Our speaker last Monday was Past President Peter Armstrong who shared with us his involvement and experiences as a member of the above Fellowship.
As our founder Paul Harris said “Fellowship is wonderful, it illuminates life’s pathways, gives good cheer and is worth a high price.
Formed in 1965 the Fellowship has 1500 Rotary members’ world-wide and according to Peter is Rotary’s best kept secret. The Group is divided into global areas including Australasia , Americas, European, and rest of the world. The Fellowship includes 65 Recreational groups and 38 Vocations and in addition to Flying the categories include Banking and Dentistry. The New Zealand section has 38 members and the E club of Aviation , worldwide meets weekly. There are two Fly Ins per annum in New Zealand
Peter is actively involved and recently attended a fly in at Lucerne with likeminded aviation people from around the world. Peter’s Rotary membership has enabled him to make friends with other Rotarians worldwide.
This year, Phil Pacey of the Drury Rotary Club will become the World President for the Flying Fellowship.
He mentioned the IFFR’s involvement with a small group of Mercury Bay College students who have built and are busy building a microlight plane.
Also, Peter spoke about the Walsh Memorial Flying School which accommodates 73 students and provides them with training over two weeks at Matamata and after 7½ hours instruction they are able to fly solo. Our Rotary Club sponsored two students this year.
Peter showed off his “vintage!!” motorcycle racer (he does not think so) which is still in running order which was visited at Cromwell on one off the IFFR fly-ins.
Thank you Peter for an interesting address which ensured the Fellowship is no longer the best kept secret in Pakuranga Rotary.