Together with the Rotary Club of Canterbury Sunrise, we had already marked World Polio Day the previous evening when PPs Philip Abbott and Martin Ward helped light up St Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury in purple. (The colour purple symbolises Rotary’s worldwide campaign to eradicate polio as a purple dye is used to mark the finger of a child who has been immunised.) Our lunch also had a purple motif, with most of our Members wearing a purple item of clothing (ranging from ties to scarves and socks!)
Our President Tony Loughran had also asked our caterers to come up with purple-themed food, inspired by our e-recipe book (which you can get for FREE from here).
During the meeting two videos were shown to our members – the first about the e-recipe book, and the second from Rotary, giving a World Polio Day 2022 Global Update. It was good to be reminded of Rotary’s work to help eradicate polio and to hear the views of so many others involved with the global effort. As the 2022-2023 Chair of Rotary Foundation reminded us in the video, Rotary has been involved in the fight against polio for more than 30 years, and in that time “3 billion children [have been] immunised, every country in the world except two [has been] declared wild polio free, and case numbers [are] way down.” However, he added, “the world today faces multiple pandemics and vaccine hesitancy is on the rise.” He also talked about detection of polio virus in a number of countries – including Israel, the USA and the UK. Rotary will continue to work together with its partners to try and eradicate the disease and, like Rotary clubs around the world, our Club will continue to support Rotary’s efforts.
Finally during the lunch an award went to the person who made the most effort to dress in purple – Rtn Nan Miller.
You can find out more about End Polio Now here.
Picture: Some of our Members who wore something purple. Picture credit: Rotary Club of Canterbury.
