There are times in life when one simply doesn’t know what to do or say, laugh or cry, or just let it go.

The letter from a rather sad Steve Elsworth (Echo, March 8) shows an astonishing ignorance of facts.

Pineapples are a universal sign of welcome, to all and everyone.

‘Rotary’ which is how he describes Rotary International is as far from his bigoted description as it is possible to be.

I won’t waste time telling people in detail what we do, locally, nationally and globally.

I would ask him if he would like to visit one of the clubs where he would be welcomed and where he might find out just a little more what the 80 or so Rotarians in Weymouth, or the 60 in Dorchester, or the 55,000 across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, or the 1.2million in 201 countries actually do.

Perhaps he would like to visit the Rotary clubs in Kabul, Afgh-anistan, instrumental in vaccinating the children in that country against polio.

Perhaps he would like to spend a week in India vaccinating their children on National Immun- isation Day (every one of the hundreds of millions).

Perhaps he missed the recent BBC newscast (several times on several BBC channels) which reported on the 27 years this has been going on despite wars, and the billions of pounds raised.

From 350,000 cases a year, now down to 600 or so – the goal being total elimination of polio from this planet.

Five million people are now free of polio, all started and lead by Rotary International.

There are countless local activities for the local community, under our guiding theme: ‘Service above Self’.

Peter JW Noble, Past President, Rotary Club of Dorchester Haylands Close, Dorchester