September Meeting – 'Resilience in the Eye of the Storm'
Tuesday 8 September 2020
Ruskie kicked off it’s 2020-2021 meetings with a bang! With 35 active zoom connections, and small socially distanced groups in some rooms we had a great turn-out for our first meeting – some members and guest had even managed to ‘save’ their cakes until the meeting rather than eating them at the weekend! Anne Artis, our president welcomed the group, including new members, friendly faces and visitors from other institutes (the great thing about zoom is that there is no upper limit on the number of people who can come along to a Ruskie meeting, and no geographic boundaries!) Anne reminded us of the recent ‘big birthdays’ and shared the forthcoming events – all within the Covid guidelines – a Federation Walk on 8 October for fresh air; Ruskie’s Christmas Night Out for festive fun; and marshalling at the Glencoe Marathon in May 2021 fundraising for our hall!
We were then taken on a sailing adventure by Mark Denton, skipper of the BP Explorer on the BT Global Challenge. From a landlocked childhood in Northampton Mark qualified as a professional yacht skipper to lead an amateur team to a podium position on this challenging race – round the world the wrong way, against the wind and tides. We marvelled at his courage in the face of hurricanes, doldrums, icebergs (in the dark) and mis-fuelling … cheered him on through slow starts, nail biting finishes and having an Irish vet instead of a regular doctor as medic. The open waters, dolphins, albatrosses and flying fish were inspiring … the cramped living quarters and dehydrated food a bit less so!
Our next speaker in October takes us to Orkney and Caithness – a reminder that we can still have adventures closer to home – we hope to see you all then!
