Tabler - Winter 2021

BLER BEYOND GOOD George Peasgood’s Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games

GROWING UP, AND GLOWING UP Glen McGuiness speaks on life and recently going on to win Glow Up Ireland EVENTS ARE POSSIBLE Hartlepool Round Table is renowned for it’s crazy annual beer festival Winter 2021 www.roundtable.co.uk

TRYING TIMES, AND TABLE Table was there for support CRYPTO: PROS AND CONS Should you dabble?

EDITORIAL TEAM EDITOR

Adam Baggs (Cirencester 286) region13@roundtable.org.uk

DEPUTY EDITOR

Tom Hall (www.newwordorder.org.uk)

NATIONAL COMMS OFFICER

Liam Bauckham media@roundtable.org.uk

DESIGNER

Clare Ferris (clar3ferris@gmail.com)

Contents There was Fireworks.................................... 4 Table News................................................... 6

INSPIRING INDIVIDUALS

George Peasgood........................................ 19 Glen McGuiness........................................ 23

GOING DIGITAL

It was the month before Christmas, and all through the land not a creature was stirring except… the awesome Tablers doing Santa sleigh, food banks, Christmas trees and more.

Gadget Roundup....................................... 27 Crypto Pros and Cons............................... 28 Pro Video................................................... 30 Tabler.World............................................... 31

You guys rock, and are continuing to do such great work – day after day. I have tried to include some of that in this issue, so read on. It sits alongside what I believe is our most diverse content to date, enjoy.

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

As if you aren’t already doing enough, now is the time to step up and Do More, which is why I want to remind members that the call has gone out this week for Board nominations. It is a great opportunity and an honour to be a part of the team that will help shape Table for both current and future members. I think I might even throw my hat in the ring!

On the subject of dedicating time, this magazine wouldn’t be possible without your content, so keep it coming. However, I could do with some extra support on the editorial side. You don’t need to be a writer or journalist, just passionate about Table and able to help source and chase down great stories.

Have a great Christmas, keep supporting your communities, and we will see you in the New Year.

Yours In Table

Baggsie

Trying Times, and Table............................ 33 Start with the low hanging fruit............... 36 Matt Fallon................................................ 38

AT YOUR LEISURE

Get Back..................................................... 40 Spaghetti Cabonara................................... 42

TRAVEL & EVENTS

National events.......................................... 44 From the IRO............................................ 46

ROUND TABLE FAMILY

Ladies Circle.............................................. 48 41 Club....................................................... 49 Members Businesses'................................. 50 Gallery....................................................... 53

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From the editor

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there was FIreworks Paul Thompson Looks back on a successful fireworks season, which you could say went off with a bang pounds will now benefit local good causes. Wow, simply WOW! A breath-taking amount and will make a difference to thousands of lives.

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What a Fireworks season that was! It literally blew all previous records out of the sky.

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Tables are reporting record attendances and mega amounts of money being raised for local communities.

For example, the guys in Welling Round Table announced a sensational £103,500 profit from their event this year, whilst Solihull Round Table raised a whopping £95,000 and Farnham Round Table smashed their local record by raising a gargantuan £64,000 surplus.

So, between three Tables, over a quarter of a million

Some would say, “Not bad for a night’s work!!”. However, we all know the reality is that it’s much more than just the night itself.

The countless hours of planning and preparations which go into making our events such a success is the reason they do so well.

This year, more than any, has seen such an overwhelming level of level of gratitude from those who attended. Facebook pages have been inundated with ‘thank yous’ and praise. Your local community is grateful for what you have done this year. Be proud and enjoy the applause.

But now, It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Before we rest on our laurels, we’ve all got a job to do over the festive season and Round Tables all over the country have already started to bring out the big guy in the red suit. Streets are filled with the sounds of Christmas classics by Michael Buble, Slade and Shakin Stevens and are lightened up with the smiles of thousands of children.

Our illuminated sleighs bring a small piece of Yuletide magic to the doorsteps of many and entertainment is provided in the form of singing Santas and naughty elves.

the enchantment of Christmas whilst sharing that joy with others – strangers and friends united to catch a glimpse of the expectant visitor from the North Pole.

Sleigh bells will be ringing as you walk the streets and I hope that this is only surpassed by the sound of change and donations dropping into your collection buckets.

We have a lot to celebrate this year and should take the opportunity over Christmas to congratulate ourselves, our Table friends and those around us for what we have achieved. It is an absolute privilege to be your National President this year and I applaud the community impact of our amazing, awesome and inspiring movement.

Whilst this is a giant step outside of what we all do professionally (and often a leap in to the cold dark nights), I guarantee you that every Tabler secretly (or not so secretly in my case) looks forward with excitement to this time of year. Our opportunity to relive

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year. Let’s hope that 2022 is even bigger, and better!

Tables are reporting record attendances and mega amounts of money being raised for local communities.

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table news

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Events are possible, whilst Covid19 continues to linger

It has been running as part of its annual events programme for the past 25 years. It’s hosted in the marvellous surroundings of the Hartlepool Borough Hall on the Headland, an area steeped in a history of making do and doing good.

In 1914, the Headland was the first British Town to be attacked by German Warships in the Great War. With extensive damage and hundreds of casualties, the townsfolk refused to give up. Local men scrambled to sign up for the war, 22,000 to be exact (92,000 populous) and over £545m was raised for the war fund, the most money per head of population of any place in the British Empire for the war effort.

With all that said, not unlike most of Round Table in Great Britain & Ireland, we cancelled the the majority of our plans in 2020, not something we are used to, but

on the merits of what was right.

what you are doing!

Role onto March 2021, and with Covid19 still heavily on the agenda, we had decisions to make about our up-and-coming events calendar, specifically the Hartlepool Beer Festival.

So, organise what you know.

Don’t change what works in a difficult climate. Stick to what you know best.

With around 1,200 people attending a single room event over a two-day period, large quantities of alcohol, large groups of dancing and a requirement to raise funds through local company donations, looking back now, it seemed too much.

But in the true Round Table fashion, we knew what we had to do, and, most of all; we knew the people of Hartlepool needed it.

And what was the outcome?

A record-breaking year in every area. A sell out on both nights, the most beer we have ever sold on record, the most sponsors we have ever recruited, the most money we have ever raised and the most compliments we have ever had! All with no Covid spikes attributed to our event!

An Absolute RESULT! Setting about an event in difficult times is no mean feat, but remember, as much as Round Table is about doing things you wouldn’t normally do, you are a bunch of professionals who know

Plan in advance. Ensure you have plenty of time to organise your event. Remember the six Ps: Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Get others onboard. In the current climate, your local council is your best friend. Use them, discuss plans with them and work with them, but don’t be afraid to challenge their thought process, ensure you are able to back up yours!

Be up front with your suppliers.

Last-minute changes may be required.

Be cautious, but don’t spoil the event by being too cautious And finally, ask questions of others. Having been a Tabler for over fifteen years, If I’ve learnt anything it’s that you are not alone. If one of us is asking it, another has been there and done it!

The world will continue to be cautious, but our local charities need us more than ever. So gents, big boy pants on, it’s time to start the event train!

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If Hartlepool Round Table is renowned for anything, it’s the crazy annual beer festival event.

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Thornbury does a Drive-In Cinema The past 18 months have been one of the most challenging periods we have all faced. Even when you narrow it down to aspects of everyday life, like keeping our Table ticking over has brought its own challenges, says Rocco Cerullo of Thornbury RT

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How do we maintain our membership? How do we continue to provide community engagement and support? How do we make sure we can still raise and contribute much needed funds to local causes?

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Nevertheless, as a team, we took a grip on our ideas and tried. That’s all we could do in such unprecedented times. Since the pandemic started, we followed the activities of other Tables and took inspiration from them to make sure we provided a platform for our members to continue to support the community and maintain

that much needed social contact as friends.

We gained four new members who were passionate and keen to get involved. The unfortunate reality that we had to cancel our fireworks event in 2020, meant we didn’t raise the funds we normally would have. And despite a record-breaking Santa Sleigh season, we needed more funds.

Why? As a table we took the decision we wanted to support the town’s initiative to have defibrillators added to certain locations. Over the past year we heard a lot about the drive-in cinema that Ilfracombe RT had invested in. Whilst running their own events, they provided their kit and services to other Tables to run similar events. After a few discussions, spit balling ideas, we took the vote to go for it and give it a try. We knew it would give us a community engagement opportunity and raise a few quid in the process.

On the weekend of 17 September, Thornbury RT hosted their first DriveIn Cinema, supported by the local cricket club who provided access to their open space for the set up and their club house for public use. The opening saw us kick off the show with The Greatest Showman and with 50 cars on site, it was a great showing. The second night, we turned to a cult classing with Back to The Future with 34 cars in attendance.

Simon, one of our newest members, who took on the task as coordinator, had this to say: ‘’We felt it was

important to bring something to the community to enjoy in a safe environment. Community engagement is a big part for us as Round Table. After the year we’ve had, the drive-in cinema was something that would be fun, unique and safe. To have made a profit and raised much needed funds to go toward a defibrillator is a huge bonus.’’

Our chairman Stephen Hales kicked-off proceedings with a round of bingo, and finished the night with a raffle, with prizes donated by many local businesses, who showed great support to our cause. A major supporter of the event was the Cricket club’s Dad’s Dinner Club who fund raise for local causes too.

When they heard what we were doing, they pledged £1,150 towards the defibrillator cause. We were blown away by their support.

Stephen Hales, Thornbury Round Table Chairman, said: ‘’We are blown away by the support we received by those who attended and by local businesses with their raffle prize donations. Particularly the Cricket Club dad’s club for donating such a huge amount towards our cause.

We now have the majority of the funds to go towards the defibrillator.

We are also pleased that a working defibrillator was donated to us to redistribute alongside the one we will buy and allocate within the community’’.

The event was a success and received so much positive feedback that we are already looking ahead at the next event. Our target was to raise £2,000 to put towards the cost of defibrillator. After the weekend we made a net profit of £1,900, which will go a long way in ensuring a defibrillator is purchased

Dickie' bows at the ready

In order to follow on with their charity activities during the pandemic, Penistone Round Table 1094 decided to pull together a group of volunteers from the community to field the many calls for help being received from members of the public.

