Guest Speaker 20th February 2007

Guest Speaker: Our speaker this week was Rebecca Zuill Managing Editor of Crown Communications.

 

Magazines are even more different from newspapers than you might think. Editorially, we are presenting our readers with information in an entirely different way. Our role, I think, is to reflect more broadly on the aspects of our day to day life that make us, as Bermudians and residents of this Island, who we are. We highlight the good things!

It is my aim that any reader of RG magazine will find something in each and every issue that will be of interest to them. It's a very tall order! This community is more diverse than any other I can think of. We have people living here from every continent and a mind-boggling array of cultural backgrounds, and from every imaginable socio economic group. However, the issues that exercise our minds are fairly uniquely ours. We're dealing with problems that you do find in other parts of the world but they're almost always affected by our small size - so many of us know each other, and as result it's very personal - that extraordinarily diverse population: even among  fellow Bermudians, we're a diverse lot - and by the enormous wealth that's found here too.

 

There are plenty of magazines out there that are absolutely beautiful and we all enjoy flicking through them and enjoying the photography, but that may only amount to five or ten minutes. I want people - and lots of people - to read RG magazine and spend real time doing that. I have simple test - if a story proposal makes my eyebrows rise, then it's probably a go.  There are important issues that most of us are concerned about, and we write about those too. When friends gather and the talk turns serious, these are the subjects that will come up.  I do try to ensure that the information that we send out into the world in Bottom Line helps to reinforce the idea that Bermuda is a well-established, sophisticated place where many interesting things go on. In other words - we are not a sandbar in the middle of the Caribbean where undesirable people park their money. So that is part of what I try to do.

 

In closing Rebecca paid tribute to one of our own Rtn. Dir. George Cook.  I'd like to say a thank you to one of your members, Dr. George Cooke, who was the President of the BermudaCollege when I attended many years ago now. I have spoken to him about this before, but as time has gone on and former BermudaCollege mates get together, the subject does turn to the remarkable experience we all had there, and so much of it was due to his leadership. The teaching was superb, the staff - and particularly Dr. Cooke - believed in us all, the college was more diverse than anything many of us had experienced before or since. It seems to me that what happened there is something, some thirty years on, now - that we still struggling to achieve in many facets of life in Bermuda. And in addition, so many people, who did come from every walk of life - who were there, have gone on to do so extraordinarily well in their lives. I know I speak for a huge number of people when I say thank you, Dr. Cooke.

 

The thanks of the club were given by PP David Rowntree