Speaker Dorothy Orem - The Madras Kiel Exchange

The most recent meeting certainly had a youthful theme which introduced more than just a short breath of fresh air.

First to catch the imagination of the members was Fifer Ollie Carter. Aged 17, Ollie is the No.1 junior physically disabled swimmer in Scotland. A member of Carnegie Swimming Club, his ambition is to represent his country at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. He told the company that funding from Rotary members is greatly appreciated and would undoubtedly help him fulfil that ambition.

Ollie was introduced by Richard Brickley, President of Disability Sport Fife. Richard reminded members that their assistance had been of great benefit in the past to a number of disabled sportsmen and women in Fife, some of whom had gone on to become world champions in their events.

Club President Ewen Allan presented Ollie with the Rotary Club of St Andrews Kilrymont Disability Sports Fife Quaich and a funding cheque for £250, both of which are given annually to an outstanding disabled athlete in the region.

 (L-R) Club member George Donaldson, Richard Brickley, Ollie Carter, Club President Ewen Allan

The presentation was followed by Madras College modern languages teacher Dorothy Orem introducing two of her pupils to review the Diamond Jubilee year of the Madras College-Kiel High School in Germany exchange programme.

Fifth year girl Baran Talajooy (17) and fourth year boy Lawrence Brown (16) worked marvellously in tandem to give a history – in pictures and in stories – from the inception of the exchange programme in 1957 when 17 Kiel pupils came to St Andrews, in 1958 when 28 Madras pupils made the return trip to Kiel, to the present day.

Both Baran and Lawrence had been personally involved in the past two years’ 10-day visit to Kiel and the subsequent visit of the German children to St Andrews.

Baran described a poignant element of her recent exchange to Kiel when the Madras pupils were taken to Kiel War Cemetery. There they were shown the grave of Andrew Drysdale, a Madras FP who was in the RAF during World War II. He died in that conflict when his aircraft crashed in the Baltic Sea near to Keil.

The students gave a highly interesting review of visits to Hamburg, Berlin and many other places of interest during the German visits. This included taking part in the Kieler Woche 2016, which is the largest summer festival in the northern hemisphere, incorporating a vast number of cultural and sporting events and regularly attracts 3.5 million visitors.

This year for the Diamond Jubilee of the exchange programme, 31 German students are expected to be welcomed to Madras College and St Andrews.

Lawrence summed up the Madras-Kiel exchange as a remarkable feature. Over 60 years it has promoted great and long-lasting relationships between Scottish and German children and has provided invaluable learning experiences for both sets of pupils about other societies’ culture, lives and education.

In his vote of thanks David Sandford congratulated Baran and Lawrence on a superbly produced and delivered talk and wished the exchange programme well in its Diamond Jubilee year.