They set up a telephone “action line” to connect members of the public with an army of volunteers, who would deliver prescriptions

BIGGEST ATTENDANCE YET! Oxford Round Table celebrated its 53rd display with the largest turnout of supporters yet. The event, which is hosted at South Park in central Oxford, attracted 25,000 people and generated £195,000 in sales.This resulted in £70,000 in profit.

The Event saw the first outing of a new ticketing system, which delivered a huge upswing in presales. This reinforced the fact that there was a real hunger from the people of Oxfordshire and beyond to attend, and also demonstrated the qualities of the TicketCo system.

and make food deliveries during lockdown.

“We were particularly concerned with the risk for people who might otherwise slip through the nets,” explained Jon Gilbert Chairman of Penistone Round Table. “These amazing volunteers provided the extra cover we needed.”

The awards evening itself was of the top order, pushing the boundaries of local community achievement and highlighting the brilliant work carried out across the borough. Several of the introductory speeches were of a good length but were always on point. Dickie Bird’s speech in particular deserves a mention. He padded up on stage to rapturous applause. Many of his jokes left guests in creases and few would declare there was a more fitting recipient of his award.

While the drinks flowed into the evening, Penistone Round Table decided to duck out before reaching the silly point of the night. All round, it was a great Table night to remember.

In true Table style we were thrown a series of curve balls and glitches that impacted our ability to take card payments. We are confident that our numbers would have been higher without these issues, but are still over the moon with the result.

National Fireworks Champions (and local supplier) Illusion Fireworks once again produced a spectacular show, carefully choreographed to music. As always, the members of Oxford 144 and the volunteers built another epic bonfire.

After making a loss in 2019 due to the weather, and the pandemic meaning no event in 2020, the Fireworks committee and members of Oxford 144 were delighted with this year’s outcome.

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Penistone Round Table 1094 were shortlisted for a Proud of Barnsley Award and attended a glitzy awards ceremony on Friday 19 November. The event was attended by the great and the good from Barnsley, including local legend and former international umpire Dickie Bird.

OXFORD FIREWORKS

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Roll Up, Roll Up for The Greatest Show On 6 November, Peebles & District Round Table Chairman David Aikman donned his Ringmasters top hat and tails to start Peebles Firework display in front of an incredibly excited crowd in Victoria Park, Peebles. By the end of the night £7,200 had been raised for two local Charities

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The event, which has grown over the years with support from main sponsors Stobo Castle Health Spa, was a triumph and one of the largest public displays in the South of Scotland.

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For 2021 Peebles & District chose to support Peeblesshire Youth Trust (PYT) and Peeblesshire Foodbank, both worthy local charities which have deep roots in the Peebles Community.

In particular, we chose to support PYT by funding the preparation of Christmas Hampers for local families with children under 16 who may be struggling financially. Last year PYT delivered 120 hampers across

Tweeddale and spread Christmas cheer to families in need. We hope to be able to support them in delivering significantly more at Christmas 2021.

The Foodbank is a modern-day essential part of Peebles, and we have previously funded the purchase of a trolley to help speed up the movement of goods around the Foodbank, we were glad to be able to continue to support this key community asset.

Peebles & District Round Table has been working with Sarah Keen from Peeblesshire Youth Trust and she was kind enough to provide us a bit more background on what PYT does: “Peeblesshire Youth Trust was established in 2009 to help support the transition of a young person from primary school to Peebles High School. The charity has grown year on year and now supports over 50 young people across Tweeddale every year through group work; one-to-one and peer mentoring; and projects delivered with other local organisations.”

“PYT aims to support the emotional wellbeing of our young people by helping to boost confidence, self-esteem and resilience whilst encouraging positive friendships, teamwork and communication.”

“These projects have been vital to encourage positive mental health for young people especially over the last couple of years since the fire at Peebles High School and more so during lockdowns and Covid restrictions.”

“We are hugely grateful to Peebles and District Round Table for supporting us through their fireworks display at a time where we are working with more young people than ever before, and planning to deliver more hampers than in previous years. These donations will be critical to us being able to help all those in need and enable us to make a difference to the lives of many local families.”

Community OfFIcers Update NATIONAL COMMUNITY OFFICER

Hey Fellow Tablers, In my last report I was writing about how tables were starting to wake up and think about hosting events, now we have already had a recordbreaking firework season, Children in Need has passed and Santa Sleighs have started! I’m absolutely loving seeing all the social media posts and hearing stories from Tables who are smashing it out of the park!

I have to make a special mention to our friends from ‘Roon’ Table Scotland’ who have sprung into action after Storm Arwen obliterated their local towns and villages. If I were wearing a hat at the moment, I would be taking it off to you. You have shown what Tablers are about.

It’s only bloody December! Where on earth has this year gone?!

So, we are now into sleigh season, Tables are out in your local communities bringing smiles to faces and raising thousands of monies for charity. Please do keep the social media posts coming, this is the time of year we are most visible. I also urge you to use this opportunity to spread the word about what else we do all year round, capitalise on your visibility to help grow membership.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be sending out different surveys, these revolve around not only funds raised, but volunteer time and how the money is spent in your communities.

I need as much information as possible please guys, this will allow me to put together an impact statement in time for AGM which will really showcase what we are about and the true impact we have in our community. So when the

surveys hit your inbox please do complete them for me. I don’t want to extrapolate the data, I want to use true and accurate information provided by you, our members.

Just to give you an example of the sort of numbers we hit, I’ve had responses from 141 tables from my PRS licence survey.

Those tables are doing a combined 1,572 sleigh nights!

Let that sink in for a moment, then consider each night is usually around three hours.

The number of volunteer hours is mind blowing!

This is the story I want to tell so my call to arms is for you to help me gather even more information. I could probably

go on for a lot longer but Baggsie would probably tell me off for using too many inches!

Column inches lads, get your minds out of the gutter!

So as I sign off I’d like to thank you all for your support since I became community officer in May and to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.

Yours in Table Al

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AL COLLINS

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Storm support What does Round Table do in a category 2 storm? Chris Minchin from Westhill and District explains

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16:30 on Friday, sitting at work I got a call from my wife saying the power had gone out, it was already pretty windy so with two children under five terrorising my wife and a 30-minute drive home, I ducked out early and headed to a lockup to grab the Table generator (this was currently on loan to one of the guys in Banchory Round Table as he has taken up coffee roasting! (least that’s what he says he is doing with big hessian sacks with “COLUMBIA”)

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Snow, rain, branches and 90mph wind, the drive home took an hour, it was lit with the occasional spark as transformers along the route were blowing. At home I got the generator going, put the fire on, dragged in a load of logs and settled the kids.

8pm, Fraser, a fellow Tabler, called. The local care home they cover had a tree come down onto the building and blocked the emergency

access. He was looking for the local farmer’s number for tractor assistance, and a chainsaw. A few phone calls to round some guys up and in the height of the storm, the tree was made quick work of and emergency access restored.

The next day was spent looking over the damage, chatting to neighbours and hooking up the generator to Stewart next door.... “Stewart, it’s a 2kw genny, go easy on it, we have 1kw each,” I said.

Two minutes later the lights went out, Stewart appears over the fence: “What happened Stewart?”

“I just put the kettle on!”. Cue a short lesson on working out the wattage of different electrical items

and everything was sorted... Well, for 30 minutes until he fancied some toast!

Fraser, asked for a hand holding a ladder while he fixed a hole in his neighbours roof... I obliged, loosely!

Coming into the 2nd night of no power or heating the local dads WhatsApp group started to chatter about it getting cold and thinking about leaving for hotels or relatives, we reached out to a number of neighbours who don’t have fire places or gennys and it quickly became apparent that some people were in quite a grim situation.

A few calls to pull favours in from clients at work

Snow, rain, branches and 90mph wind 5:45am the next morning the phone rang: “Yeah we are too cold now and we have a 5 month-old baby” 8am and they were into a nice warm flat, by 12pm, 12 families were relocated from the village, warm and showered.

Sunday night came and things got worse, -5 outside and 2 degrees inside, calls off the back of the offer of accommodation started to come in but no more flats were available, the community council were contacted and a local hall that had power was made available, we head down to put the kettle on, make some sleeping bays and Neil threw out a few Facebook posts, shortly a number of people started trickling into the warmth of the place they have only even been into to vote.

Monday came and went with no power, around 3pm a call came through from someone down south concerned about her 88 year-old mother in the village. She was found to be safe but out of gas for heating up her hot water bottle, she had spent the day in the local estate office chatting but was refusing to go anywhere else than home, we managed to get some spare gas canisters and a wind up torch.

The look on her face when being shown how

to wind the torch was like Xmas had come early, the evening finished off with a trip to grab some bags of coal and drop them off to some outlying properties and let them know the council had put on a food truck. The hardest part is reaching these guys who don’t have internet, we just had to get out and knock on their doors to tell them.

This is just my account, in no way should it be read as one guy's effort. Neighbours, the estate office, the annoying person who

usually comments about pointless things on the village Facebook page, the community council and the rest of the boys in the Table all played their parts while dealing with their own stuff work and families. Together we delivered what we could in the spirit of just being decent humans.

Banchory RT can have the genny back in 2 weeks for your... ahem “Coffee” enterprise.

STORM UPDATE Banchory RT won’t let a storm interrupt Round Table’s progress Over the storm Arwen weekend we had a really tough time up in the North East.

We have lots of rural communities around us and those have now been without power since Friday. On Monday most of us in our village had regained power and water so we had a discussion about what we could do to help and the consensus was that we needed to be targeted in our approach to help those in need.

We reached out to the community through social media making contact with people who were coordinating efforts in small villages around our town. From there we identified that there was a need for hot food for around 100 people. We got to work cooking in the afternoon. And by 7pm we were delivering hot food to those who needed it.

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and one landlord offered up a number of flats in Aberdeen to be used, free of charge.

These were offered up but the usual “oh no, give them to someone else more needy, we will be fine," and the flats lay empty.

