The Rotary Club of Lochaber

60th Anniversary Lunch
Text Box: A special lunch was held on Wednesday 9th June to mark the 60th Anniversary (to the day) to the granting of a charter to the Lochaber Club. Guests of honour were Charles and Faye Steel from Elliott Lake in Ontario Canada. Charles was a founding member of the club. Also in attendance was Andy Slater, the Governor of District 1230 and twenty visiting Rotarian (and partners) from the Rotary Club of Lannemezan in the Pyrenees in France. They were members of the club that one of our own members, Chris Sutton, has moved to. They are pictured below with their President George receiving a gift of our local whisky. Text Box: At the dinner the District Governor presented the Club with a certificate of appreciation from the District. Text Box: Also present at the lunch was: Mrs Kathleen MacPherson (pictured below right) whose father (Dr Connachie) was also a founding member of the Club and whose late husband George was a past president; below left is Colin Ross who is the present manager of the distillery that Charles worked at sixty years ago; centre is Ralph Palmer, son of Charles Palmer, former factor of the Great Glen Cattle Ranch. Charles and Charles were colleagues, as the Ranch and the Distillery were both owned in the 1950s by Joseph W Hobbs - a Canadian! As a young teenager, Ralph knew Charles Steel and, indeed, became an excise officer at the Ben Nevis Distillery! He is a former director of HIE and former vice-chancellor of the UHI.