Latest News

Wednesday 30 October 2024

la disparition de Ananas du Coeur

It's with a heavy heart that we announce that, after 21 years without interruption,

the “Ananas du Coeur” action will not take place this year and will probably be discontinued.

The results are in: 341 pallets of pineapples (around 300 tonnes) donated by Côte d' Ivoires

and sold by District clubs, €347,592 raised, of which €107,402 remained in District clubs and

€240,190 sent to Côte d'Ivoire, enabling 110 wells to be rehabilitated, more than 1,000 women

learned to read, write and count, 1 or 2 remote villages received an annual visit from a Rotarian team of doctors, donations of food and medicines and, of course, young girls were freed from the chore of fetching water from the local river bed and were able to go to school, and many children were saved from water-borne diseases caused by drinking unsuitable water before the wells were rehabilitated, to name but a few of the many benefits.

Bravo...bravo... to the 59 clubs who took part, including the Rotary Club d'Excideuil, another outstanding Rotary action.
We'd like to thank everyone who generously took part in this project.

Friday 25 October 2024

Le Concorde : an iconic aircraft

Cdt Henri Gilles Fournier, the Air France captain who made the aircraft's last commercial flight, gave a talk and film on the history and experience of flying Concorde.

The conference took place at the Domaine d'Essendiéras and attracted an audience of over 60, who were captivated by the stories and personal memories of this iconic aircraft.

Over 300 euros were raised by donations in aid of local charitable actions of our Rotary club.

The local newspaper Dordogne Libre devoted a full page to the event (here).

The talk and film was followed by a convivial dinner with the speaker.

dimanche 06 octobre 2024

Octobre Rose

Despite the weather, which remained uncertain throughout the day, our annual Pink October celebration was a great success.

Highlights:

We welcomed over 50 participants for the 5 km hike, and a few brave souls who ran the challenging 10 km cross-country course, all returning to the Domaine for a relaxing coffee and cakes;
48 golfers took part in the grand golf tournament,
organized by the Essendieras Golf Club,
and won by [...] ;
5 novices benefited from an introductory session
with the club's coach ;
A 45 km mountain bike ride was organized and led
by the Roues des Loues club.

€1890 was raised for the Institute Bergonié,
in Bordeaux, to support breast cancer research.

Concert "In Capellis"

vendredi 22 août 2024

Ce soir-là, un public de plus de 140 personnes a assisté à un magnifique concert présenté par la chorale In Capellis, dirigée par son chef de chœur Andrew Round. (Voir le programme ici)

La soirée a été organisée par le Rotary club
d'Excideuil au profit de notre EHPAD local au Centre Hospitalier d'Excideuil. Cette soirée a permis de récolter plus de 1200 € au profit de son unité spécialisée dans la prise en charge des patients atteints de la maladie d'Alzheimer.

L'église paroissiale Saint-Thomas à Excideuil a offert un cadre magnifique et une acoustique exceptionnelle à la musique sublime.

mardi 13 août 2024

Décès de Jeroen Bakker (1954-2024)

C'est avec une profonde tristesse que nous avons appris la disparition de Rickholt Maria Theodorus Jeroen Bakker, propriétaire du Domaine d'Essendiéras et membre d'honneur de notre club.

Monsieur Bakker en a été l'un des membres fondateurs en 2009 et n'a jamais cessé d'accompagner le club dans ses actions avec la gentillesse et la générosité qui le caractérisaient. Il restera dans notre souvenir associé pour toujours au Domaine d'Essendiéras, avec tous ses enfants, dans ce lieu à qui il a rendu splendeur et vie.

Our condolences go out to his wife Ellen, his children Floris and Mathilde, Josefien and Luis Angel, Liesbeth and Wessel, Helena and Lucas, Janine and Alexandre, Ben and Emma, Bert and Alexandra, Bart and Léa, and all his grandchildren.

Our warmest thoughts are with them in their great sorrow.

vendredi 19 juillet 2024

Décès of Pierre Laspougeas (1944-2024)

We were saddened to learn of the death of Pierre LASPOUGEAS on 16 July.
Pierre was one of the founding members of the club in 2009.
He divided his time between Menton and Ségur-le-Château, where he stayed in the summer.
For 15 years, he organised the Jazz in Segur festival, which brought together great jazz musicians every year.
Part of the profits were donated to the local schools.
Health problems have kept him away for some time in recent years.
Pierre was a generous, enthusiastic and cheerful man who loved life, friends and sharing good times.
Our thoughts are with his wife Florine, his children Karyn and Thierry, and his grandchildren François and Claire.

mardi 2 juillet 2024

AGM and Transfer of the Presidency

The Annual General Meeting was held at the Clubhouse on the Domaine de Essendiéras at 7pm on Tuesday 2 July.

Alain Pouquet, President of the Rotary Club of Excideuil 2023-24, presented an overview of our activities during the Rotary year 2023-24.

