And then came Mandy Hickson. Mandy was one of just five female Tornado pilots in the RAF. Although she gave an entertaining and deprecating talk describing her succession of failures and her unique position as the only girl pilot on the squadron, her climb to success and rejection of failure is a classic story of shaking off defeat and failure through self belief and the support of the rest of the team. She was awarded an RAF flying scholarship through the ATC at 17 and took to flying naturally. However despite her natural skills she failed the computer –based tests for fast jet pilots. Undeterred, her self belief and dogged determination persuaded the RAF to take her on as a test case. Even then her tutors told her that their interest was to see how far she could go before she failed. “Men and women process things in a
different way.” She said. “I was waiting to fail because I had been told I would. But with the help of the people on my course, who were all competing for a small number of places in a fast-jet squadron, they shared ideas and showed me there was always a better way to
do things.
“I have waited 20 years to be able to say Thank You to Rotary and I am pleased to do that now,” said Bridget Forster who is just about to take up a new job as the United Nations Head of Mine Clearance Mission in Gaza. Bridget was awarded a Rotary International Scholarship after serving as an officer in the Army. She took a Masters in Marine Biology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
After university she started a career in law as a barrister focussing on the environment and sustainable development. After completing another Masters in International Politics and Human Rights she was offered a job with the United Nations and worked as a Senior Programme Officer with the UN Mine Action Service attached to the UN’s Support Mission in Libya. Their mission, to ensure effective, proactive and co-ordinated response to the problems of land mines and explosive remnants of war.
“There are 61 countries will millions of land mines,” she
said. We are trying to sign countries up to promise to get rid of their stockpiles of land-mines and we are finally seeing some encouraging signs, but mine clearance is painstaking work in hot and heavy equipment. We train local people as mine clearers which is a sustainable response to get countries to deal with mines after tuition from the international community.
It’s a problem which is not going to go away any time soon.”
Bridget, pictured above, swapping war stories with old soldier Derrick Whiting of Aberystwyth.
“Being part of a team means coming together and going the extra mile for the people around us.” During her time as a Tornado pilot, Mandy saw combat action in Iraq with the added adrenaline rush of engagement by a surface to air missile which locked on to her craft, requiring all her Top Gun expertise to shake it off. Her mantra? “Dream IT, Believe It, Do It.”
In his summing up, DG Clive paid warm tribute to PDG Colin Morgan of Briton Ferry who has served as Confer- ence Sergeant at Arms under ten District Governors.
In closing DG Clive added: “This your Conference and we have heard some inspiring speakers. You must go back to your clubs and tell people what you have heard here.” Below, comedian Tom O’Connor, who closed the Conference on a light note.
In the prizes were Mumbles, who narrowly pipped Porthcawl for the Attendance Shield, collected by President, Phil Rogers (above).
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Cardiff Bay won the Social Media Shield, collected by Steve Jenkins, and Bob Dodd was presented with the Newsletter Shield for Pontllanfraith.
CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE 2018
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