Business Meeting + AGM

Rotary Club of West Fife

Notes of the Annual General Meeting held at Keavil House Hotel on Tuesday 7th May 2019

Present:  President John Stirling, 26 members and no guests.

Apologies: Nil

1. Treasurer’s interim report & proposed budget (2019-20)

Schedule of Charitable Donations

RFUK - Purple4Polio £75.00; Prostate Scotland £798.75; Culross Gala £50.00; Limekilns Gala £50.00; Fife Festival of Music £100.00; Dunfermline Boxing Club £100.00; Culross Defibrillator £1,300.00, Crossford Defibrillator £1,000.00; Northern Bowling Club £100.00; Disability Sport Fife £90.00; Natural Connections £125.00; Lady Haig's Poppy Factory £116.00; BBC Children in Need 1,750.00; Fife Pilgrim Way £50.00; St Andrew's Hospice (Terex) £100.00; Crossford Community Garden £450.00; Dunfermline Carnegie Rotary Club £325.00; Woodmill High School £100.00; RC Crieff (Malawi Flood) £500.00; Chikwakwa Church (Malawi Flood) £500.00; Rotary Foundation Annual Fund £1,500.00                                                                            Total      £9,179.75

Club Subscription – Year 2019 -20
This will be held at £80
Whilst Rotary GB&I Membership Dues have increased by £3 to £65
District 1010 have reduced their Membership Dues from £14 to £11

2. Reports from Committee Conveners for (2018-19)

2.1a Club Service - Brian Mitchell
I am pleased to report that all aspects of Club administration have been functioning well during this current Rotary year. There have been some minor issues regarding the standard of catering, however these have been addressed on an event by event basis and resolved.

2.1b Compliance – Stuart Nicol (not reported at the meeting)
 At the beginning of the year, the club council reviewed all the Rotary GB&I risk management policies, including the insurance requirements and agreed to adhere to these for the year. The president signed the assurance policy, which was sent to District.

Risk Assessments were prepared by organising Convenors for each event. Only the upcoming cycle event presents new compliance issues as the insurers require that the event takes place on cycle paths, and not on public roads. I await assurance that the   insurance requirements will be met for the event in June.

2.2 Community & Vocational Service– Brian Mitchell

Children’s Gala’s
The club has participated in or is planned to participate in:-

Crossford Gala (June 2019)
Cairneyhill Gala (June 2019)
Limekilns & Charlestown Gala (August 2018)
Culross Farmer’s market and Fete. (August 2018)

Kids Out and Glen Bucket collection
Preparations are well under way for our full participation in this year’s Kid’s Out event, to           be held once again in the Dalgety Bay Leisure Centre, on Wed 6th June 2019.

The Bucket collection at the Glen was cancelled due to the weather making the firework             display unsafe. Nevertheless the lessons learned from last year’s event and additional     support form Organisations like the Carnegie Trust, has meant that we were able to hone   the budget and reduce the financial pressure on the participating Clubs.

Purple4polio
This year we participated in a Swimarathon with the Dunfermline Carnegie Club. We were         able to raise over £600, through sponsorship, half of which we donated to Purple4polio   and half we retained for our own charity fund.

Community Exhibition
A highly successful Community exhibition was run this year, with over 20 local organisation        taking part. It is estimated that over 250 visitors attended the exhibition.

Poppy Wreaths
Wreaths were laid in Crossford, Cairneyhill, Culross and Limekilns on Armistice Day 2018.

Christmas Toys
Toys were collected, During December 2018, for the Salvation Army Christmas distribution.        This was a first for the Club and was very successful judging by feedback from the Army. It is planned to continue this in the future.

Community Garden
We were able to support a local community Garden project which we had been involved in many years ago. We gave a cheque to the value of £450 to replace plants, shrubs and             compost.

Defibrillators
We were able to assist with the cost of supplying and installing a defibrillator in the middle of Crossford Village. This equipment is available 24hrs every day.

Music Group Concert
We helped to organise a concert, which was held in the Crossford community hall in       November 2018. Complimentary homemade wine was organised.  This was highly   successful and incidentally raised £640 for the Rotary Club funds. It is intended to run this again in the future.