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Remembering Remembrance A moving experience on Remembrance Sunday by Archie Tipple Back in 2020 I received a WhatsApp message out of the blue from then RTBI President, Matt Eaton asking if I would do him the honour of accompanying him and a small team of eight to the Cenotaph for Remembrance Sunday.

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Out of a possible 2,500 members in this amazing organisation, I was absolutely humbled that he would choose me.

Naturally I accepted and was looking forward to the day.

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Unfortunately, it was all cancelled due to Covid19, and I thought I’d missed my chance. I was gutted for all of those due to attend, but not least for Matt as it was his Presidential year.

Roll on a few months, and I’m laughing with current RTBI Paul Thompson

about how bad we both are at shooting and he says: “Oh by the way, what’re you doing on 14 November? Only I’m aware you missed out on the Cenotaph last year and I thought I’d invite you as part of my group this year!”… Well you don’t need to ask twice!

Suddenly my phone was pinging with a new WhatsApp group. The banter in the run up to the day was incredible. The usual piss taking and ribbing, but all in good jest. And then, the

morning comes and all of a sudden, as I’m sat on the train heading to London at 7am.

I’m suddenly struck by the number of people on my train alone clearly heading to the same destination. I’m sat amongst a blind former police sergeant, a soldier with burn scars on his face and an artificial leg, two other soldiers in their regalia and I’m thinking to myself what an honour to be amongst such inspiring people. I push a Santa Sleigh and here I am about to walk

well-practiced marching stride (100 steps to the minute) and desperately trying to remember our left from our right, we finally passed the Cenotaph, paused momentarily and moved on towards Horseguards Parade.

Just as we reached the end we were given the order of: “Table Family, Eyes RIGHT!” and there on the podium was Prince William, literally a stone’s throw from us, dressed in his military gear and saluting us!

Arriving in London, I met up with the rest of the group: among some of the greatest guys in Table. Lining up to take our place in the march, we were surrounded

In the centre of a busy city, all that could be heard is the rustling of the leaves of the trees overhead. by hundreds of military personnel, supporters, volunteers and fellow Table

family members. We were admiring the uniforms, bowler hats and medals… the medals!

I will remember this for a long, long time.

Out of nowhere, the entire street fell silent. A silence you can’t describe without the hairs on your neck standing on end.

In the centre of a busy city, all that could be heard is the rustling of the leaves of the trees overhead. No scuffling of feet, no mumbling of whispers. Absolute silence.

And with it came humility, emotions and an acknowledgement that we were remembering the sacrifice of so many men and women during conflicts.

Soon enough, the canons in Horseguards Parade sounded, signalling the end of the silent tribute and the procession began. We watched so many people walk past in their regalia and we clapped for their efforts. Some of the lads got very enthusiastic when they spotted a bowler hat… You know who you are!

We then joined the march, and with

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shoulder to shoulder with these people.

An honour indeed.

Now I don’t claim to be a royalist but even I was moved by his gesture. As we gathered in the square afterwards, we all had a sense of gratitude to Paul for including us in such an incredible day.

We arrived acquaintances, and left as mates.

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Worth the wait Past National President Matt Eaton brings us up to speed

It was a long time coming.

As an organisation that thrives on fellowship, having it taken away has been hard for all.

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We have been present in our communities throughout the pandemic, but our need to be present in the same room as each other was never more important.

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When you are National President, it is tradition to put on end-of-year Ball, and this serves as a great opportunity to thank everyone for their service.

Clearly, this could not happen in March 2020.

But in discussions with our National President, Paul Thompson, we

thought the need to get people together was of the utmost importance.

recognise our Tabler of the Year, Will Green at the Ball on the Saturday.

Paul played such a big role in supporting this with a purpose to get Tablers back together again and do what we do best, and that's celebrating success and being the heroes to many a pub landlord.

But above all we were able to bring people together to showcase that Round Table is well and truly back doing face-toface events.

We were able to recognise the service and achievements of Tablers and Tables over the past two years, and the impact that’s had on them, us and our neighbours on the Friday Popworld event. We were able to

Thank you to everyone who attended and made the big get together a magical weekend.

It was a long time coming, but sometimes the best things in life are worth the wait.

Give the Greatest Christmas Gift of All! It is time to get stuck into Santa’s Sleigh First, I must wish our newest table, Mold & Buckley all the best with their new Sleigh and hope Santa’s involvement gives the Woodbridge and Framlington RT Project further momentum.

NATIONAL MEMBERSHIP & EXTENSION OFFICER CARRICK 1258 07786 735355 membership@ roundtable.org.uk We know this event probably more than any other has a massive membership draw, the magic of the sleigh, smiles, lights and music have pulled so many of us into Table!

This event is a great opportunity to sell Round Table, those two-minute chats with guys on driveways and street corners as Santa works his magic! Make sure to utilise social media to extend the hand of friendship to those taking in our festive social media feeds.

The Text “JOIN” and postcode to 60066 service is a great way of quickly providing new prospects a way to contact us, their details will come to me, ready to be forwarded to their local Tables.

From my experience, young dads remember the magic of the sleigh, so make the most of the

opportunity to interact and put Round Table at the forefront of their thinking as something positive to get involved with.

Then as we hit the dark days of January, February and March be prepared to be the light in the dark, have that programme ready to go and sell it out on the streets of your community this Christmas.

You create the prospects and then it is time to bring them on as Tablers, how long to wait? For me three or four meetings sounds about right!

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case with guys being signed up after a year or even more

involved in local Round Tables.

If giving the Round Table gift this Christmas, make sure it is the full version, saving a few pounds on your capitation just produces two tiers of Tablers.

In closing, maximise the opportunity from your Christmas Events this year, and give guys the gift we all enjoy, the privilege to call ourselves Tablers!

Where there is a buzz there are members to be found, I’m off to give some prospects a call.

Get in touch should you need help to get buzzing, I’m always about to talk Table!

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ANDREW THORNE

The membership leads that our Sleigh’s produce, highlights the local opportunities of Round Table and is an important opportunity to grow our membership.

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Inspiring individuals

BEYOND GOOD Tabler discusses the trials, tribulations and ecstatic moments of George Peasgood’s Tokyo2020 Paralympic Games, and how he got a little bit of help from Round Table

Honestly, it was amazing. It is quite hard to describe but I will try.

To have such a build up to an event is one thing, to have that build up (usually) every four years is another, then to have that event delayed a year gives it even more emphasis. Throw in a few medals into the emotional mix and it’s something I will never forget.

Now, post-Games, I am just so appreciative of the love and support from all of my friends, family and followers. It has been a pretty rough year physically and mentally, so to be able to relax and

just think about what I have done is a bit overwhelming but fills me with joy.

Did the races go to plan? How tough was it?

In all honesty, the Triathlon didn't go as expected. I had been very carefully managing quite a bad bone stress and arthritic ankle since May. So, my run training wasn’t even 10% the level it ’should’ have been in the 3.5 months into the Paralympics. So given that, I didn’t have much faith in my running, going into the games, and it was only a week or two before my race I thought I could still deliver something to be proud of.

Consequently, the triathlon went far, far better than I could have imagined. The swim was really good then getting onto

the bike I had a few issues with my bike shoe and also my bike drink bottle. But in a triathlon, there are so many external and influencing parts, it is very rare to have a race that would go to plan and I haven’t had a triathlon race yet where everything has gone perfectly.

The cycling races went almost identically to how I had imagined, which makes me very content with the results of both.

Other than getting the two medals, what was the best moment of the Paralympics?

One of the best moments was after the Triathlon. Once I had cooled down, had my medal presentation, got back to the hotel, we were then joined by some of the other staff members. We spoke about my

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Congratulations on the two medals…

What an amazing race to watch. How did it feel?

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race, how I found it, what happened and them reminisced about where I had come from following my injury. The people in that room were some of my core support team who all helped me get the medal, so it was really nice for them to hear my raw emotions and gave me a chance to thank them too.

What was it like to be a part of Paralympics GB? Being a part of the ParalympicsGB team at a Paralympics is like nothing else and an honour. It is somewhat similar to being in secondary school, in that your ‘form’ is your sport, but now picture your school having over 20 forms per year group and you only ever really see another form every four years. It's a massive family that comes together. There is so much mutual respect, it doesn’t matter if you are at your first games for experience of have just won a gold medal, everyone is treated the same and is as important as one another.

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What did you like most about Tokyo?

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What I loved most was the culture and how kind the Japanese people are. We had so much help and support when we were at our preparation camp and Miyazaki.

The local prefecture did everything to help us train and be best prepared, every think was about us as athletes being in the best possible shape for our race day.

Having competed in Japan many times before, I have experienced the kindness on every trip.

What got you into triathlons?

I started triathlon back in 2010. My family has been involved since 2007 after my father had a stress fracture in training for the London Marathon. As a part of his rehab, he joined the local triathlon club so he could keep some fitness

through swimming and cycling. I joined the Saffron Walden junior triathlon club the year after I had major surgery to my leg. To be honest, I mainly started to get out on a Saturday morning and do some sport but also to see what the fuss was about after having watched my brother and parents compete in the sport for the three-years prior. From there, the head coach Derek Jones had contact with British triathlon to see if I was classifiable within para triathlon. So in late 2011, I went to Loughborough for a talent identification day and came out with a classification and ultimately a position within the Para Triathlon Affiliate/Talent program. I wouldn't be where I was today if it wasn't for my family starting the triathlon journey back in 2007.

Who were your inspirations?

I had many inspirational influences growing up, a lot of which were my family or the people around me. There

was never one particular person because there are so many. As I followed my footsteps into triathlon, there were a few people who I looked up to as a younger

Having competed in two sports in Tokyo, have you ever been tempted to switch primary sport?

So yes, I competed in the Tri and both road-cycling events (time trial and road race). I medalled in the Tri (silver) and Cycling Time Trial (bronze). Cycling is something that is a major part of a triathlon race and for a sprint race can take up to half of the overall racing time, therefore it’s a very influential part of training and I do train specifically to be able to time trial because of the way in which I race a triathlon.

It is because of this I am pretty good

at the cycling element which made it a possibility to compete in two sports at Tokyo2020. I have done three World Championships within cycling on the Velodrome and on the road, it is something I enjoy and further down the line may take up as my primary sport, but for now I am sticking with triathlon as my main goal is winning the triathlon in Paris2024. Obviously, showing how good I am competing across two sports I would again like to compete in two sports in Paris2024, but we will just have to see how I go and if I manage to gain selection for the team again.

