When you wake up on these cold November mornings and see the frost on the ground, can you imagine what it must be like to have spent the night previously without a roof over your head and no heating of any sort? This is the unfortunate situation of many people of all ages in Stockport. A breakdown in relationships, addiction to drugs and alcohol and even simple poverty means 99,000 people in our society don’t have a home to go to at night. Wellspring, a Stockport Charity helps some of these people, not by providing over-night accommodation but at least giving them a hot meal in the evenings, clothing and sandwiches for lunch. They are moving from their present converted Sea Scout hut to more suitable buildings in the centre of Stockport. Rotary, together with other organisations - probus, churches, U3A contribute to this very worthwhile local Charity.

In October we also had an interesting talk from Mrs Alison Allcard about the Marple Locks. Over 200 years old they are a great part of our industrial heritage and though they are now used mainly for tourist leisure activities played a vital part in the past to make Marple and its environs a wealthy and important place. We must be grateful to Mrs Allcard and her fellow enthusiasts from the Marple Website for setting up the Locks Celebrations every two years and look forward to the next one in 2009. Hopefully our Club will have a presence there again.

In November we are gearings up for the Christmas Collections, now the Float has been completely refurbished and painted and hope to take about 60 of the old and infirm to see “Sweet Charity” at the New Mills Art Theatre. A talk about the Amish community in America will give us some ideas about what to do when the oil runs out or becomes too expensive.

As their has been some confusion about who is Steward and who is responsible for bringing the bottle of wine for the Raffle I’m publishing the list till the New Year: