The Isle of Wight - Rotary & Michael Portillo

THE last of the cars are being loaded onto the Wight Sky from a slip of a quay at Yarmouth, at the western end of the Isle of Wight.

It is a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, with drinkers sitting on a sun-terrace right next to the terminal entrance soaking up the last of the late summer weather.

It’s hard to believe this is the first week of October, with the sun beating down on a shimmering  Solent littered by a scattering of yachts. The Isle of Wight is a beautiful place anyway, and when the sun is shining, the island really looks resplendent in its party clothes.

Despite living on the south coast for almost 25 years, I’ve not often made the trip across the Solent. At £71 a throw to bring the car over, it’s not cheap. Whether you’re crossing from Portsmouth, Southampton or Lymington, the three to five-mile ferry trip is among the most expensive commercial boat crossing in the world.

Surely it’s about time the Monopolies Commission took a close look at how Wightlink and Red Funnel can justify such exorbitant charges.

THE reason for the weekend away was to attend the first of a series of Rotary district conferences.

Over the next month, I’m visiting events in Eastbourne and Scarborough on behalf of the charity Hearing Link to promote the “Let’s Loop the UK” campaign.

Despite moving into teaching full-time with Highbury College, I’m still heavily involved with the national charity which provides support for the 10 million people in the UK with hearing loss – two million of whom wear hearing aids.

In the past year, I have been working for Hearing Link to promote the use of hearing loops, and have set up groups in Surrey, Swindon, Chester and Newcastle, to sit alongside an existing initiative in Eastbourne. It is a wonderfully exciting project.

The idea of these groups is to promote awareness of hearing loops among businesses and to encourage greater use of them by hearing aid wearers. It is a huge task and one which involves changing cultures among businesses and people, including hearing aid wearers who have become so disenchanted with non-working hearing loops.

But, this is a challenge which has to be bitten off one piece at a time, working in partnership with a number of national organisations, such as the hearing loop and hearing aid manufacturers, audiologists, and businesses, such as Tesco, the National Trust, HSBC, Asda and Nationwide.

Rotary is another important partnership. In Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, I manned a stand during the three-day district conference for Sussex Rotary clubs. I gave a 15 minute speech to 400 delegates on Sunday morning and over the weekend spoke to a number of people to see if their clubs would be prepared to get involved.

The response has been very positive and it will be interesting to see how many of the initial contacts turn into positive leads. It looks like I’ve got a full speaking diary over the next six months.

As a member of the Click4Action e-Rotary club – more of which another time – I’m acutely aware of how important Rotary can be with the success of the project. We had a similar presence this weekend in Bristol for a Rotary convention of Surrey clubs.

Rotary might seem an out-dated and old-fashioned institution, but I believe it retains its importance, made up of the movers and shakers in our communities.

However, in my speech, I warned Rotarians that they had to carefully look to the future, in order to continue Rotary’s relevance in society today. Rotary memberships are dwindling as people have less time, so it is vital the organisation nationally looks at new and inventive ways of boosting membership.

The “Let’s Loop” campaign is promoting the use of Rotary Community Corps – a sort of Rotary Lite, where volunteers can get involved with Rotary in an informal way, without the commitment. These volunteers could one day be motivated to join Rotary full-time. We have chartered one such group in Swindon.

Rotary sits at the heart of its communities, and in Bembridge I asked the Rotary audience to look at “Let’s Loop the UK” as a vehicle to encourage greater participation by tackling hearing loss, an issue which affects so many people.

IT’S been an interesting few days on the Isle of Wight. I was pleased to meet former MP Michael Portillo, who was at the Rotary conference to give a speech on behalf of the charity Debra – an organisation which works with children suffering with Epidermolysis Bullosa.

I wasn’t able to hear his speech, but I’m told it was very funny, and disarming, with a few pointed anecdotes about his days working with Margaret Thatcher as a member of the Cabinet.

We chatted briefly towards the end of his visit about his work with Debra and Hearing Link. He’s a very charming man, and the lady from Debra was saying how the reaction of some female Rotarians to him was quite amazing.

One lady, clearly flirting with the former Conservative Minister, was, to put it bluntly, quite tactile.

Another told a clearly taken aback Portillo that they were having bets at what this debonair follower of fashion was wearing. It was a slightly creased blue jacket, but as a definite non-follower of fashion, I can’t embroider this description with any more detail.

Still, he took time to speak to everyone and was a consummate gentleman. Nice guy!