Quick plug for SWRT - how have they supported you?

SWRT have been a big influence over the years with friends and family being involved. They have helped share my story, improve my networking and I love to give back to them for the support they give me. Back at the last Saffron Walden

Carnival Corporate night I had one of my racing triathlon suits framed to be sold at auction which did very well and it was a blessing to be a part of that event.

How tough was it to balance training for the Paralympics during the last few years.

Balancing training is a difficult task and a lot of people fail at being able to do it well. Excluding other things in life, just balancing training, there is a very fine line between; 1) training enough to progress fitness, 2) training to maintain fitness, 3) enjoying the training you do and the big negative, 4) training too much and being fatigued or getting chronic training fatigue.

It’s a line of which I have been on the wrong side of before and it’s also hard to judge in the moment when is a good time to push through and keep going or to give your body the rest it’s calling

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triathlete. These people showed the mindset and passion that I believed to be winning behaviours. These people aren't necessarily the ones that have won the most medals or achieve the most. It is their behaviours I try to replicate in my training and competitions.

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for. Along with the balance of training itself, I was studying a part-time degree, albeit very relaxed and my training always took priority. My part-time degree was something I wanted to do in Loughborough and despite not being as busy as others studying, it was always on my mind.

Loughborough. Moving back home meant I was able to keep a physio routine with my mum (who is a private physiotherapist), use the home gym, have better options for swim style training and also meant I could be in a larger space in the countryside with my parents who made it all very easy.

Finally, we are all human and sociable beings, we love interaction with each other and spending time with people, so to try and manage the down time to see friends and family is something I struggle with and have in the past too. With such an event like the Paralympics, it’s very easy to push everything to the side and purely focus on one thing but that isn’t healthy and it is tough to still allow yourself to do other things, especially before a massive event such as the Paralympics.

With the restricted access to things and knowing racing wouldn’t happen for a while, my coaching team and I decided to try and push on in my running training and make that a huge focus for the year.

I improved pretty quickly and over the time have taken over a minute off my 5km run time. I almost feel guilty saying that COVID had a positive impact on my training, but truthfully it did and I just made the absolute best out of the horrible situation.

What impact did Covid19 have on your training?

What’s next for you? Will the two medals change much?

As soon as we went into ‘lockdown’ I moved back home, without the access an elite athlete is so used to in

The two medals this year in Tokyo change nothing, my goal over the next three years and in Paris is to be on the top step and

win a gold medal in Paris2024. Getting a silver and a bronze only heighten the desire to achieve the ultimate goal for me.

There will be a lot of small steps I want to achieve along the way but all will be in learning to try and deliver on a single day for one race in Paris.

You are an inspiration to all, you have shown how it is possible to break barriers and achieve at the highest level.

What is the one piece of advice you can offer to our members looking to achieve their own goals?

The one thing I can say which has really helped me, which some readers may be able to guess after reading the above, is enjoy it. Set a goal you want and that you will enjoy trying to achieve. Far too many people set goals or want to do jobs they don't really want to be doing or don't enjoy and that's when it becomes a task and drains you. If you like what you do then it becomes relatively easy to; get up in the morning, to put the graft and time in, to do all you can to achieve that end goal. I am only good at what I do because I enjoy it. There can be a lot of days where I am down or haven’t had a good session but then it’s easy to think about it and remember why I'm doing this.

GROWING UP, AND GLOWING UP An interview with a gay makeup artist from Dublin might seem like an odd choice for Tabler magazine. However, Table is about individuals coming together to share experiences, support each other and our communities, says Adam Baggs

Glen McGuiness’s story is certainly one to inspire - growing up in one of Dublin’s less affluent districts, with little support from parents; coming out as gay, searching for a career that would allow his artistic talents to flourish - then most recently going on to win Glow Up Ireland. His is a story that is rooted in the community where he grew up and the family that have been there throughout.

Before we start – a couple of quick notes…

• The Liberties: the area of Dublin that almost all Tablers will know as the

home of Guinness.

• Glow Up Ireland: The Irish version of the hit make up competition - think Bake Off with lipstick rather than flour We start by discussing Glen’s background and local community: “To be honest its very simple, it was a story I tried to tell on Glow Up but was largely edited out. My father simply wasn’t around – to this day he knows my address and always has done but is just not there.

My mother on the other hand was an addict who was unable to raise her own children. Looking back, I know now it was neglect and abuse. However, my grandmother saved my life, little-by-little, day-by-day she took over bringing me

up. It went from visiting after school to sleep overs and then one day I realised I was never going back. Alongside Annie (grandmother) I had this wealth of other positive and supportive women, particularly my Aunty Ann, collectively they stepped in to fill the breach and raise me, my brother and sister.”

“The Liberties, where I grew up, is the strangest place in the world. On the one hand it’s like a country town, full of people who all know each other and everyone’s business; on the other there is the rough atmosphere of gangs, drugs and homophobia. It’s changing dramatically through a combination of investment and new blood – it really is a strange melting pot of negative and positive.”

You would think coming out as gay in

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When I relaunched Tabler, I wanted inspirational stories from inspirational individuals – whether they are Tablers or not - to be the core element around which we build the rest of the magazine.

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such a place would have been particularly tough for Glen. But he again points to Annie and Ann as his biggest supporters:

until the teachers apologised and I came back. That community still exists today all throughout the Liberties.

“They never even questioned it. I remember Annie coming on Pride march with me. She was nearly seventy and using a walking stick – this tiny Liberties woman proud of me and my friends, taking pictures of all the drag queens – it was a brilliant time and I am just sorry she wasn’t around a few years later to see the gay marriage vote pass. Ann was there though – she came to everything and still does. She is the one person who knew I was going on Glow Up and was behind me all the way.”

As this is for Tabler, we move on to talking about the men in his family. “As I said I don’t even think about my father and to be honest the family is mostly fairly loud women. The men though are strong and supportive in their own way – they slag me a bit but in a positive way that makes me know they are there for me when needed.” We chat a little about Table and the banter we all share, and it seems a fairly similar situation. When Glen talks about slagging it’s that kind of grief you can give and receive from your Table mates – but if anyone else tries it they will back you up and be there for you.

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During our interview I told Glen about “Rooted in Community” and he said that he sees the positive sides of community everywhere – and it has been vital to his wellbeing: “I remember going into the last day of school in full drag make-up – it was prank day so should have been legitimate because I was still in uniform. However, I was sent home – my whole class rebelled

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Glen moves on to talk about his creative journey and the fact that an LGBT youth group got him interested in costumes, which in turn led to fashion college then university. Then, a book on special effects, make-up and prosthetics given to

him by one of his many cousins inspired him to switch degree and focus on makeup. However, qualifying in Covid19 lockdowns with social distancing put everything on hold so he became a baker instead: “Bloody Covid!”

Despite the frustration of not being able to work in professional make-up Glen continued to spend his spare time doing online makeup, sharing looks on Instagram, which is where he found out about Glow Up Ireland: “I just love competition TV – bake-off etc they are all on Netflix and I was frustrated not to be able to apply for Glow Up in the UK as I lived in Dublin. Then the show crossed the Irish Sea and there was a chance to get out of baking.”

“The auditions were really tough,” Glen laments. “Application forms, timed videos of looks on myself and models, all the time talking through the process and about myself. To be honest I think it was the slightly dark humoured personal stuff I discussed with one of the models that caught their eye.”

Glen feels it was his chameleon energy that set him apart from the other competitors. “We all had different core skills that we brought to the show and understandably some of the other competitors kept going back to what they knew and were good at. However, I tried something new every single time. It was a gamble but it paid off.”

To the viewer it appeared that Glen had a lot to say about each of his designs but the edit cut it out. “Yeah, I talked about a lot of stuff to camera, how each design was related to different struggles in my life – such as the moth theme in the first episode. Everyone loves a beautiful butterfly, but until Annie rescued me, I felt ugly and unloved like the moth. Or the show where I drew eyes all over my face as part of a theme focused on inner darkness – apparently I have my mothers eyes, which is why I disliked them. Now though, I see things differently and love and respect them because they are mine.”

Filming finished on the 7 August but the winner wasn’t announced until 21

October. The whole family gathered to watch the final and Glen found himself hiding in the toilet during the ad breaks so no-one would ask him questions and spoil the surprise. “Celebrating the win with family and friends was far better than finding out when on set. At that point it was two finalists, two judges and a COVID secure film crew – hardly a big celebration. Seeing the expression on the faces of family and friends, seeing how proud they were of me validated so many things. It also felt like a chance to show

them how much they meant to me and to thank them for so many years of support.”

Glen’s is clearly a story of inspiration, of someone stepping out of their perceived comfort zone and actively choosing to be different. As Tablers there is a lot we can learn from this, particularly in terms of mental strength, particularly in terms of looking for support from those around us and particularly in terms of that community we are all ultimately rooted in.

Glen is now working for a leading makeup firm, doing freelance work and film shoot work. His exact future is unclear but his advice to others including us Tablers seeking to emulate him when it comes to breaking moulds and being different is very clear. “Just do it, get on with it and the people that love and support you will follow you and be there for you. You find out very fast who matters when you try to be different, sure it will be culture shock for some but they will get over it. If not – meh – that’s their problem not yours.”

An interview with a celeb make-up artist provided an opportunity to ask for a few grooming tips. Not that I expect many Tablers to get to point four…

1. If you are balding, shave it off.

Your head isn’t that ugly so don’t fight it. (Dickie Holland has been all over this for years) 2. Beard oil is a genuine thing and worth investing in. All that shaving damages the skin and it will help.

3. Invest in a moisturiser containing SPF. Look after your skin, it’s the only one you have and the sun kills it.

4. Colour correction creams are great and really useful if you get red cheeks, noses etc (perfect for post sleigh skin care).

Photography credits: RTE and Ruth Medjber

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Glen’s is clearly a story of inspiration, of someone stepping out of their perceived comfort zone and actively choosing to be different.

