Newsletter 310 - March 2019

Rotary Club of Stranraer

Monthly Newsletter No 310

 March 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

Imminent Activities

Mon 4^th March – Fellowship

Mon 11^th March – evening – Gordon Baird ad Wendi Cuffe will be bringing us up to date on progress at the skiffe project.

Mon 18^th March – Alex Cairns will be talking about Community Buy-Out

Mon 25^th March – evening – Davie Campbell? Still to be confirmed.

Dates for your Diary  

1st June 2019 -

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

17^th May 2019 – Annual Christian Aid Lunch

Recent Events              

4^th February – Fellowship

11^th February – PSYV talk – see below.

Recent Events contd

18^th February – Gary Ferguson provided his autobiographic talk which was both interesting and humorous. Gary was brought up in this area and left school to work for Stena Sealink and told us some stories about his time there. He left Stena to join the police where he served in Newton Stewart then in the CID and in the drugs squad before moving to the ports unit for 8 years. He was promoted to sergeant at Newton Stewart in 2012 and has been a detective sergeant at the ports unit since 2016.

25^th Feb – Following the cancellation of the visit by the Macmillan cancer review team, Tom Mitchell gave a presentation on how Stranraer has come to be considered as part of the east of Scotland as far as cancer treatment is involved and the serious effects this has had on cancer treatment. The presentation was very well received.

Police Scotland Young Volunteers

PSYV is a national organization of young people formed and supported by Police Scotland to encourage good citizenship among the young.

Head Youth Volunteer Maria Denholm and Senior Youth Volunteer Fraser Baird explained, in a professional manner, how it was formed and what it does.

The Stranraer group was formed 4 years ago and has 24 members with a minimum age of 13. They attend at local events and help with stewarding and manning stalls etc. They help others fundraise.

It is great to have a group of such dedicated young people helping our community and with added bonus that it helps the personal development of its members.

Mull of Galloway Trail Marathon and Half Marathon.

This event, no longer organized by us, will regrettably not take place this year. It is hoped that it can take place next year.

Kirkcudbright Rotary Club 75^th Anniversary Dinner

A party of 13 Rotarians and partners attended the Kirkcudbright Rotary Club 75th Charter dinner at GGs Yard on the 23rd February. This number was only beaten by the Dalbeattie club and the host club so thank you to all those who attended.

Some went direct and 9 travelled in some style in a Wigtownshire Voluntary Transport Bus Thanks to Neville for organising that! As we were enjoying some pre dinner drinks and canapes on the way down, a police car with the full blues and siren on came up behind us resulting in this President seeing his brief sojourn as Club president over. I needn't have worried – Gordon, our driver, pulled over and they disappeared into the mist

 It has to be said that the organisation by the Kirkcudbright club was first class and it speaks volumes about them they had 180 people sitting down to an excellent dinner. GGS is a stunning venue. As they say the craic was good and it was good to catch up with old friends. Dinner was followed by two speakers who proposed and toasted the club

A return trip to Stranraer via an attempt to visit Stairhaven (it was foggy) rounded off an excellent night

Congratulations

Congratulations to Robyn Munro.  John’s daughter was part of the gold medal winning Great Britain Team at the European Youth Winter Olympics in Sarajevo beating Switzerland 6-2 in the final, the only GB gold of the games.

On a slightly disappointing note Vicky Wright and Vicky Chalmers (part of the Eve Muirhead  Team) lost out in the final of the Scottish Ladies Curling Championship in Perth to Sophie Jackson from Dumfries. However, both girls wished the Jackson Team good luck in the forth coming World Championships in Denmark next month. Stranraer still has local interest in the worlds through Norman Brown’s daughter Naomi, a Jackson Team member.

Mull of Galloway Trail – recent improvements

Work has been ongoing by Rotarians and friends over the last few months on maintaining and improving the Mull of Galloway Trail. The photos show the ‘before’ and ‘after’ at Longrigg.

Well done to Tom Stevenson and all those who have helped!

Community Service Award

We are looking for nominations for this Award.

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.

And finally…………………….

I read a story about a rabbit being raised. It was a hare-raising tale!

What do you call 100 rabbits walking backwards? A receding hare line.

Q: How do you know carrots are good for your eyes?
A: Because you never see rabbits wearing glasses!