When given the honour of being elected President of The Rotary Club of Whitstable, it is expected to nominate a charity to support. I have chosen our Air Ambulance, for the following reasons:

They save lives of people, irrespective of who they are. The personnel do not discriminate, or judge, they just get on with the job of saving lives.

To do this most invaluable service they rely totally on charitable donations! Now, what can I do to help? I can swim, great but sponsored swims have been done before and, quite honestly, are very boring to watch. Thinking about this, I decided to do a swim with a difference, using my arms only, legs strapped together. Not bad but still not spectator friendly. Ahah! Lets encase my legs in a fish tail, after all, I’m not using them. A little more interesting. Now I become a Merman. Cannot be a mermaid, I am not shaving off my beard of forty years, even for this!

How to get the audience to participate in this activity?

Whitstable Pool have aqua aerobics classes on Wednesday nights. The instructor suggested they, on the niight, dress up as ’South Sea Island Girls’, complete with grass skirts, men and women. Performing before the swim. Getting better. To encourage the audience, I will, on every fifth length, swim on a stroke nominated by the spectators.

Please contribute, either online, or by filling one of our sponsorship forms obtainable from our website (http://www.whitstablerotary.org/presidents-page/41.html ) More details of the event are on this website.

Thank you.

David T. Cavell. President Rotary Club of Whitstable.