Richard Thorpe, a member of the Rotary Club of Estoroi Palace International, located in the Algarve, south coast region of Portugal, attended the meeting. He has spent the last few weeks visiting his son and daughter-in-law, who live in Aldgate.
The Algarve, with its mild, wet winters and warm to very hot, dry summers is a major tourist destination. The climate, the moderate cost of living and the friendliness of the people has also attracted over 100,000 foreign nationals who permanently resident there.
The Estoroi Palace International club is a multicultural, mainly expatriate, club of 20-odd members, who are from a range of countries and regions including the UK, USA, France and Scandinavia. There are also several Portuguese members. Richard is the Club’s website administrator and go-to person regarding technical issues.
In addition to supporting global Rotary projects such as End Polio Now, and involvement in a number of local projects, the Club’s major current project is ‘Help Bring Safe Water to Ukrainian Families’, for which the Club has raised €300,000 to enable it to purchase 10,000 water filters.
Respective banners were exchanged and Richard invited our members to visit the Rotary Club of Esteroi Palace International if they intend to visit Portugal in the future.
Old friends Neil and Socorro Wickens were welcomed back into the Club, after Neil's sabbatical. We sorely missed his imagination, enthusiasm, drive and, not least, keen sense of humour.
Neil has already been tasked with the responsibility for running the Sculpture Exhibition in 2024, taking over from Tim Boon and Jan Lyon, who, with their professional backgrounds and organisational skills, established and managed this brilliant event. Tim and Jan will continue to be invaluable sources of advice. Neil will undoubtedly receive a lot of support from Socorro, an artist in her own right.
Our intrepid explorers, Dick Wilson, Greg Russell, Grant Andrew, David Hogan and Neil Wickens, spoke about their recent voyage on the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth from Port Adelaide to Fremantle (with brief stops in Albany and Margaret River).
Dick contrasted the size of the QE (over 2,000 passengers and 900 crew) with previous sea voyages in which he was ship’s doctor, Greg reflected on the war-time significance of Albany, Neil mentioned the opulence of the ship, Grant raved about the quality of the red wine and David, ever the gastronome, marvelled at the contradistinctive properties of QE lobster thermidor and Nullabor egg and bacon rolls in maintaining weight!
Meeting of 3 April, 2023
Associate Professor Peter Dry entertained us with a lively and interesting presentation, ‘Variety is the Spice of Life’.
After a brief stint as a Research Officer with the Department of Agriculture in Loxton, Peter moved into academia and worked in Roseworthy College, the University of Adelaide, the Waite Institute and the Australian Wine Research Institute. He had more than 45 years’ experience as a viticultural scientist and teacher.
To top off this illustrious academic career Peter had the dream job – touring the world wherever grapes are grown, investigating new and old vine varieties and assessing their potential for commercial exploitation in Australia. Three key background issues in Peter’s assessment were global warming, changing tastes and disease resistance.
DNA technology has solved many mysteries of grape varieties. For example, zinfandel, which the Americans staunchly claim as their own, was traced to Puglia, Italy, where it was known as ‘primitivo’; but it actually originated from Croatia, where it was known as ‘tribidrag’.
On conclusion of his talk Peter was presented with a bottle of Rotary Club of Stirling red. When he samples this excellent drop, we are hoping he will think, ‘I have travelled the world many times but I have never tasted a finer red!’
