Ivan Palfrey Cup

Tonight, I had the honour of being invited to be the after-dinner speaker at the North Walsham Rotary Club. Over the last month, I have made several visits to Rotary Clubs, not just in Norfolk, but in Cambridgeshire and last Friday, in Leeds and I never fail to be amazed at just how warm hearted the Rotarians are. Possibly in a mark of tradition, each club is composed of people from all leagues of life, which adds a certain spice to dinner conversation and ensures the experience for me, as a guest, is an enriching one.

I am humbled to have received the Ivan Palfrey Cup tonight, especially because Ivan demonstrated an incalculable extent of service to his local community. Ivan was a surveyor by profession, a model of Rotary values, and a quite remarkable man of very wide cultural and sporting interests. In his seventies, I am informed he continued his passions for skiing, sailing and riding his Harley Davison. Ivan was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Norwich ski slope.

Dave Robertson, Club Secretary and Town Mayor for North Walsham, presented the award this evening for my "services to the college student community and the wider Geographical community. Ivan may have pursued his interests with a passion that sometimes ignored convention, but so, undoubtedly, have you." The cup will be on display in the Trophy Cabinet at Paston Sixth Form College for the remainder of the year.

Below, the Club President, John Watts, presents the award. (Photo courtesy of Mr Daniel Doyle.)