BLACKPOOL Sunrise Rotary Club has elected a president with a difference.

Olive Carroll is the first female president on the Fylde Coast, only the second in the whole of the Lancashire and Cumbria area and is delighted at the chance to lead the club into the new Millennium.

Olive, 41, told the Citizen: "I don't really see the job as work, it's more the chance to give something back to the town which has done us all proud."

Brought up in Johannesburg, South Africa, Olive worked in New York for many years before meeting and marrying her British husband Alan and moving to the Fylde Coast with him in 1985.

She feels she has now become a local, though, and displays an evident love of the town she now calls home, commenting: "It may sound odd but Blackpool and New York have a lot in common -ceaseless energy, bright lights and a 24-hour love of life."

Olive was a founder member of the Sunrise Rotary Club, which is still the only Rotary Club on the Fylde Coast which allows male and female members.

The new president explained: "We are a fairly young, dynamic club, both in terms of having been established recently and the ages of members which rang es from late 20s to early 50s.

"In a way I suppose it was inevitable that a woman would eventually become president because we are a fairly even mix of both sexes.

"But I was absolutely delighted when the club elected me, despite at first wondering what I was letting myself in for. I hope to ensure that our efforts make a difference in Blackpool."

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