Speaker - Stephen Bennie (on line)

Meeting of April 21, 2020.

Online

Continuing the guideline practice of self isolation and social distancing, the Club once again this week organised a video conferencing meeting, hosted by President John Fernie from his home.

Thirty three members joined in the exercise. However, Stephen Bennie who joined the club last year delivered his first speech to the Club, which in the traditional format told of his career prior to joining the Rotary movement.

Stephen Bennie told firstly of his graduation in 1979 from Glasgow University as a Chartered Accountant. Working in the west of Scotland, Stephen found himself carrying out tasks far removed from his CA training. Like spending hours in a rather strongly-smelling chicken shed in Lanarkshire to count 3000 of the birds.

Or watching in some trepidation as police and striking workers at Ravenscraig steel mill set about each other.

A few years down the line, Stephen was then taken on by an American computer manufacturer to help set up a factory in Scotland. Most of his work was carried out from a dilapidated farmhouse before the factory premises were constructed and opened.

In 1992 Stephen was transferred to the company HQ in California where he and his family enjoyed a three-year stint before he moved as financial director to a company in Toronto, Canada. He returned to the UK in 1997 in charge of manufacturing computer products first in Durham and then back in Scotland near Linlithgow. But the global financial collapse of 2008 saw the plant wound down and Stephen went in search of further career challenges.

Moving into an entirely different business Stephen was engaged as a director with the long-standing firm of Don & Low in Forfar, who make woven and non-woven technical textiles. Their large variety of textiles are used in everything from carpet backing, laminate flooring, artificial grass to medical and sports products.

The company was taken over by a Greek outfit, Thrace Plastics in 2003 and has a worldwide business with 450 employees and annual turnover of circa £65 million.

Proposing an online vote of thanks, George McIntosh reckoned Stephen had come a long way since counting chickens and thanked him for an impressive presentation.