A plane in the morning, another in the afternoon

The meeting of Tuesday 20 October had two halves, and both are worth telling.

In the first, seven Rotarians from the Rotary Club of King's Lynn, in the English county of Norfolk, came to visit us, led by their president, Michael Douglass. They flew in that morning and flew home that afternoon. Over dessert they gave us their pennant and the book of their centenary, and invited us to visit them.

In the second, while they were hurrying off to the airport, Sandra Torrighelli gave her talk «The power of relationships». They could not stay to hear it. She came with five people who have been through her project La Silla de al Lado, and it was they who spoke. Two of our own members spoke as well.

And in between, a coincidence appeared that we did not discover until afterwards, when we opened the book they had just given us.

A table as if we had known each other all our lives

Each of them was handed a single sheet in English on arrival. It explained how our meetings work, gave a short history of the club, the translation of every speech of the day and what Sandra was going to talk about afterwards. The idea was simple: that nobody should spend two hours at the table without knowing what was going on around them.

They did not sit together. They spread out across the tables, one here and two there, and it was a pleasure to watch them share a table and a conversation as if we had known each other all our lives. That was the best thing about the day.

A hundred years in Norfolk

It is worth saying that the visit is no eccentricity of theirs. Since 2010 the King's Lynn club has organised what they call a scatter week every year: short visits to Rotary clubs in other countries. They have been to Emmerich, Berlin, Lisbon, Cork, Rome, Madrid, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam and Warsaw. Alicante is the third Spanish city on that list.

And they came at a particular moment. Their club received its charter on 24 September 1926, so it is less than a month since they turned a hundred.

Their story begins on 22 October 1925, at a meeting in King's Lynn Town Hall chaired by the Mayor. Out of it came a committee that called another meeting on 12 November at the Globe Hotel, and there it was agreed to found the club. It would be the third in Norfolk, after Norwich and Great Yarmouth. Its first president was A. G. Hawkins, a solicitor in the town.

In those hundred years they have sponsored five clubs, have been twinned with Villa María in Argentina and Waterville in Maine, and since 1976 have kept a close relationship with the Rotary Club of Emmerich-Rees in Germany, born at the same time as the twinning of the two towns.

They also had an unusual honorary member. The Duke of Edinburgh belonged to the club from 1958 until his death in 2021, and in 1981 he became its first Paul Harris Fellow. The insignia was presented to him at Sandringham House, twelve kilometres from the town.

Two of the Rotarians who had lunch with us appear in that history. Steve Roberts was president of the club in 2003. Andy Kerr represented the club at a reception at Buckingham Palace in 2012.

Dessert

When dessert came, Paco Carreras presented to the members, and in front of our guests, the Microcredit Programme for entrepreneurs in Alicante, 2026-2027 edition, under the Community Service avenue. Six stages, from publishing the rules to repayment, and a motto: our word is our credit.

Then Michael Douglass took the floor. He introduced one by one the companions who had come with him, thanked us for the welcome and presented our president, Andrea Corbalán, with his club's pennant and a book: The Rotary Club of King's Lynn. A Centenary Celebration, written by Michael Walker and published to mark the centenary.

«Thank you for your kind hospitality today. It's been really touching and I do hope that we can reciprocate that on some occasion for you to come and visit us in Kings Lynn.»

It was not a polite formula. He said it in front of everyone and said it again, once more, as he left.

And off they went. They had a plane to catch.

The coincidence

What we did not know while Paco was speaking, and found out afterwards when we opened the book, is that the Rotary Club of King's Lynn has been doing exactly the same thing since 2016.

Their programme is called Lend with Care. They started with five hundred pounds of seed capital to lend to people who wanted to set up a small business in poorer countries. By July 2025 they had lent 1,980 pounds across 66 loans, helped 147 entrepreneurs and created 142 jobs. They have had a single default. And they have just decided to put in more capital.

We found it out reading a book we were given over dessert, about a programme we had just presented in front of the people who had written it.

The power of relationships

While they were leaving for the airport, the meeting went on with the talk by Sandra Torrighelli, co-CEO of REM, Relaciones Empresariales del Mediterráneo, and founder of La Silla de al Lado, a non-profit movement that promotes the visibility and the growth of women entrepreneurs.

Her argument was simple and not at all comfortable: relationships do not appear on their own, they are trained. And she came with something better than a presentation. She brought five people who have been through her project so that they could tell it themselves.

Ana Isabel Martínez Pérez spoke, director of the Association of Businesswomen, Professionals and Executives of the Province of Alicante, which turns thirty this year. She spoke of support, of mutual help and of growth, and of how in the end it is about being there and doing business, which is what it is all about.

Cristina spoke, and summed up the whole talk in a single line.

«I have managed to get business projects moving, not only financially but through connection. Because it is true that if you do not know people, you do not exist.»

And two members of our club spoke as well. They took the floor on their own initiative, to thank out loud what this way of understanding relationships had changed in their businesses and in their lives.

Both of them spoke about Sandra without measuring their words, in front of everyone. They said she had been there when they needed her, that she never asked for anything in return, that she works day after day without making any noise, and that she had achieved in their companies and in their homes what they had not managed in years. They were compliments said out loud, without hedging and looking straight at her, the kind you do not often hear at a working lunch. And then, a long round of applause.

A hundred more

It was an intense meeting, with a great deal in it, and it finished on time. It had been opened by our fellow member Malena Cuberes with the Rotary invocation.

The book they left us closes with a line from its author that works for both clubs.

«Over the past hundred years the Club has provided generous support for good causes and communities, locally, nationally and internationally. Hopefully the same can still be said in a hundred years' time.»

That is the same intention we have in this house. Congratulations to those who set it going, to those who keep it going today and to everyone who has passed through it. And thank you to the seven who took a plane to come and have lunch with us.

The book is available to any member who would like to read it.