2.3 Youth Service – Aileen North

Competitions

Young Writer – ‘My Inspiration’
Entries from 1 Secondary and 4 Primary Schools. Pupil from Carnock PS was placed 3rd in District Junior. One school requested support from me to work with Probationary Teacher over 4 sessions. 2 new schools entered this year.

Young Photographer – ‘Beauty in Nature’
Entries from 5 Primary Schools. Range of photographs. Worked with 2 of the schools       supporting activities in school grounds. One new school entered competition.

Members assisted in the marking of writing and judging the photography.

Joint Venture
Following a very successful initial joint enterprise in 2018 of displaying Writing and         Photographs submitted to all 3 Rotaries in Dunfermline another joint event will take place in Kingsgate Centre from 29th April until 13th May.

Young Musician
Instrumentalists and Vocalists from 3 of the secondary competed, the 3 instrumentalists were from Queen Anne, although linked to West Fife represented each Rotary, the vocalists from Dunfermline and St Columba’s represented each Rotary.

Primary School Quiz
Eight out of the 13 primary schools entered. A new winner, Cairneyhill, after five years of           same school. Very successful event with many Rotarians supporting the evening.                        UPDATE - Cairneyhill were runners-up in Fife Quiz. They will compete in Aberdeen on 18th         May in the District Final.

Technology Challenge
Another joint venture with Carnegie Dunfermline, Dunfermline and West Fife involving the 4 local secondary schools. Head Judge, Stuart Nicol, West Fife is ably assisted by representatives from Babcock, Exxon, and STEM. Competition takes place on Tuesday 25th June in Dunfermline HS.

Programmes

Euroscola
2 candidates were put forward for selection, Codie, Woodmill HS, & Kirsten, Dollar Academy. Both the girls were successful and will share their experiences to West Fife in May. Both related afterwards how worthwhile and thoroughly enjoyable their experience had been.

Rotary of West Fife Award
It is awarded to the 6th year pupil who has made the greatest contribution to the local and         school community. On Tuesday 26th April I presented Strath Lumsden with the shield, who         is currently the Head Boy and had been in P7 in Canmore whilst I was the Head Teacher.

2.4 Fundraising – Keith Davison

The Ultimate quiz held 16th November 2018 raised £ 3,312.85 ( including Gift aid of £688)

 A  Race Night held at the Dunfermline Golf Club on Saturday 16th March netted a profit of         £ 1,234.20 a very successful evening with 78 participants all enjoyed the evening and the      buffet was a great success.

Am-Am Golf 2019 to proceed on 29th May at Forrester Park Golf Course Teams are in the          process of being assembled.

Community Suppers on going for 2019 raising funds by donations from diners

Use of the Easy Funding Website on going for use by all members.

A Midsummer Cabaret Night is scheduled to take place at Carnegie Conference Centre on          Friday 28th June 2019.

2.5 Foundation & International – Alex Evan-Wong (presented a PowerPoint presentation)

Following the devastating floods in south east Africa we have made two donations for     emergency disaster relief. £500 from the International Committee’s budget has been sent to Martina Kunert and Christine`s Church group who are providing temporary reed huts, food and “fresh start” funding/ items (chickens) in the Chikwakwa flood area of Malawi. Also a further £500 from the Foundation budget has been sent in support of the Rotary Club of Crieff project in which Rev. Milne is participating in Zomba (Mid-Malawi).

Kampong or “village“ has more than 60,000 people which makes it bigger than    Dunfermline but has only one and a half English schools. People live in houses which are       not bad, but are not very posh.

Our project is aimed at helping children and is vital to assist in avoiding long term           unemployment.

Volunteers built the school to teach English to the village kids

Local ox cart drivers donated their meagre earnings to buy the materials, and Kampong             Tralach volunteers built the Temple school to accommodate the overflowing numbers of kids.

Prior to our project 350 kids used paper books in single large classroom mixing under 7 yr          olds and 12 yr olds.

West Fife Rotary Club provided computers and installed an internet connection which now          enables the children to connect with the whole world in seconds.

