Committee Convenor's Report to Club Members May 2018

Thanks to my Committee for their help and support throughout the last year. I intend to divide my report into two parts to mirror President Scott's Charity Account for the 10 months ending on 30/4/18.

Payments into the Community & Vocational Charity Account

1. Last year's RYLA candidate Quin Arthur donated £87.10p into our account. He raised this money independently by doing a sponsored hike as a later addition to his fund-raising for RYLA. We are grateful to him for this donation.

2. Border Union Schools Day - thanks are due to the Club members who volunteered to marshall at this annual event. The event is co-ordinated by the Kelso Rotary Club and as far as I'm aware they divide whatever payment they receive for the marshalling pro rata between the Rotary Clubs who participate in helping and as a result £126.43p was paid into Community & Vocational Charity Account.

3. £144.97 was raised from the Helping Hand and as far as I can see President Scott seems to pay this into the Community & Vocational Charity Account. This is completely understandable given the reason the Helping Hand was originally set up by the Club.

4. The Wishing Well accrued £78.42p and again President Scott seems to have placed this under the Community & Vocational banner.

The big Community & Vocational fundraiser was to be the Club's annual Coffee Morning but as we all know because of the impending Royal Wedding which is happening on 19/5/18 (the proposed date for our Coffee Morning) a decision was taken by the club during last week's meeting to postpone our Coffee Morning until 11/8/18 when it will go ahead within Trinity Church Hall. It will perhaps be interesting to see how we fare holding a Coffee Morning away from our usual date.

The Community & Vocational Committee's two main projects for the last Rotary year were:-

1. To support the BGH McMillan Centre's extension plans.

2. To provide and support a RYLA candidate at summer camp. A candidate has been identified from the High School. The only problem being that as yet we as a Committee have not raised enough funds to cover these projects, however given the Coffee Morning on 11/8/18 we will hopefully be able to cover these costs retrospectively.

Outgoings by the Community & Vocational Committee.

1. £25 donation to RYLA candidate Quin Arthur for his sponsored hike.

2. Cost of RYLA candidate Quin Arthur £478.

3. WW1 Book sponsorship £50. Lots of local clubs and organisations donated towards this and we as a club belatedly took the decision to support this project.

4. Tree Planting Project was a District Project and the aim was to plant a tree for every Rotarian. The planting recently took place near Talla Reservoir and we provided £50 towards this project and the sum was definitely going to cover the cost of at least one tree for each member of our club.

5. Hawick Music Live - this was a new venture and a request was made via Rory Bannerman for our Club to contribute sponsorship for the event, so we donated £100 to this cause.

6. Anthony Nolan Fund - £25 was given to this cause, as the late past member of our club John Robson's grand daughter ran the London Marathon in memory of her grandfather and for the Anthony Nolan Fund.

7. Bikes for Africa - along with the International Committee we provided £100 towards this charity (£50 from each committee). Unfortunately there is some controversy about the management of this Charity which is being investigated by the Charity Commission for malpractice.

8. Literary High Tea - part of the Reivers Festival £25 was spent to purchase flowers for the guest speaker.

9. Hawick Primary Schools Swimming Gala - an annual event and as every year we provided £110 to cover the cost of the winners' medals.

10. Hawick High School Prize - an annual donation of £25 as the Senior School Prize for Modern Studies.

11. Hawick in Bloom - recently the club approved a £100 donation for two planters.

12. Hawick Dementia cafe - £100 donation made to this cause

13. BGH McMillan Centre extension - from President Scott's President's Night raffle £328 was given to this cause.

In discussion, members agreed not to purchase further crocuses, and to contact Reivers' Festival organisers to withdraw from involvement with a speaker for the Literary High Tea.

Kerr Scott