THE ADMIRAL'S BOWL

Howard Gosling

(Everyone who attended the Annual Dinner on 11 March admired the beautiful engraved glass bowl presented to Mary by Howard Gosling on behalf of all Flag Officers and Committee Members, past and present, who had served under her during her two terms as Commodore. For the benefit of those who could not be with us I asked Howard to let me have a copy of his presentation speech.)

What am I doing here with this microphone in front of me? Last November I missed a committee meeting, as indeed did our Commodore, and as soon as I got back to the UK I was told I had a job to do. Let this be a lesson to all those who have been elected to the Committee tonight -- if you miss a committee meeting you are bound to get given a job, if you go to the committee meeting you have the chance to negotiate.

In fact the job I was given was the most pleasurable I have had as Vice-Commodore. It had been the wish of committee members to mark the retirement of Mary as Commodore, and let me remind you that she became propelled into the position of Commodore at a very difficult time for the club. I do not propose to dwell upon those difficulties now as that is all behind us, but I do stress the good leadership that she gave us during those difficult times. She was always careful to make sure that we were obeying all the rules to the letter as well as the spirit, and she drove us all forward with enthusiasm through some extremely long committee meetings.

Since then the club has moved on from strength to strength. Our members now all pay their subscriptions each year and already within three weeks of this new year starting we had over 95 percent fully paid.

I wrote to all the flag officers and committee members who had served during Mary's term as Commodore, and tonight I am very pleased to be able to give to Mary this unique gift as a perpetual memento from all of us who have had the honour to serve under her. In addition to the present there is a travel voucher covering the excess donations from all over the world, which just shows that we expect her to carry on travelling the world in her new position as Admiral, continuing to foster the goodwill of the Club.

Mary has been unstinting in her time and effort. If OCC members gather for a rally she is there, when discussions arose at committee meetings about a particular place or person Mary had been there, knew it, knew the people, knew the place.

Mary, you will be much missed by the committee, it has been a pleasure and honour to serve under your leadership.

Mary's Dartington glass bowl was engraved by Admiral Frank Grenier, who took up glass engraving after he retired from being a sub-mariner. He was a pupil of Simon Whistler, himself the son of the renowned glass engraver Laurence Whistler. The design was by Jill Vasey as interpreted by the artist.