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Going digital

NINTENDO SWITCH OLED CONSOLE

PHILIPS SMARTSLEEP WAKE-UP LIGHT

Tablers will be familiar with the iconic Nintendo brand, but what’s its latest offering?

The successor to the hugely popular original Nintendo Switch is an OLED, slimmer and more vivid version, with greater contrast.

The device still offers the Joy-Con controllers attached so you can play against your friends and family no matter where you are.

If you’re not a morning person, then it’s rarely a ‘good morning’. Instead of being jarred awake by an unpleasant sound, this device will allow you to gently rise by mimicking natural sunlight. With both sunrise and sunset simulation, it can change colour - becoming increasingly light for 30 minutes ahead of the time they need to wake up. There’s also the choice of five natural sounds including Forest Birds, Buddha, Yoga, Ocean Waves and Nepal Bowls and FM radio.

ARGOS

Philips

£309.99

£139.99

MATE X FOLDABLE ELECTRIC BIKE Cycling became the go-to activity during lockdown. Could it be time to take your hobby to the next level?

Electric bikes have become the choice for technolophiles due to their ease and speed. These are bikes that are kitted out with motors and our favourite has got to be this one from MATE that can fold up to an easilymanoeuvrable compact size. It has a 250w motor, hi-torque 48V battery and a 17.5Ah capacity to take you faster for longer.

SELFRIDGES

£2,999

OONI PIZZA OVEN

APPLE AIRTAGS Always losing track of your valuables?

Apple has released an affordable location-tracking device for iPhone owners. These tiny pucks can be attached to your keys, travel bag, musical instrument case or anything of importance so you’ll always get accurate directions to their whereabouts.

JOHN LEWIS

FROM £29.99

XBOX SERIES S Tabler has documented Round Tablers’ gaming penchants in past issues. So don’t try and pretend you’re not tempted by the Xbox Series S. While it certainly isn’t the most powerful of the current generation of consoles, it is worth paying attention to for three simple reasons. 1) It’s a very affordable entry into Game Pass, Microsoft’s absolutely brilliant game subscription service which will add Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite before Christmas. 2) Games still look great, even if they’re not running in 4K on the machine. 3) You can actually buy one. Crucial, that last one.

JOHN LEWIS

FROM £29.99

One thing your local Italian restaurant has above your home is a proper pizza oven. Maybe it’s time to level the playing field? Bring the ability to craft authentic Italian-style wood fire oven pizzas with the much soughtafter Ooni pizza ovens, a new era in food tech. A leader in the at-home devices, there are many sizes and souped-up specs to choose from with wood-flame, gas and pellet varieties.

Want to know what The Nicest Man in Rock has been up to his whole life?

Well, the prolific rockstar spent his quarantine wisely: writing down the very best of his tales from a life on the road.

Ooni

AMAZON

From £299.99

'THE STORYTELLER: TALES OF LIFE AND MUSIC', BY DAVE GROHL

£10.00

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

CHRISTMAS GADGETS

Looking to treat someone special? Even if that person might be yourself? Drool over the latest technology with Tabler

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Crypto: Pros and Cons The crypto market has surged this year, but should you dabble? Tom Hall examines the pitfalls and benefits (none of which is financial advice!)

Just ten years ago (in 2011), a Bitcoin would have cost you a mere £13.91. At time of writing, a Bitcoin would set you back over £50,000. These sort of gains are unprecedented in financial history, but is it all upside? Let’s look at the fundamentals:

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What is a Bitcoin?

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Created in 2009 by the mysterious and pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency.

There are no physical Bitcoins, only digital balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to (although each record is encrypted).

All Bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power via a process known as ‘mining’, which in many ways replicates the labour and difficulty associated with mining valuable minerals.

Miners are rewarded for their computing power with Bitcoins, or fractions of

Bitcoins known as ‘Satoshis’ after the founder.

Bitcoin’s total supply is limited, with 21 million being set as the maximum number of Bitcoins that can ever be mined – and mining them becomes more labour intensive as more are mined. This scarcity provides the coins with their value, and it made them popular to trade on Centralised Digital Exchanges (that usually require regulations like identity verification) including Binance and Coinbase, or via Decentralised Exchanges, like PancakeSwap, which anyone can access – albeit via a VPN in some regions – once they have setup a digital wallet.

At any point, a Bitcoin holder can transfer their Bitcoins into fiat currency – which invariably induces a tax burden (Capital Gain Tax in the UK). But, if you’d turned £13.91 into £50,000, then it’s safe to say you’d still be celebrating.

What makes a Bitcoin valuable?

If you believe Austrian economists, ‘value’ is purely a subjective concept, so you might as well ask what makes anything valuable.

That said, what people value as currency tends to have certain traits: it must be portable, durable, divisible, recognisable, fungible, scarce, and hard to counterfeit.

Bitcoin digitally possesses all these traits.

Gold also adheres to these traits, so has been deemed a valuable resource, as opposed to say tulips (used disastrously as currency in the 17th Century), which became increasingly less scarce, and not particularly portable!

In the case of the pound, and any government-backed fiat currency, the value is essentially a shared ‘agreement’ that the currency is valuable, and one that’s repeatedly demonstrated by the pound’s steady relationship to goods/services. The problem is, as we’ve seen throughout the Covid19 epidemic, governments have

Bitcoin’s value is currently only as high as it is traded for on exchanges. The Bitcoin premise, however, is that this value will stabilise (and be less prone to vast fluctuations) as it is more widely adopted, and is accepted as payment more widely.

What are altcoins?

Essentially any digital asset that’s not Bitcoin. The blockchain technology behind Bitcoin has been used as the foundation for several innovations, most prominently Ethereum: a platform that uses blockchains’ peer-to-peer benefits to back ‘smart contracts’ which are essentially ways to code promises – or at a more basic level ‘if X then Y’ guarantees.

For example, if someone wants to setup a financial token on the Ethereum network, they might code a contract that says: ‘if X agrees to give Z, Y amount of money, then Y amount of money will go to Z upon fulfilment of the work’.

This sort of guarantee is quite foundational to any trade, but taking promises out of human hands

(decentralising it and making it ‘trustless’) means it is guaranteed to occur, giving peace of mind. But you can see how decentralising anything from banking, to any cotract between individuals or organisations.

The Ethereum network has since had various competing networks – such as Solana and Avalanche – both of which have recently seen a surge in value due to their various merits in relation to Ethereum.

What are the threats to Bitcoin and altcoins?

Despite the surge in popularity of Bitcoin and Ethereum, various altcoins have emerged across a range of sectors. Many have failed to become popular, meaning any investment in these coins or tokens could have lost you all your money.

However, as confidence in the crypto market in general increases, it’s hoped that these assets will maintain their value.

Picking a digital asset then, requires a careful look at its use-case and speculation as to whether this has the potential for mass adoption. But several other threats to blockchain exist:

Most notably, and as demonstrated with stocks and shares, a digital assets’ popularity tends to go in cycles: a ‘bull run’ is a period in which an asset goes up in value and is highly prized, whereas a ‘bear market’ is a period when demand is low and it’s likely to lose value. Picking your entry into an asset will often be at the whim of where it lies in these cycles.

Regulation is another threat. Outright bans are possible in countries that deem the currencies a threat to its own.

However, most governments seem to be balancing the economic growth digital assets bring with their relative threat. Not to mention the fact that Decentralised Exchanges are especially impractical to regulate.

Volatility can also come from influencers or news outlets. A sceptical Tweet from Elon Musk, for example, can and has, led to significant dips. That said, blockchain technologies are being backed and adopted by major institutions from PayPal to JP Morgan.

Should I invest then?

There appears to be a surge of adoptions.

But, as always, do your own research!

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a unique ability to print money, thus devaluing the fiat currency over time.

Indeed, 40% of all the dollars ever printed were printed within 18 months!

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Straight shooting: Tabler's guide to taking pro video IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA AGE, WE’RE ALL VIDEOGRAPHERS. SO WHY NOT GET YOUR FILMING GAME ON POINT? TABLE'S LIAM BAUKHAM SHARES HIS TIPS...

This guide will be aimed at people using a mobile phone, mainly because this is what most of us have access to.

But, if you're lucky enough to have a GoPro, DSLR or RED Epic then congratulations… and stop showing off.

SO SOME GROUND RULES?

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• Hold the camera sideways (landscape) unless you are specifically shooting for an Instagram / Facebook story (vertical)

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• Make sure what you are filming is well lit. Hold the camera steady (rest it on something immovable if need be) and most importantly if you are recording sound (i.e. someone talking) make sure there is no background noise or wind. Nothing ruins a video like bad sound! And on that note, perhaps the best initial investment is a portable microphone.

Ok so that's a quick crash course on best practices…. Now onto the content!

• Making films and taking photos is all about storytelling. What story are you trying to tell? Think about the

narrative you are trying to tell. I.e ‘start, middle, end’.

• Think about how you can tell that story with what you have, i.e: shots of Tablers assembling a bonfire… Fire being lit... Crowds watching… Money raised.

• Keep it simple. There is often an urge to use everything you've shot.

Sometimes less is more.

I’m not going to talk about editing software as there are so many. From subscription based professional solutions

such as the Adobe Suite all the way to free mobile apps. Whatever it is you use, the principle is the same. Tell a story with pictures.

• Stitch the images together to make a sequence that tells the story you want…

A bit like posting Instagram stories shot, new shot, next shot, final shot, conveying a story • And finally… What may seem like a good idea when you're pissed probably isn’t actually a good idea!

Tabler.World Improving the membership experience STEVE ECCLES, NATIONAL SECRETARY, EXPLAINS THE BENEFITS OF TABLE’S NEW MEMBERSHIP PLATFORM

Our existing members site has served a purpose and has been largely successful, but it is a system that is bespoke to RTBI, costly to update and has limited development potential, so it was important for the Board that we find a long-term solution which offers value for money to our members. The solution was Tabler.World.

What is it?

It will do everything that our current membership site can do, and more.

Tabler.World was launched by Round Table International in 2018, and is a system that is designed by Tablers, for Tablers.

