The Meekings 2001 Christmas Newsletter

Every year we say things can't get busier but…. 2001 has been no exception.

On the work front Greg stopped his job based in Geneva and started a London based role running Reuters Global Services division. Things are a changing at Reuters as Tom Glocer started as the new CEO in July, taking over from a retiring Sir Peter Job. Tom is 41, American, an ex lawyer and very different. This against a consolidating financial services marketplace. Things are going to be exciting for the next year or two or…. Tragically Reuters lost six staff on September 11^th, two of whom were in Greg's group. This event has had a profound effect on all those it has touched, and further reinforces the importance of living life to the full, now.

Jill has temporarily come out of retirement! Assuming you could call endless Parish Council committee meetings retirement. She is now working, on a one year, 3 day/week contract, for the UK Treasury - one of Gordon Brown's angels! She is working on the independent Sandler Review an independent report on the UK retail savings industry. So she is now very busy again and looking forward to another retirement at the end of the contract. Meanwhile the Parish Council is trying to persuade her to take on the Chair next year. She of course says, "I have no interest in such political ambitions at all", (shades of "Yes Prime Minister"?). We'll see… Finally I should mentioned that single-handedly she managed to get www.woldingham.com up and running despite the opposition of those in the village who still think of Caxton as being a revolutionary.

Kiran is now in her final, yes final, year at Cambridge, studying Natural Sciences, and is back in college at Emmanuel. She has a great ground floor room inside the quad, and often has tourists popping their heads through the windows to wow at her quaint little rooms. She is working really hard in her final year and recently announced that she was accordingly voluntarily becoming a spinster for the rest of the year - real dedication eh?!? In theory she is supposed to join the real world next June, you know work etc. But she has decided that she is going to take a year out travelling round the world and is then thinking about doing a further post graduate degree. So the real world gets put back another few years… Perhaps our generation got it wrong, her plans certainly appear more appealing than a 9-5 commute to some desk in London!

James worked really hard on his A-Levels. He eventually got his Oxford offer and having got four A's started at Keble College Oxford in October, studying Economics and Management. He also had a great last year at school but not without incident. Her played for the 2^nd's rugby team which was undefeated all season, an accomplishment last achieved decades ago. Such peaks being interspersed with pranks (something about fireworks by the cricket pitch during exam week ) which nearly got him in deep, deep trouble. Mainly because someone else decided to set off the school fire alarms at the same time! Persuading the head master that this was indeed a coincidence took some doing. But all's well that ends well, and he was allowed to sit his A-levels! Subsequently going up to Oxford has elevated him back to the school's good books.

We've also had a very busy social calendar. In February Jill went on a sponsored trek to Nepal in aid of Breakthrough (www.breakthrough.org.uk), the breast cancer charity she supports. She personally raised in excess of £11,000 including a large proportion from a memorable wine tasting and auction at our local village hall. For her this was a great challenge and experience, particularly in terms of the comparison between life in the west and life in rural Nepal. She, actually, we also trained pretty hard. While Jill was in Nepal, never to miss an opportunity Greg snuck off to San Lorenzo for a few days golf in the warm - brilliant.

We mentioned earlier that we had both trained for Nepal. One reason for this is that Greg was also training for a team challenge climb of Kilimanjaro in July. Kilimanjaro is the world's highest free-standing mountain at 5895m. He did this with a group of 12 other colleagues from Reuters and raised £230,000 which was split between two charities www.amref.org and dreamweaver.co.uk/mkombozi. The whole team made it to the 1^st peak, Gilman's point and eleven of the team, including Greg and the two women team members, made it the top Uhura peak. Greg says that most of the team felt it was the hardest thing any of them had done and needed everyone to dig really deep to make it. The problem not being the climb so much as the altitude, at which there is very little oxygen indeed.

Greg's party at Ohura Peak 5895m, Kilimanjaro

Of course Nepal and Kilimanjaro beg the question what next?

During the summer both Kiran and James spent most of the time on holiday. The concept of getting a job and earning some money, in contrast with having fun and spending it, doesn't seem to have registered. Anyway Kiran went round Europe, notably Greece and Italy for about 10 weeks with Clare a fellow Emma student. They seemed to have had a ball; sun tan, culture, and lots of socialising with others roaming Europe. James had several holidays and met the love of his life on one of the earlier ones! He is now a regular commuter between Oxford, Woldingham, and Stockport! There is nothing he can't tell you about special train ticket deals.

In September Jill and Greg went sailing on flotilla for a few weeks in Turkey. We'd have loved Kiran and James to come but… Anyway it proved a very relaxing, enjoyable and romantic break.

In late September we took Kiran up Cambridge (Emmanuel) and James up to Oxford (Keble). We thought we had stopped the school runs year's ago. But what with three terms of only eight weeks, and loads of stuff which they seem to need, its like déjà vu. Anyway as you can imagine we are tremendously proud of both of them. This was reinforced when we all went to the varsity rugby match at Twickenham on Dec 11^th. Greg & James in the Oxford camp, and Jill & Kiran in the Cambridge camp. Oxford won 9-6. This year being the only year when we have one at each university. Afterwards we went drinking with the students, great fun, and brought back memories of years gone by.

Finally in October we went for a week touring from Barcelona, a very grown up and fun city, round to Nice. We've decided we want to upgrade from our apartment on the Isle of Wight, which we visit infrequently and the kids just about never, to somewhere in the warm. We didn't find anything, and it poured with rain in the south of France which didn't exactly convince us. Anyway next February we are going for a similar expedition to the south of Spain.

We've just finished the collection of Kiran and James from university to come home for xmas, and are now putting up the decorations etc.

That just about sums up 2001, which has been another healthy and fun packed year. So the very best of wishes to you all for 2002.

Greg, Jill, Kiran & James

PS. Mail us if you want originals of any photos: Greg