DINAS Powys Rotary Club was delighted to welcome Gwyn Roberts of the Royal Mint, Llantrisant to the club's new presidential year dining night on Thursday at the Golf Club.

Gwyn gave a excellent presentation on the the world's leading export mint, making coins and medals for an average of 60 countries every year. However, it's first responsibility is to make and distribute United Kingdom coins as well as to supply blanks and official medals.

The original Mint was in the Tower of London but in 1968 the Queen opened the site in Llantrisant in readiness for the introduction of the decimal coinage. The Mint employs more than 900 people and has the Ministry of Defence Police oversee the security of the 35-acre site, which operates round-the-clock for 52 weeks a year.

Gwyn explained that the Royal Mint can produce 90 million coins and blanks a week - almost five billion coins a year and supplies coins to countries throughout the world, but probably their greatest achievement was producing the medals for the London Olympic Games, even getting duplicate medals to London within six hours for results that were tied, 3.5 hours of that was by road.

Rotarian Tim Hubbard gave Gwyn a vote on thanks on behalf of the club and everyone present agreed it was a excellent talk.