It is currently used by 57 associations and almost 20,000 Tablers around the world. It is fully supported and gives Tablers complete control of their data. the digital ecosystem

Tabler.World has the following key features: • Members; can update and control the privacy of your data, view and search member profiles worldwide (for those that opt in), with your own anonymous email address, • Tables; Table information, current roles, AMR, and key documents, • Events; explore events around the world, email invitations and add to your personal calendar, • Information; access to news, photos, documents, polls and reports, • Communication; newsletters, mailings and direct communication, • Statistics; demographics forecasts and member numbers,

There is also a Tabler.World App for IOS and Android which will give you access to Associations, Tables and Members worldwide, ensuring that you can connect with other Tablers if/when you want to.

What’s Next?

We are currently working with the Tabler.World team to make the necessary development changes to Tabler.World to suit the needs of RTBI, this largely relates to the AMR process so that each Table can confirm their membership each year.

Early in the new year we will be testing the system before

transferring all members onto Tabler.World, when this happens all members will get an invite email to choose a password. You will also be able to choose to give consent for their personal data to be used or for it to be hidden on the system.

The aim is to have the system up and running by the start of the next Tabling year… fingers crossed… All members will then be able to enjoy the features and benefits of the new system.

Watch this space!

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In June this year, the National Council of RTBI voted unanimously to support the adoption of Tabler.World as our membership platform. This is with a view to it eventually replacing our current membership site. The aim: to improve the membership experience, connect Tablers, improve data security, and give Tablers easy access to information relevant to them.

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health & wellbeing

Trying times, and CHRISTOPHER BEDFORD-GAY DETAILS TRYING Table TIMES, AND HOW TABLE WAS THERE FOR SUPPORT

Carl met me for a pint in a local pub, one sea-fishing trip later, and the rest is, as they say, history. I forget the specifics now but at the time I thought something like: “I need to revitalise my social life”.

Children had been the

priority for a while, having three boys (then aged 1, 4, and 5), and following a diagnosis for my eldest the setting up of the charity FOP Friends.

It was the latter and an old post reappearing in my Facebook feed that got me thinking about what Table has given me. Back in 2016 I was asked to write a short piece “On being a rare dad” for the charity Genetic Disorders UK, if you don’t know them by name you may have heard of “Jeans for Genes Day”.

In that I talked a little about my journey on becoming a rare dad when my eldest of three boys was diagnosed with an ultra-rare genetic condition Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP). A condition that impacts around 1 in 2,000,000. A condition where muscles, tendons, and ligament irreversibly turn to bone.

I won’t go heavy into the details beyond that, this is Tabler-magazine after all and not medical text, dive on over here www.fopfriends.com to find out more.

But now, as I now move into the twilight of my Tabling life, I started thinking about what Table has done for me, and I came back to that Father’s Day article and a section I’d titled “Time for yourself”.

Everyone needs some time-out, a time where they are themselves without the pressures of the rest of life. Is this truer for rare-parents? I don’t know. I think probably being a parent is just a tough job, period. Being able to turnoff regularly, to have an escape with friends, refreshes you. I didn’t realise this until being encouraged to join the Round Table, a social group and charitable organisation that meets

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

Manchester Round Table (829) has been my home for almost 10 years. I joined Table after my business partner, who was a member of Chelmsford Round Table at the time, reached out to the then chairman of MRT (or Cheadle and Gatley Round Table as it was named back then), Carl.

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twice monthly to do something fun like getting beer, meals together, going abseiling, gorgewalking, archery, go-karting, arcades, and engaging in sports.

Regardless of the activity, you get to step away briefly from being a dad, or a rare-dad. Round Table also has a catch phrase, “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things”, I really can’t think of a better description for all the rare-dads (and mums) out there.

So, to all the rare-dads, remember to take time to enjoy your rare-family but also to take some time out for yourself.

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

That is what table has given to me. Not in a selfish way, but in a revitalising, social, getting back to how it was before “life” took over and got all a little bit too serious kind of way. I know herein I am preaching to the converted, you guys are reading this because you are Tablers, your name's on the list, you’ve

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probably ran events, raised ££££ for your local good causes. You took that step, for whatever reason, to join.

I just want to say, never forget why you joined and never stop trying to get like-minded guys into Table. You’ll perhaps never know how much table can change the life of someone who doesn’t know what they are missing… yet!

So, as I run into my last year as a ‘formal’ Tabler I wanted to say a thank you, to all my MRT table, and now life-long friends. To all the Table area, region, national chairmen, vice chairs, treasurers, social officers, NSW running, conference running, good cause supporting Tablers.

Table hasn’t “saved my life” but bugger me if it hasn’t made it a little more fun, for the most part, filled.

“On being a rare dad” for the charity Genetic Disorders UK, if you don’t know them by name you may have heard of “Jeans for Genes Day”

Start with the low hanging fruit During these conversations I tend to find myself drawing a circle split into three equal areas as a suggested starting point. Something like this:

Work

Work

Self

Relationships

ADAM BAGGS

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

SOLUTION FOCUSED HYPNOTHERAPIST

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I have recently found myself talking a lot about balance. In particular, how we balance ‘self’, ‘relationships’ and ‘work’.

(Note: relationships in this context include friends and family, rather than being focused on a single significant other).

Next, we move onto what would they like the balance to be, which tends to look a little like this:

Then I hand over the pen to the client and ask them to offer their own perspectives. Most of the time the response looks more like this.

Self

Self

Relationships

Though perhaps a Tabler might say.

Table

Self

Work

Work Relationships

Relationships

There are of course no right or wrong answers to what balance each of us is seeking. However, whatever our choices and preferences it is vital

that we choose a balance that is right for us and no matter how committed we are to work, relationships or Table, we must make time for self. When we look after ourselves and put ourselves first there is a tendency to feel or be made to feel selfish but that is simply not the case. In fact, putting ourselves first and looking after ourselves gives us the capacity, mental health and wellness to be there for those around us, to build better relationships and perform better at work (or do more for Table).

I wrote a few months ago about the difference between the rational and primitive minds. When we look after ourselves, reduce the amount of stress in our lives, eat better and exercise more then we spend more time in that rational mind.

By clearing out the “stuff” that is weighing us down or getting on top of us we can make that move and then perform better elsewhere. Sorting this out is perhaps the first and best pathway to getting a bit more ‘self’ in our lives.

Of course, ‘clearing out stuff from our heads’ is very much easier said than done – so how do you go about it and where do you start. There are many options but the easiest place to start is the low

hanging fruit. Sit down and write a list of the things that are bugging you, need sorting and filling up your stress bucket.

Then take a practical and rational look at the list. Things that are beyond your control need to be pushed aside for the moment, also those really huge jobs and daunting goals or aspirations. Instead start small – what is that small thing that needs doing, won’t take long and will give you the satisfaction of finally scrubbing it off the list?

In a recent example a client was returning home every day to be confronted by the half-painted hall door. It created a sense of futility and feeling that the whole house was always a mess because it was the first thing seen. Finishing the job just took a bit of a commitment and half an hour… from that point on coming home was a pleasure and other parts of the house started to slowly be sorted. Instead of

being overwhelmed every time the door was opened it became a catalyst to achieve more.

Remember the lessons of the Team GB cycling team – small incremental changes led to overall improvement and wins.

Learn that lesson, paint that door, finish that project, do the easier thing that will make you feel 1% better. Then tomorrow go for another 1%... repeat, repeat and repeat…

Perhaps, when you have 10% or 20% achieved those bigger goals suddenly seem attainable – you can redo your CV and go for that new job, finally enter that marathon, finish the extension on your house. It all adds up and then… on reflection you realise you have more of that balance you have so eagerly been seeking and have the opportunity to be living the life you want to live.

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

Sit down and write a list of the things that are bugging you, need sorting and filling up your stress bucket.

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How's work?

A great work-life balance means different things for different people, but the New Year presents a MATT FALLON time to look at the bigger picture

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VICE PRESIDENT

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Anyone feeling a bit lost?

Anyone feel like they don’t belong?

How much do you know about your coTablers?

What do they do?

Really? Day to day?

What do they know about you?

What do you do?

Really? Day to day? *McKinsey The Great Attrition or the Great Attraction?

“40% of people are considering leaving their jobs in the next 3 – 6 months” Are you one of them?

How can Round Table support?

It was 2005, I was working in my dream job. For me, the dream job was people-facing, instantly rewarding and mobile.

I worked with sports brands, record labels, and film studios all over the world. I had an amazing home life where we were excited to start a family.

My career enabled that dream.

Then came the better news.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was when my wife told me we were expecting twins. It was the most joyous and terrifying moment of my life.

But things would need to change.

I’d later leave that job to support my family in a different way. Two babies at once did not allow for spending time away from home and neither did I want to. My focus changed and shifted towards a business that I still own today which allowed for home working,

school runs and general nappy administration between meetings.

For some it will be a change of job. For some it will be a total life overhaul.

Sometimes life throws things at us which alter our trajectory.

They aren’t always bad.

Sometimes they might just be the thing which makes our endeavours worthwhile.

Guaranteed though for all of us we feel, at last empowered to consider life and ask questions.

But here we are in 2021, approaching a New Year after enduring a global pandemic, Brexit and countless personal traumas, you, as individuals will doubtless have endured.

How do you feel about your job role now? Countless people like us are moving on to new roles and the reasons are many and varied. The resounding feeling though is one of both disquiet and optimism. There is something better out there and it may not be the obvious choice. For some it will be staying with a current employer but with greater expectations.

Round Table for me is about friendship, it’s about supporting each other and our communities. It’s about making a difference.

Let’s not forget our Round Table family. Let’s not forget what it means. Let’s not forget how we are stronger than the sum of our parts: We are stronger together.

I refer back to my questions above. I beg you. Ask them.

My email is matt.fallon@ roundtable.org.uk Reach out.

*https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/great-attritionor-great-attraction-the-choice-is-yours

At your leisure

Get Back busts Beatles

myths, and cements their genius

TABLER’S TOM HALL DISSECTS THE LATEST BEATLES OFFERING, THE PETER JACKSON DIRECTED DOCUMENTARY GET BACK creation in true fly-on-the-wall detail for a TV series, which would culminate in a concert showcasing the new material.

