All Ready for the Year ahead

Barry, our pony-tailed hero, is almost ready for the AGM and World Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon at the end of this week. National President Steve James and his conference committee have been working tirelessly (so Martin Green says) for the past 3 years to make this a memorable conference for the 450 plus visitors who are now descending on Stratford. 27 countries of 41 INTERNATIONAL together with members of Tangent and Agora are represented and, as I write, the pre-tour is now underway. Over the last couple of months Barry has been very busy travelling. He went to Estonia at the beginning of March for the joint meeting of the 41 INTERNATIONAL Board with RTI and this was followed by a visit to go ice-fishing in Finland, although I think he went to a meeting as well. On to the GB&I conference in Jersey  and then just back in time from Denmark and Italy, where he joined Napoli's party when they won the Italian Serie A, for the World Meeting.

For those of you who don't know him (and how have you not come across him!) he wrote a very helpful synopsis of his background. In summary: 

• He lives in Earlswood pretty much south of Birmingham,
• Married to the lovely Rachel he is self-employed working as a consultant in Credit Management
• He is passionate (mad) about trains so unless you know the difference between a Duke of Gloucester and a Brittania don't engage on this subject.
• Joined Shirley Round Table (a place not a person), did most jobs including Chairman but not Area Chairman
• After Table joined Shirley Late Knights 41 club. From there to National with the highlight being National President in 2016/17.
• In 2019 he was elected to the role of Second Vice of 41 INTERNATIONAL (I'll let him explain)
• As mentioned his hobbies include trains, steam trains including volunteering on Vintage Trains. He also loves walking and is chairman of the Millenium Way long distance trail across central England.

His ethos is that in 41 Club, we still do stuff. We do not stay at home watching TV each night with our slippers on. We continue the journey that we started in Table. We might not be quite so active, but we can still do all sorts of events. As regards community service we can still help. His charities for the year ahead will be House of Hope in Moldova, which is being championed by Bob Parton from Germany and Hope 4 Victims of Poverty, Conflict and Trafficking https://hope4.org/ . He came across both of these through his involvement with the German Convoy to Eastern Europe over the past 6 years. Both incredibly worthwhile charities deserving your support.

Thanks to Tom for a great year and Best Wishes to Barry for the year to come.