THE incoming president Hereford Wye Valley Inner Wheel Club for the year 2015-16 is Shirley Whittingham of Sutton St. Nicholas.

Shirley has been an Inner Wheel member for many years and this is her fourth time as a club president. She has seen the Inner Wheel movement change with the times, but feels that the first object - friendship - is stronger than ever.

Membership is no longer dependent on a Rotary connection and the Hereford Wye Valley Club has already benefited from this, having a current membership of 45. The club meets monthly at The Bay Horse Inn, Hereford, and more information can be found on the club's website innerwheelherefordwyevalley.org. The president`s charity this year is Marie Curie Cancer Care.

This year Eileen Hammond, also a member of the club, will be the chairman of the Inner Wheel District. Eileen is the mother of Richard Hammond, of the BBC's Top Gear programme, and her husband has just been inducted as vice president of the Ross Rotary Club.

Eileen is the new Inner Wheel Chairman of District 10 which stretches from Leominster and Worcester through Gloucestershire and down to Clevedon. Born in the Midlands, Eileen worked for Save the Children and the Shaftesbury Society and lastly as an independent charity consultant. She was a founder member and president of Ripon Rowels Inner Wheel Club in Yorkshire and later joined the Bookham and East Horsley Club in Surrey before she and her husband Alan moved to Herefordshire. They have three sons and eight grandchildren.

Inner Wheel has been a constant thread in her life and Eileen is much looking forward to her year as district chairman and continuing the tradition of service and fellowship which is at the heart of Inner Wheel.