The sessions were somewhat ill-conceived from the outset, with just skeletal song ideas, and nothing resembling a coherent plan of where to put on the concert.

Get Back Disney Plus

The Let It Be album, as we know it, was a delayed release, finally seeing the light as their final album release in 1970 in a form quite at odds with the band’s original intentions: Phil Spector, famed for his manic episodes and pioneering Wall of Sound production technique, bagged the final cut on the album, which appeared complete with lavish, whimsical production.

Director: Peter Jackson

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

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9/10

The official incarnation of The Beatles’ Let It Be album was recorded in 1969 just weeks before the band re-convened with long-time producer George Martin to record Abbey Road. The Let It Be project saw Martin take a backseat, with producer-du jour Glyn Johns stepping in to honour the Beatles’ mission to record a raw, ‘back-to-basics’ record in just two weeks.

The concept was enticing, but – never being ones to shy away from lofty ambitions – the band also thought it a good idea to bring in Michael Lindsay-Hogg to film the album’s

Martin later threw some catty shade in Spector’s direction, dryly noting that the album should be prefaced with: “Produced by George Martin, overproduced by Phil Spector”.

And it’s a sentiment that remains to this day, with stakeholders including Paul McCartney famously hating Spector’s heavily embellished take. But therein lies the rub: To this day – and now with four versions officially released – it’s still unclear what Let it Be was supposed to... be.

Fast forward to December 2021, and the longawaited release of Get Back, a documentary that makes full use of the lengthy off cuts from the intimately documented sessions. This is likely the last major Beatles ‘event’ of their epic 60 plus-year legacy, and director Peter Jackson,

known for his sprawling epics including the Lord of The Rings trilogy, was well placed to whittle down the 60 hours of footage and 150 hours of audio gained from sessions.

Jackson’s project lands comfortably in the streaming era, with Disney Plus presenting the perfect medium for a serialisation. A film would’ve been too short, but an episodic TV series wouldn’t have seemed fitting either.

But even so, the length of the three-part documentary (at nearly eight hours) is a stumbling block for casual fans. Indeed, even as someone positively struck by Beatlemania from a young age, I can grudgingly accept that Jackson leaves in too many half-baked blues jams, meandering conversations and dead air space.

But, despite these indulgences, Get Back remains a gripping document of the importance of time, place, money, and motivation in manifesting mythical music.

The Beatles’ immaculate conception is one of incalculable happenstance: Four guys from humble backgrounds – three of whom are undoubted geniuses – happen to meet in Liverpool just as a cultural revolution is taking place. They cross paths with George Martin – a Rachmaninoff devotee who feigned a posh accent to overcome class barriers in the music industry – just as the recording studio is coming to prominence, thanks to the evolution of four track technology.

By 1969, however, the Beatles were victims of

their own success, and the cracks are certainly apparent in Jackson’s Get Back: Their beloved manager and father-figure Brian Epstein recently passed away; all four Beatles are in devoted relationships; fame is a genuine impediment to their lives, and to top it all, they’re faced with topping an unprecedented run of albums, still unrivalled in recording history.

While the original Let It Be documentary is remembered as a document of The Beatles’ demise, Jackson’s remake is, happily, far more uplifting. More than ever before, we get truly up-close-and-personal with the band, and it’s genuinely heart warming to watch their collective mood go from begrudged and dispossessed to energised and enthusiastic as the chronological documentary progresses.

Yoko broke up The Beatles: To the contrary, Paul is regularly seen joking and jamming with the Japanese conceptual artist, whose name is unfairly used as a verb for when an unwelcome outside figure breaks up a harmonious collective.

George’s efforts went under appreciated, and John and Paul were jealous of each other: Quite the opposite. We only see mutual musical respect and awe among the three songwriters. John and Paul appear enraptured by George’s talents, offering advice on honing Harrison classics like Something, Old Brown Shoe and All Things Must Pass.

Ringo is a bad drummer: Far from it. Get Back captures his work ethic, tasteful minimalism and ability to remain silent and let the other members’ dissect each track – something few creatives could find the discipline for.

The band had an infinite budget: Nope. Instead we see minute expenses picked apart as the band go ‘full skint-flint’, hustling for even basic recording supplies. Shame on you, EMI. Let It Be led to the band’s demise. There’s a half-truth here, but even before the recording sessions, The Beatles various relationships,

red tape and responsibilities had clearly made working as intimately as the early years impractical.

Get Back finds the band yearning for an authority figure to replace the late Epstein.

New producer Glyn Johns dares not fully step into these shoes – and who can blame him? – while George Martin’s presence is decidedly hands-off, given that his talent for studio wizardry is pragmatically unnecessary on a ‘live’ project. This leaves the organisation to the band member most enthused by the project, Paul, who, despite expressing unease at being the ‘band’s leader’ in one memorable scene, displays admirable diplomatic skills throughout.

A special nod should also go to Billy Preston, an accomplished session musician friend of the band who’d backed artists such as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Everly Brothers and the Rolling Stones. He rocks up midway through the sessions as the band settle comfortably into the basement of the Apple Corps building on 3 Savile Row (the rooftop of which would later be chosen for the infamous live gig that forms the project’s climax).

Preston fits in instantly, adding as much to the recording process as he does the band’s spirits.

There are many more elements to enjoy across this mammoth documentary: The constant banter and manic energy the band have while rehearsing; The iconic, boldly colourful, clothing they flex so effortlessly; The dedication and sense of community the band’s back-end staff bring – even helping delay two police constables’ attempts to stall their rooftop finale. (They remain two of history’s most infamous ‘squares’).

Oh, and did I mention the staggering displays of genius throughout? We see Paul summoning the titular track Get Back as if from some sort of trance; We witness a relentless perfectionism as each member takes tracks like Don’t Let Me Down and I’ve Got A Feeling from promising jams, to perfect songs; And, we get an intimate insight into the collaborative spirit that each member brings.

The Beatles have dined out on their legacy for over 50-years now, and Get Back provides a welcome dessert (albeit one that might leave you a little bloated at times). Seeing the Swinging Sixties in high resolution as the four most famous musicians of all time battle circumstantial impediments for a common cause feels like a missing cultural artifact has been lovingly restored. I’ve Got a Feeling it’ll be well-received.

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

50 years on, Get Back helps dispel a lot of Beatles myths:

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Winter comfort This issue, we run down a quick guide to creating food a classic spaghetti carbonara by Colin Redman Traditional Spaghetti Carbonara, one of the most famous Pasta Recipes of Roman Cuisine, made only with five simple ingredients: spaghetti seasoned with browned guanciale (cured pigs cheek), black pepper, pecorino Romano and beaten eggs. You don’t need anything else!

SPAGHETTI CABONARA INGREDIENTS

350 g (12 oz) of spaghetti

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

200 g (7 oz) of guanciale or smoked pancetta.

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4 whole medium eggs 100 g (1 cup + 1 tablespoon) of grated pecorino Romano Ground black pepper

METHOD First, boil the water for the pasta while you prepare the carbonara sauce. Remember: 1 litre (4 cups) of water for every 100 g / 3.50 oz of pasta and 15 g (1 tablespoon) of coarse salt per litre (4 cups) of water.

While the water is boiling cube the guanciale and sweat in a frying pan, in a separate bowl crack the eggs and add the grated cheese and season with pepper.

Mix together When the pasta is cooked use tongs to drain the pasta and add straight to the hot pan of guanciale add a little pasta water and remove from the heat.

Immediately stir in the egg cheese and pepper mix (the pasta heat will cook the eggs.

Serve immediately and enjoy. If you have never had a traditional carbonara you will thank me for this. It’s amazing.

Travel & events

Why Go International?

Adam Fitt of London West End 623 Round Table shares his international journey

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

My Tabling journey began when I just a kid, probably in a way similar to many of you; helping my dad on the Santa Sleigh. I finally joined Maidenhead Round Table in 2011.

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Over the years I have held many and my journey has now led to me working as part of the CEE Region Team with CEE Chairman Marc Germeshausen, alongside Gottfried and Stephan.

I have been a big advocator for international Tabling ever since my first trip to Italy in 2014 and I believe it is one of the best parts of being in the RT family, we have so many friends

around the world... we just haven’t met them yet.

I first met Marc a number of years ago when he first stood for election as CEE Chairman . We have remained good friends ever since and have exchanged and shared many memories on the international circuit.

When Marc was elected as CEE chairman earlier this year, I was impressed by his ideas and passion for the role so I reached out to see if I could be of any assistance.

I am really pleased to be part of his team and we have already made good progress in what will be a positive year for the CEE region, which will see us welcome new associations and continue to develop our own respective associations following a challenging 18 months.

I wanted a fresh challenge and to be working with such a great team makes it even better.

MARC GERMESHAUSEN OUTLINES HIS PLAN AS HE TAKES UP THE MANTLE OF REGIONAL CHAIRMAN

Taking up the role as a Regional Chairman brings a great combination of pleasure and action. On one side you are able to serve the movement and bring in your own ideas for our wonderful organisation, and on the other side you are setting your focus on implementing the three-year plan as well as supporting your associations and Round Table International.

During the meeting I was able to introduce the councillors from the CEE team. In this year the CEE region is getting support from Adam Fitt (RTBI) as secretary and Membership Officer, Stephan Zipperlen (RT Germany) as PRO and Gottfried Lumpi (RT Germany) as CSO. These motivated young men will assist all members and associations within the region.

In mid-October we held CEETM in Bielefeld in Germany. Over 300 Tablers and ladies joined the event. To describe it in words is not really possible as this was a unique opportunity after 18 months to live the fellowship we are always sharing again.

My goals for the year were set on a very realistic level: We as team need to support the region and their associations.

We should share best practices as we don’t need to invent the wheel over again.

Currently we have four on-going expansion projects : Czech Republic, Kosovo, Ukraine and Albania.

We can only achieve more if we are ‘stronger together’. As one of the founding members of my own club told me when I was inducted: “The RT pin we are wearing is our passport to the world – travel it well”.

Let’s stay #StrongerTogether

CEE topics should be shared within national magazines so that everybody is on the same page. If we are expanding, expansion should be sustainable.

Bingo!