By helping the young people to learn English their ambitions are how to be a teacher, a             lawyer or a doctor. Before our club’s involvement only 3 pupils who featured in the village     “Hall of Fame” ever got jobs. Now 7 pupils have jobs after only one year (2018).

There are 10 Teachers who volunteer to work after their normal state school hours and using our donated computers they teach WORD and EXEL which up till recently was only       available at private schools in Phnom Penh.

Students numbers grew markedly, by nearly 50% during the year, increasing from 300 to            435 students. They were attracted in from other villages e.g  Naktahang, Kampong Tralach    Krom, Prekonlung, Samrith Jey villages. Chres commune: Kbaldomrey, Probjas, Trapang         Pnow, Doksneth villages.  And Ampeltek commune: Kbalkos, Keanklang, Vealsbov villages.

Instead of the original 7 villages in 2017, the school now serves 12 villages and 3             communes as of December 2018.

Rotary sponsored contest for the new English speakers

 A female student called Lipin won $50.Herself and several kids will email the kids at        Cairneyhill PS

Developments 2019 – 20
The new International Convener may (or may not) wish to continue to support KT schools?

 - Lindblad Expeditions (Norwegian tour company) offering a matched support $5,000 with         WFRC
 - English conversation volunteers from Phnom Penh University are coaching the kids on            weekends
- Cairneyhill PS is keen to link up – film night fund raiser??
 -  CV and Job Applications in correct English

 (More jobs may lead to more community support)

 A notice board and donation box has been made up at the village seeking the support of             tourists.

2.6 Entertainment, Fellowship & Sport – Dave Riddell

 First of all, I hope that the club’s Entertainment & Sport committee of Greig Hill, Fraser Greenwood, Ian Grieve, Ken McKay and myself have provided you with an entertaining and varied programme for the last year with a few more events still to take place before the   end of June.   

During the course of the year, Alex Evan Wong and Robert North have undertaken the    organisation of a couple of events and I’m grateful to them for doing this.

BBQ and Race Day got the year off to a good start

Our entertainment & Sport year got off to a good start with a Day at Perth Races and their         Silver Cup day in July last year.  This was a popular and well-attended event so well done to
Robert in his organisation.

This was quickly followed by the retiring President Neil Spriddle’s BBQ with more than 50           attendees who took place at the beginning of August and as always was a very well attended function hosted by Fraser & Yvonne Greenwood at their home in Charlestown.  Lots of helpers for this event including Tom, Keith, Fraser, Grieg and Alistair and myself – a       really good team effort and would you believe not all the wine was drunk!!

District 1010 Gavel Challenge Competition

Our Club took part in the District 1010 Gavel Challenge Competition which took place in September and October last year.  We played our home matches at Dunfermline Golf Club   against Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline Carnegie.  We won against Kirkcaldy and we lost        narrowly to Dunfermline Carnegie who just sneaked it in the last game by one point.

Our away match was against Leven and we were hosted at Buckhaven Bowling Club.       Again, it was a very close match with West Fife losing 9-7, excellent hospitality by the      Leven Club and it was a very good venue for the Gavel Challenge.

 Bowling

 We had 2 bowling evenings during our entertainment year; the first was in September and was held at the Northern Bowling Club Dunfermline.  This has become something of an annual event with 16 members and partners attending and Ewan and Gladys winning the event 11 up.  Everyone enjoyed the warm reception from the Bowling Club captain serving up teas and coffees, scotch pies and the odd pint for those who weren’t driving.

The second was 10-pin bowling and this was in October at Megabowl Fife Leisure Park with 23 in attendance and some pretty average bowling scores I have to say!!  This was followed by a carvery meal at Sweet Chestnut

 2018-year Ends with Christmas Festive Evening

 52 Rotarians partners and guests attended the Christmas Festive Evening.  The hotel did a  great job of setting up the room and it really looked excellent for the Festive Evening.  The hotel did try hard with attention to detail, however, the food turned out to be similar as to what it had been the previous year.   Greig led the entertainment for the evening and there was an enjoyable sing-a-long sessions as well as some solo by Grieg and Anne. 