He described the events that had raised funds for cancer care and treatment (Truffes en Fêtes, Octobre Rose, Movember), for brain research (Espoir en Tête), for development projects in the Ivory Coast, for the local food bank, and for bursaries for young talent.
He also noted the friendly social visits during the year to La Durantie (hosted by Alain et Marie-Odile) and to Pommes Meylim (hosted by Patrick).
He invited Christine Defraisse to present the €5,000 cheque to Professor Gérard Carmena, Director of the Bergonié Institute in Bordeaux.
He passed the President's collar to Stephen Dunnett, who became the new President of the 2024-25 club, and who gave a brief outline of his presidency.

The evening continued with a convivial meal for club members and their partners, with guests Marie-Laure Lacoste, the mayor of Excideuil; Floris Bakker, owner of Domaine d'Essendieras; Prof. Gérard Carmena, director of Institût Bergonié; and Quentin Charlat and Laurent Davanon, the golf club's chefs. We all thanked Floris for the warm welcome he and his team extended to us during this magnificent meal.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator.

Friday, 19 April 2024

Décès of Michel Lionnet (1945-2024)

Alain Pouquet, President of the Rotary Club of Excideuil, regrets to announce the sudden death of club member Michel Lionnet. Michel was one of the club's founding members in 2009 and has served as President in the past. Michel took part in our last statutory meeting on 9 April and shared with us the pleasure of presenting a gift to a student on a Professional Mechanical Bac, for the ingenuity of his project and its realisation (see the following news item).

A ceremony will be held at the Saint Yrieix la Perche crematorium on Tuesday 23 April at 11am.

Alain Pouquet and all the members of the club send their sincere condolences to his family and join them in their great sadness.

Michel, on le 9 avril 2024,
10 days before his passing.

Un projet impressionant ... et éco.

Marius Tisseyre, a secondary school student in the Bac-Pro
mechanical engineering option at the Lycée Bernard Claveille
in Périgueux, received a donation of Bernard Claveille in
Périgueux received a donation of 250 euros from Alain Pouquet,
President of the Excideuil Rotary Club, to support his
technological project to transform into a rechargeable hybrid solex.

The cheque presentation ceremony took place at the Domaine

d'Essendiéras as part of the club's statutory meeting.

At the end of the school year, as part of the vocational baccalaureate exams, Marius will present the various stages of the project, from design to production, including the manufacture of certain mechanical parts and the adaptation of the Solex hybrid's electrical components.

We wish him well-deserved success.

Tuesday,9 April 2024

Saturday, 27 January 2024.

Truffes en Fête. What a wonderful afternoon, with a visit to the truffle farm at Saint-Jory-lès-Blois, the delicious flavours of the farmers' market and culinary workshops, and the super-interesting olfactory workshop on how to choose the best truffles at the market (all you have to do is answer: it's the smell!).

Et puis la soirée avec le grand diner gastronomique créé par le chef Nicolas Rousseau du restaurant Le Chabrol (menu ici), servi par les membres de notre club et les étudiants de l'école de cuisine de Savignac-les-Eglises (a qui nous envoyons un très grand merci), et le tout dégusté dans une grande convivialité avec nos amis proches et lointains.

Tout en soutien de l'Institut Bergonié contre le cancer. [ télécharger flyer ] [ contact ]

21 & 23 December 2023

Ananas du coeur.

We had great success this year with our sale of

pineapples for the benefit of actions carried out in

their countries of origin, Côte d'Ivoire.

This annual event has always been the passion of our friend and long-term member of our club, Michel Deuve, who recently passed away. We continue this action in his memory.

In spite of the bad weather, sales were strong at both the market in Excideuil on Thursday 20 and in Lanouaille on Saturday 2.

The pineapples this year were particularly sweet and we were completely sold out by 10:30 on Saturday morning.

Congratulations to the entire team that participated in the sale!

In 2010 (when it was just 1 year old), the club decided to take action to
help Haiti, which had just suffered a terrible earthquake in January 2010,
as part of our international project.

We had the opportunity to make contact with a religious congregation, the Sœurs de la Sainte Union, based in Douai, which ran a girls' school in Saint Michel de l'Attalaye in Haiti. We were able to send donations collected through our actions, which were used to buy equipment for the classrooms and uniforms for the children, again through Sister Marie Dominique Quivron of the congregation, which gave us the certainty that our donations would reach the school safely...

October 2023

For 6 years we were in contact with the headmistress of the school, Sister Jean Jo, who never failed to thank us and send us photos of the school, and with whom we exchanged our New Year's greetings every year. She was a woman of incredible strength and boundless generosity whom I greatly admired...

In 2016, another congregation took over and it wasn't possible to establish a link with the new headmistress,
and then we no longer had our relay in Douai...

Haiti may not be making the headlines, but the situation is dramatic, if not totally desperate!
As you can read, the congregation has had to put an end to its missions in Haiti.

I'd like us to spare a thought for the little girls, now young women, with whom we had this link,
who are currently experiencing a more than dramatic situation...