Travel Bingo is being launched in the hope that it can take place in 2022. The draw will take place in January's council meeting. If you have never won / gone on a Travel Bingo destination and you are a member of Table you can enter.

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

Iain Richardson, National International Relations Officer

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National Events De-Bunked National Conference is our biggest event of the year and is held with Ladies Circle (our sister association). Typically between 300-500 people come together to celebrate the Tabling year and to see friends from all over the UK and beyond.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN BAFFLED BY THE TERMINOLOGY BANDED AROUND TABLE? WHAT'S INVOLVED IN A NATIONAL AGM?

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

WHO GOES TO THESE MYSTERIOUS EVENTS?

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WHAT IS NSW? HERE IS MY CHANCE TO TRY AND DE-MYSTIFY THIS FOR YOU, SAYS EVENTS OFFICER DEREK COLLIE

As part of the National Conference weekend, we hold our National Annual General Meeting (AGM) where the National Board can report on what's gone on over the past year and look forward to the future of the Association. We also present awards for people and clubs that have gone above and beyond over the year and welcome our new Board for the forthcoming year.

Ladies Circle do the same thing in a separate venue.

Most importantly, we have a couple of fantastic parties to catch up with old friends, meet new friends and enjoy ourselves. This event moves around across the UK every year and in the last few years has been across three of the four nations. 2022 sees us going to Birmingham from 6-8 May. National Council Meetings: These are held 5 times a year and are for our National Council (Regional Representatives and National Board) to discuss what's going on in our association and to make decisions to go forward. These are open to all members to observe and are usually held at our HQ in Birmingham. A great opportunity to find out what's happening across the country in lots of different clubs.

National Sporting Weekend: Usually held in August or September each year and if you've

never been to NSW before, I've heard it described as a school sports day with beer! It happens over a weekend and involved some sport, lots of laughs and plenty of refreshment. Teams and individuals come from across Europe to compete with other Tablers in some amazing challenges.

Recently, we've seen caber tossing, e-sports and the infamous beer mile! A great opportunity to strengthen relationships in your area and across the UK. Saturday evening has a big party and awards ceremony for all of the competitors and marshals to applaud the successful and laugh at others misfortune. This year NSW is in Lancaster - see www.nsw2022.co.uk for details and booking info.

National Family camping weekend: A new event re-born in 2019 after 30 years! Typically held in June and for Tablers with their families, kids and dogs! This was born out of a demand for more Tablers to introduce their partners and children to Table so we took over a campsite for the weekend and had nearly 200 people join us. We did silly games, a dog agility course, people played football and frisbee on the field and we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. It really was as simple as that. Dates for 2022 to be confirmed very soon.

In short, get involved and see what can happen.

My journey with National Tabling started when I went to a training workshop. Within six months I was a Regional Representative and now, after nearly six years, I've met some brilliant friends and had some incredible experiences. Table is bigger than your club!

Round Table Family

Circle of trust Wondering what our counterparts at Ladies Circle are up to? Michelle’s here to help

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

Of all the things I had thought about before becoming President, I never imagined needing to be interesting and funny enough for a Tabler Magazine… and so here I am, thinking of knock-knock jokes… actually scrap that, I’ve not made your President laugh once, even with my best material!

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I think I’ll just stick to sharing good news about your sister Association. So, we’ve opened three new Circles this autumn – Preston & South Ribble LC, Wakefield LC and Surrey & Sussex LC. We’re also super close to opening the first circle in Newcastle, I visited the club in formation in August and met your EClub Chairman Stephen Frost and his wife along with a great group of women that I know has grown again in recent months.

It’s particularly special for me to see a Circle form with ‘ready-baked’ ties to Round Table. Having been raised in the faith I know exactly how beneficial it is to a community when they have clubs from the family working in unison – and so I cannot wait for the next Tabler to be able to introduce you to this Circle.

What else? Well, we had our first in person Council Meeting for 18 months in September, followed by a Harry Potter themed ball (don’t laugh, it was awesome!), we also had our first NCW… just swap the Sport from your NSW for Craft… add lots of cake & prosecco and you’ve got the picture. Huge success, obviously going to be an annual calendar event from now on.

Oh, the best bit is that anyone from the Round Table family is welcome so what are you waiting for!

Before I sign off, I just want to take this opportunity to introduce our National charity partners for this year; Rape Crisis England & Wales, Rape Crisis Scotland and Rape Crisis Northern Ireland. The membership has done some amazing work so far and in May we were able to announce that we had already raised over £10,000!

It’s hard to put into writing just what this money means, what can be achieved with it and just how many women will benefit from it… but hopefully these figures from Rape Crisis England and Wales will give you an idea; in the year 2019-2020: • 66,045 people accessed Rape Crisis services • 775,447 sessions of specialist support were provided in local Rape Crisis Centres • 194,881 people were supported on the national helpline

All of this achieved without a penny of Government funding – there is no statefunded provision of Rape Crisis services in GB&I, so these charities are vital.

In addition to the services and support that Rape Crisis provide, these groups are the public face of campaigns for improved survivor rights, they fight for better prevention measures and ultimately for a safer GB&I for every woman. There is no better way to raise the profile of women’s safety than for us to speak with one voice… this is our chance to be part of the solution – if you see an opportunity to reinforce the messaging from the Rape Crisis network, please do.

Thank you so much, Yours in friendship #Always

Michelle

LADIES CIRCLE GB&I NATIONAL PRESIDENT 2020-22

41 Club Glen Lyon - 41 Club National Membership & Round Table Liaison Officer After all the disruption of the past 20 odd (very odd) months it was good to attend the Vale of Evesham Round Table's Charter Dinner (Friday 19 November) where I was presented with the President's Jewel by my son Stuart, the club’s current chairman, as the previously planned AGM had been cancelled again.

Part of the discussions centred around the challenges ahead for Evesham's Round Table as their numbers are down to six.

The partner of the venue's chef was in helping her to serve and mentioned he was a past Tabler originally from Wolverhampton, so he was invited to join us there and then. He said he couldn't as he was helping out in the kitchen, but we have his name

and number and he will be joining Evesham 41 Club at our next meeting.

Fired up with the success of that chance meeting I said to myself: “I own a minibus hire company which gets quite a few bookings from younger people, I'm going to have a chat with the next bloke under 45 who gets in about Round Table and invite them to a Table meeting.”

So, Saturday evening comes along and I am picking up a local wine appreciation

society, and, by kismet, fate or happenstance, or whatever you call it, my first pick-up was a bloke in his late 30s early 40s. Even better he has heard of Round Table and is aware that I am connected with the club so it’s a good start!

I pick up the other passengers, drop them at their event and return to collect them, dropping home in reverse order which allows me a final seven minute drive to finish our conversation

with the result: He is happy to come along for a couple of Table evenings to get to know the Tablers and they will have the opportunity to recruit him.

I'm sure it isn't always that easy, but why not give yourself a challenge to chat to someone you know who could be a Tabler and invite them along.

Yours in Continued Friendship

Glen

TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

It was a properly good evening, with Tablers and 41ers together in a room eating, chatting and drinking.

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TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021

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Whether it’s a Eurotunnel crossing or an Around The World cruise, we have the expertise to guide you.

Capture House is proud to have worked with some of the largest brands in the world including Red Bull, Subway, Unilever, Silverstone Circuit and Cadbury delivering photography, videography, design and web design services.

Our content creation helped Great Dunmow Round Table create the largest independent soapbox race in the UK in less than two years. If you want to grow your business and create something you’re proud of, we would love to help.

Discover how we can help you here: www.capturehouse.co.uk

www.threatpoint.co.uk

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Founded in 2001, Skillsarena specialise in enabling the consistent measure of people’s skills, knowledge and personality. We provide you with access to a secure online platform that enables you to measure hundreds of skills, knowledge or personality. Anybody within an organisation can purchase access, from global HR teams, to individual managers of small businesses.

You can use our prebuilt assessments or engage the team to create bespoke assessments or convert existing paperbased assessments to online. Skillsarena provide a effective way to verify and evidence a individual’s ability, giving you the confidence to employ, manage and train.

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Give 2021 a taste of Italy with Hidden Vines UK www.badgerecologywales.co.uk Badger Ecology Wales LTD are experts in artificial sett construction and sett closures, and we work closely with numerous construction companies offering advice and project management in terms of wildlife and licenses as part of our role. We have a good understanding of project management methods and time planning in regards to the construction industry.

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My team is made up of highly experienced wildlife professionals who have a wide range of knowledge of badgers, their habitats, and relocation options. Our team also includes a Veterinary Surgeon with over ten years of experience in disease management, who is fully trained to provide biosecurity advice and advise on disease mitigation. All staff are fully trained and insured, and our badger vaccinators are LANTRA qualified.

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Supplying all your favourite Wines and Prosecco at trade prices direct to your door locally and now all over the UK. Keep Dry January at bay or give yourself a treat to help you get through home schooling, say cheers with Hidden Vines UK. We also organise bespoke ONLINE Wine and Cheese tastings with Family & Friends thanks to the power of Zoom!

For more details call 07870 890975 Find us on Facebook at Hidden Vines UK and read our customer reviews.

A corporate event company covering conferences, training days and incentives. We can take care of all elements of your event from venue finding to delegate management as well as being there on site to make sure everything runs to plan.

With over 15 years experience in event management, we are able to walk the fine line between planning all details of the event to the smallest levels and dealing with any issues that crop up on the day.

If you would like to know more about how we may be able to support your event, please email derek@ theeventsexecutive.com or call 07792 140311. www.theeventsexecutive.com

Cannon PR’s approach to public relations is all about delivering results. We are an unashamedly small, independent company, which benefits from significant experience of delivering PR support services to a range of organisations, ranging from ownermanaged businesses to some of Britain's best known brands.

Whether utilising news-based websites, blogs, podcasts, broadcast media or traditional print media outlets, we apply fresh thinking to each client brief and every news story we put together, ensuring each press release produced helps to build credibility, authenticity and authority.

We provide special rates for members of Round Table. Give us call find out how we can help your business to grow!

For more details, call: 01709 321585 or email: matthew@cannonpr.co.uk

GALLERY

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Table Events From Around The Country

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TABLER MAGAZINE * WINTER 2021