Newsletter 309 - February 2019

Rotary Club of Stranraer

Monthly Newsletter No 309

 February 2019

Service above self

Meetings – unless otherwise advised

1^st and 3^rd Monday of month – 1pm

2^nd & 4^th Monday of month – 6pm

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Walker Miller as on his appointment as Captain of Portpatrick (Dunskey) Golf Club.

Imminent Activities

4^th February – Fellowship

11^th February – evening - Peter Baird and his daughter, Rachel, will tell us about, Police Scotland Young Volunteers.

18^th February – Gary Ferguson will provide his autobiography talk.

25^th Feb – evening - Our speakers will be from the Macmillan team reviewing cancer care in D & G. They will be explaining about the review and are keen to have our local input.

This affects everyone and it is essential that we have as large an attendance as possible! We would welcome the attendance of family members and friends who have been affected by cancer – either for the meal and meeting or for the meeting alone.

THIS IS OUR CHANCE TO PUT FORWARD OUR VIEWS ON THE PRESENT AND FUTURE PROVISION OF CANCER SERVICES. PLEASE INVITE GUESTS ACCORDINGLY

Dates for your Diary  

1st June 2019 - Mull of Galloway Trail Marathon and Half Marathon.

7^th to 15^th July 2019 – Skiffe World Championship in Loch Ryan

17^th May 2019 – Annual Christian Aid Lunch

Recent Events   

7^th Jan – Fellowship

14^th Jan – evening – Chris Brewis provided a humorous talk about his 40 years in journalism. He started with the Sunderland Echo as a reporter then became a sub editor. He then moved on to spend many years working in public relations.

21^st Jan – Presentation of a donation to Coronation Day Centre and our Annual Primary Schools Pupils’ Lunch – see below.

28^th Jan – evening – Kenny Kirkpatrick, Group Leader at West Freugh, delivered an excellent talk telling us about the history of the airfield and its present use for testing lasers, missiles and bombs etc.

Annual Primary Schools Pupils’ Lunch

This annual event was attended by 2 P7 pupils and a helper from each of our 12 local primary schools. Our speaker Adam Gray, former rugby coach and Performance Development Manager at the Scottish Rugby Union and presently a member of its governing Council spoke not only about rugby but offered advice on making the most of opportunities in life. The children came well prepared with many relevant questions.

Well done to Hugh Parker for organising this event.

This report and photo were published in the Free Press last week.

Community Service Award

We are looking for nominations for this Award.

Coronation Day Centre

President Ian handed over a cheque for £1,000 to Dorothy Affleck of the Coronation Day Centre being the proceeds of our Christmas collection at Morrisons topped up from our Charity funds.

This report and photo were published in the Free Press this week and also on the Stranraer & District site on Facebook where it has attracted 6 comments and 74 likes so far.

New members

We are keen to recruit new members. Please advise Gary Small of any suitable candidates.

Rugby                

Our group of supporters and friends make good use of their season tickets to watch Glasgow Warriors. All of our group of 10 renewed their season tickets and were joined by 2 new supporters bringing us up to 12. 

They make their tickets available to Club members for individual matches which they themselves are unable to attend.   In particular 2 of our supporters are unavailable for quite a few matches as they are working for spells in the Middle East. It is essential that Tom Mitchell is contacted at an early stage before spares are offered to others.

Contact Tom Mitchell if you are interested in attending any match.

Websites etc

 Roger Johnson continues to manage our site.  

http://rotary-ribi.org/clubs/homepage.php?ClubID=1383  

Tom Stevenson continues to look after the Mull of Galloway Trail site.

http://www.mullofgallowaytrail.co.uk/  

Tom has also ensured that the MGT is listed among Scotland’s Great trails

http://www.scotlandsgreattrails.com/

We are on Facebook with 21 members.

It would be appreciated if members who use Facebook would join the group and forward any new content to their friends thus helping our public profile.

Press Officer

Members should get in touch with Tom Mitchell, in his role as Press Officer, if they have anything they wish included in the Newsletter or reported in the press. He particularly wishes photographs for publication and/or Club archives.  

We have articles in the Free Press and in our District Magazine on a regular basis.

Appropriate Valentine thought?

Since My Valentine Got A Computer
Since my Valentine got a computer
My love life has taken a hit.
Nothing I say is important
Unless it’s a byte or a bit.
Before she got her new laptop,
Everything was just fine;
Now she says we can’t talk
Unless we both go online.
"But darling," I said, "I’m attached to you;
Love is what I feel."
"That keyword isn’t relevant,"
She said, with eyes of steel.
She clicked the keyboard furiously;
The screen was all she could see,
And then to my horror and shame,
She started describing me:
Cont’d

Cont’d

"Your motherboard needs upgrading; Your OS needs help, too.
And you definitely need a big heatsink
To cool your CPU."
"Don’t delete me, my sweet," I pleaded.
"Not on Valentine’s Day."
"Fix the bugs, and I’ll see," she said,
While looking at me with dismay.
"Whatever you want, my darling;
Whatever you need; you call it.
I’ll upload or download anything,
And then I’ll go install it."
(Her hostile message keeps replaying,
And though I don’t want to fight her,
Is this what I want for a Valentine?
I’ve been burned; can I rewrite her?)
"Are you all hard drive now," I asked
"Is there no software in you?
Don’t you remember the good times?
Let our memories see us through."
"LOL," she said to me, chuckling.
"You’re nothing but adware.
"I’ve got eight gigs of memory;
I’ve got no problem there."
"Please, darling, we can save it," I said.
"Our love means more than that."
"That’s not in my cache; we’re going to crash,"
She said, as she turned me down flat.
(This woman has really changed;
Do I really want to chase her?
More and more I’m thinking
It might be nice to erase her.)
"Aw, darling, don’t talk like that," I said.
"Can’t we just plug and play?
I hereby accept default,
And I’m yours, my love, come what may.
My goal is to make you happy;
I want to be your portal

Cont’d

Cont’d

But your sudden, distant coldness
Would test the strongest mortal.
If we need a brand new interface,
So we can FTP,                               ( FTP = File Transfer Protocol)
I’m your go along, get along guy,
And I want you to stay with me."
"If you want to get into my favorites," she said,
And you want to get past my encryption,
If you want to get through my firewall,
Here is my only prescription."
"First, put up your own Web site,
And e-mail me when it’s done.
I’ll check your page rank with Google,
And tell you if you’re the one."

My life has become a real trial,
Since my Valentine got a computer.
If I want her to care about me again,
I guess I’ll have to reboot her.