Meon Tidings No.54 September 2015
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Meon Tidings No.54 September 2015 Previous Meetings 5th July. The Rev. Rtn. Harvey Griffiths gave an extremely erudite illustrated talk under the heading of “Heavens Above” which was not as might have expected a talk about religious affairs but about the galaxies, stars, planets and the sun and moon. He had clearly spent weeks preparing his script and slides. The trigger for this was a girl pupil at Wykeham House school who had a hobby of star gazing using a small telescope. In fact Harvey when at Oxford as an undergraduate had also been keen on studying the physical heavens. The most easily identified galaxies are Orion, The Plough aka Great Bear aka The Plough and Cassiopeia. Orion is meant to outline a warrior with his belt and sword, the Plough looks plough shaped and points to the North Star whereas Cassiopeia looks like a giant W. The earth’s sun is also a star and if it were the size of a soccer ball, the earth would be the size of a pin head. If these sizes were real the sun would only be 36 yards away! Since the great Italian Galileo first started the study of astronomy using his own homemade telescope man has strived to find or more about our heavenly bodies. They also to try to see if any of the planets or stars support life of any kind. Recent space vehicles have made quite amazing discoveries but so far there has been no sign of current life or past life but there millions of celestial bodies and so far man has only investigated very few. The space telescope the Hubble has been making many discoveries since it was adjusted by space walking astronauts in 1994. However still the development and deployment of improved terrestrial telescopes continues. The ideal places for these wonders are minimal light polluted parts of the world such as mountain tops in very sparsely populated areas such as the Andes in South America. La Palma, one of the Canary Islands is to be the home of new telescope soon. The surrounding countryside is already light pollution free area to accommodate telescopes. 1 Only 5 planets are visible on the Earth with the naked eye and these are Mercury (the brightest), Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The sun is approximately 94 miles away and of course is our life support star. Vernon Clark gave the vote of thanks 19th August. Phillip Mercer Ex. Parachute regiment. Phillip at the age of 27 had done more travelling than some of us fifty years his senior. He joined No. 2 Para. In 2008 and after six years left the army in 2014 with the rank of Captain. He now works as an Independent Financial Adviser in Southampton. During his service he had two tours of Afghanistan, peaceful and other deployments to France, Germany, Ukraine, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, U.A.E. Iraq, Belize, Brazil, U.S.A., Canada, Kenya, Somalia, and South Africa. He worked on operations including World Wide Terrorism, U.K. Counter Terrorism, responded to the Star Hotel “Spectacular” attacks in Kabul in 2012. Counter Narcotics and high level public event security. He is qualified in most Western weapon systems and specialized in heavy weapons i.e. 50 cal. Grenade Machine Gun and Javelin Anti-Tank Weapons. Commanded and coordinated varies aircraft on operations including; Helo’s drones, war planes and A.C.- 130 Spectre Gunships. He has had various experiences on operations including counter narcotics, ground holding, arrest and kill warrants, under cover intelligence gathering (Perks of looking so young, you blend in with the locals). He has worked alongside most Tier 1 & 2 forces in the Western World including with the S.A.S. and S.B.S. , U.S. Rangers, Navy Seals, Deltas and SOCOM, Australian S.A.S., SO19 (U.K. armed response). He illustrated his talk with several pieces of video taken in Afghanistan and Belize. One amazing video clip was taken of two Afghans laying a bomb under a track close to Phillip’s command post but because the track and men were in a protected area they could not be taken care of nor could the bomb be destroyed. We also saw a video of Phillip’s trip to the jungles of Brazil where their mission was to destroy drug processing factories in time for the world cup. He believes he was paid by the sponsors of the World Cup. He brought along some of his old clothing including boots that can longer be “bulled”. They are very similar to normal walking boots. He also showed us his bullet proof jacket. Thanks to Graham Lawrence for this report. Paul Jones Hosted. Polio News. 37 cases this year so far have been reported, there were 145 at the same time in 2014. 29 of these were in Pakistan vs 115 at same time last year and 8 cases have been reported in Afghanistan vs 8 last year at this time. Future events. 2nd September. 6.30pm Group 7 Meeting followed by:- Breaded Mushrooms, Roast pork with stuffing and apples. Bakewell tart. Speaker Rtn. Sandra Lewis-“Phoebe’s Family-Changing a Community.” Host Jim Johnston. 9th. Quiche and salad, coleslaw and hot new potatoes. 16th Prawn cocktail, Chicken, mushroom with red wine sauce, Eton mess. Speaker unknown when printed. 2 21st Club Council meets at Brian Ray’s home 23rd. Ham and cheese ploughmen’s with crusty bread and pickles. Business meeting. 30th. Gourmet Dinner at the Wheel House 7 for 7.30pm. 100 Club August Winners: £100 Brian Ray; £50 Jean Lane; £50 Jim Johnston. Club Web Site A new trifold leaflet is being planned as a recruiting aid. This will give a lot of information about Rotary, our club and its achievements. It will also invite readers to use the club’s web site pages to find out more. It is therefore very important that the site is always up to date and relevant. I get the impression that many members even those who use their computers regularly hardly ever sign on to the site which if you are a member can lead you to the world of Rotary including District, R.I.B.I., R.I. and all the world’s Rotary clubs. A wonderful resource of information and inspiration. So when you have a moment during the next week or so, please log on to our club site especially and email me with copies to Graham Lawrence and John Lovell, your comments and suggestions of how to make improvements to the contents and to make it easier to navigate around the various pages. Another thing! There are only pictures of 4 club officers on the site. Please rectify, it makes the site look sloppy and unloved! Send a picture to Graham a.s.a.p. The address of the club is farehammeon.rotary1110.org B.D.R. - [email protected]; G.L. - [email protected] ; J.L. - [email protected] Our Growing band of Business Partners. Solicitors Cameron Sons Building Services Ltd Stone Consulting Engineers Ltd 3 .