The Spinner October 5 2023

President Jackie chaired the meeting. Visitors Ellen Janzen and Jill Crocker, partner of the guest speaker Steve Ragnall, were welcomed.

 The first Toonie Quest West draw took place today and the winner was a lady from Halfway Point.

On Wednesday afternoon collected toonies and bills were counted and collated.

Xavier House representatives had collected all the monies earlier in the day.  It was exciting to hear that the winner to be selected on Oct. 5, would take home $1004.

Rotary will be looking for volunteers to empty and collect the monies for the draw on October 11 and to help with the counting and collating of monies collected in the afternoon.

Olaf introduced the guest speaker his friend Steve Ragnall. Steve is from Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, and has a lifetime's love of the sea and its history. Though he had a 25-year career in banking, he describes this as a “sojourn” and, upon retirement, he decided that he “should do something useful for a change and returned to maritime history.” He has written and published books on that theme, lectured on that theme, and today spends much of the year with his partner Jill on cruise ships where he entertains and informs passengers with talks on that theme.

Steve began his presentation by thanking Rotary International for the work done to eradicate polio. He himself had polio as a small child and he feels the work being done by Rotary has saved thousands of children from the effects of polio.

His talk was presenting a Corner Brook cruise ship visit from a passenger’s perspective. His talk ‘A Few Random Thoughts from the Ambassador Cruise Line’ began by showing the planned itinerary of the cruise ship Ambience, Ambassador Cruise Line. The ship left London Tilbury, on September 12 sailed to the Faroe Islands and the next port of call was meant to be QaQortoq, Greenland but the ship was caught in the middle of a hurricane so could not land. The seas were extremely rough, and the ship suffered some damage and the loss of an anchor.  The next port of call was St John’s for 3 days where repairs were done and then on to Sydney, NS, Charlottetown, PEI, and several ports in Quebec before on October 5 docking in Corner Brook.  The ship has 1200 passengers on board.  This is Steve’s fourth visit to Corner Brook.  His talk became quite humorous as he talked about how rumours are spread aboard a ship. He feels this is a very safe and easy way to travel and compared it to a holiday camp at sea.  He spoke about the entertainment on board and the different shore tours available to passengers.

He feels that there is much to do in Corner Brook for passengers and there is more here than in some of the ports of call.  

Steve’s talk was very entertaining and enjoyable. Jackie thanked him on behalf of the club before the meeting adjourned.