the quiz master. Enjoyed with a few beers and an interval take-away - a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Wednesday 17th March

A brief meeting at The Star (very busy on St Patrick's Day) to finalise plans for Ladies Night, taking place a week on Friday. Almost everything done in preparation, and a decent number of people coming along.

Thursday 11th March

Today I attended the West Midlands Ambulance Authority award ceremony. Penkridge Round Table were nominated for an award by the Penkridge Community First Responders in recognition of our assistance in getting the group up and running. Listening to the roll call of award winners – mainly Community First Responders; it really brought home the significance of their role and the challenging, harrowing and life threatening situations that they deal with. I was truly honoured to collect the award on behalf of PRT.
As always with things PRT connected the presentation didn’t go smoothly; when we arrived the PRT Chairman’s Chain mislead the reception team into thinking we were dignitaries, so having been whisked to one side our attendance was not registered. This would have resulted in us not getting the award at all (since the organisers assumed we’d not turned up) were it not for the intervention of our Secretary, who escaped from the hall to alert organisers. So I managed to get the award (presented by the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Ambulance Service) at the end of the proceedings.

Thursday 4th March: New Members Night

New Members Night – a meeting arranged by New Members for the whole of PRT. This year it’s ten-pin bowling in Stafford; sadly I can’t make this as I’m travelling back from Zurich. Good turn out from tablers.

Sunday 28th February

Get a catch-up email out to members to remind them of the activities coming up during the remaining month of the current table year.

Friday 26th February: Wine and Whisky tasting.

Wine and Whisky tasting. A social event with partners, this an event that we first held two years ago – this time moved to a Friday to negate the impact of hangovers. We sample 3 white wines, 3 red wines, then 3 whisky’s. Each with and without food, a bit of a quiz challenge to guess origin, age, cost. All in all an entertaining evening, with a background of music with dubious links to wine and whisky tasting.

Saturday 20th Feb: RTBI Workshops

Workshops in Birmingham on a variety of topics to help individual tables understand more about Round Table, get more out of their membership, develop new skills and learn how to do more to promote their own Table through web sites and effective PR. Richard Bisiker the current Vice-Chairman, attends on behalf of PRT.

Thursday 18th Feb: Business Meeting

Business Meeting at the Hatherton Country House Hotel. It’s been a while since we met formally so there are a fair few things to cover, and this will be the last business meeting in the table year, so I have a few items to wrap up. Some good news on the funds we have raised from Community Service events – funds that we distribute to charities and local good causes. Also we have a National Council Meeting coming up and we have some good discussions on the views of PRT to some of the proposals being put forward. As always these create some lively and entertaining debate – with me attempting to do my best at chairing the meeting and keeping order!

Thursday 11th February

Get together with Rich Bisiker, who will be the incoming Chairman in April. He’s busy planning his year, his programme, committee and activities. So we meet up to talk through some of his ideas, and so we can have a smooth hand-over for the new table year.

Sportsmans Dinner Friday 5th February

A fund raising dinner at the Stafford Showground with three top-quality speakers: Steve Daley, Pat Murphy and Alan Minter. A cracking night, very entertaining, with around 140 guys; with good support from Cannock ad Stafford Tables. We round the evening with a memorabilia auction and a raffle of some decent prizes.

Wednesday 27th January

Unfortunately can’t make the Area Meeting due to work commitments; however Pete Machin attends in my place, and hands over a cheque for £250 in support of Children’s Wish; the National Charity of Round Table.

Marchesi Night Thursday 21st January

An annual fixture in the Table diary this is the celebration of the birth of Round Table by Louis Marcheshi in March 1927 – Marchesi Night celebrates the birth of Louis Marchesi in January 1898. Louis set up round table because he felt there was a need for a club for the young men of Norwich to gather on a regular basis. At their meetings they could exchange ideas, learn from the experiences of their colleagues and play a collective part in the civic life of Norwich. Norwich round table was the first (and is hence no 1), the second was formed in Portsmouth. And Penkridge & District is number 1178.
This is one of the occasions in the year when we gather with former Round Tabler’s (41 club), this year for a meal and a speaker at The Barns in Cannock. The speaker is Chris Mitchell, from the Rodbaston College of South Staffordshire College. Chris is a primate expert and gave an informative, entertainingly but also quite shocking talk on the plight of primates in Cameroon, where he spent a number of years running a zoo.
The evening concludes with the induction of Mick Swift, as a new member of Penkridge Round Table.

New Year, Bad Habits: Thursday 7th January

Another table tradition: after the excesses of Christmas what better than to brave the cold, head down to Monmore Green and loose my shirt on a dog.

Wednesday January 6th

Receive an email from Leigh Rogers from the Penkridge & District Community First Responders, with an update of their activity over the Christmas period. Quite an extensive list, and it really shows how much value PCFR are bringing to the village and surrounds. http://www.padcfr.com/pContent.php?C=News

Friday December 25th: Christmas Day Drinks

A fair gathering of tablers and families (grandchildren included) converge at The Cross Keys for a few festive drinks whilst the Turkey cooks.

Friday 18th December: Christmas Party

The festivities continue with the Table Christmas party, this year at the Hatherton Hotel – all that was missing was The Bee Gees! Excellent choice Ian. And the desert was fab, excellent hair mousse.