            This was followed by a very well-presented story by Greig about the centenary of First     World War and the Christmas celebration by the British and German troops.  There was   many a tear in the eye with some very moving singing and images.

New Year started with West Fife Rotary Burns Supper Lite.

A cast of Rotary club members and partners provided the entertainment for our Burns Supper attended by some 37 members, guest and partners with mine host chairing the evening.  There were excellent contributions from and we were piped in by Ewan Livingston, a pupil from Queen Anne High School

   •          Alex’ toast to the lassies
   •          Helen’s reply
   •          Brian’s immortal memory
   •          Dave’s address to the haggis

We were treated to a Burns repertoire of songs by guest professional singers Elizabeth and Andrew MacFarlane

Les Misérables at Festival Theatre and Petit Paris Restaurant

Greig organised this theatre event at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh to go and see Les Misérables which was an excellent evening to see a very good performance by the cast of this show.

Sunday Afternoon at Hamilton Races

You can tell that two of our members are very keen horse-racing enthusiasts.  16 members, partners and guests attended Hamilton Park Racecourse last Sunday which was a very enjoyable day out.  Some of those attending were very lucky and had several winners and then again some were not so lucky.  Well done to Robert once again for organising an excellent day.

Walking Day Out in Dollar – 19 May 2019

Still to come on 19th May scenic walk alongside the River Devon with the Ochils overlooking. The distance is approx 3 miles along flat terrain with numerous shortcuts i.e. suits all physical abilities. 

High tea at approx 14.30pm at the Bridge Kitchen (highly regarded menu) All abilities, dogs and children, cycles are welcome.  Join for a short walk using shortcuts.

Historic Walk – September 2019

Ken McKay is organising this event and our guide for the day will be Robin Sharp of the   Gellet Society.  This event has been postponed until September and will fall into the next Rotary year due to clash of dates in Robin Sharp’s diary.

Sports Events

Fun Golf Evening – Thursday 13 June at Pitfirrane 9-hole golf course – all welcome to this           annual event which has been very well attended in previous years.  This will be followed a          meal in upstairs restaurant at 7.45pm

Ken Forbes Quaich – Semi Final between Neil Spriddle & Ian Grieve is taking place this   Friday 10 May and the winner will be playing against the one and only Dave Riddell!!!

Club Visit and day out to club testing laboratory at Kingsbarns – is being arranged by Ian Grieve

2.7 Membership Recruitment & Education –Mark Todd

 We were successful in recruiting one new member during this current year and Bill volunteered to join the International Committee.

 All members were encouraged to consider if they knew of any suitable friends or work colleagues that may be interested in Rotary to try and get them to come along.

2.8 Communications (PR & Website) – Roger Hall

Dunfermline Press, The Courier and the Crossford Chronicle continue to be circulated with reports of meetings, together with an open invitation to anyone who would like to attend the Club’s meetings.

Facebook and Internet sites continue to be updated by Martin and Douglas. Thanks to them for their efforts and input.

3. Conveners of committees for 2019-20 – Brian Mitchell

President Elect Brian Mitchell presented his Club Officers and Convenors for the forthcoming Rotary year 2019-20.

Officers
President                                                         Brian Mitchell
Immediate Past President                              John Stirling
President Elect (for the Year 2020-21)           Roger Hall
Secretary                                                        Robert Haig
Treasurer                                                        Martin King

Conveners
Community and Vocational                            Neil Spriddle
International and Foundation                         Donald McKay
Membership                                                   Mark Todd
Youth service                                                  Aileen North
Entertainment and Fellowship and Sport       Robin Grant
Fundraising                                                     Robert North
Website, Public relations and Image              Roger Hall
Speakers                                                         Morag Carmichael
Compliance, etc                                              Stuart Nicol

The club agreed that George Primrose be elected as the Auditor for the coming year and as was customary that the President and President   Elect would be the Club representatives on the District Council with Immediate Past President and Secretary as deputies.

In closing the AGM President John thanked President Elect Brian and all officers and conveners for their contributions and expressed his gratitude to all members of the club for their hand work and dedication which has enabled our club to have a very busy and successful year.