Cancer Research UK

The weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy was held on March 29th at the Dean Park Hotel. President John Kilgour welcomed 26 members of the club along with two visiting Rotarians from Dunfermline Carnegie and three guests, including speaker Jonathan Williamson.

The Dunfermline Rotarians brought greetings from their President and invited members to join them on a walk round Loch Leven on 10 April to remember Rotarian Stephen Chorley who sadly died in January. President John updated the Club on a letter received from Ingolstadt with details of the itinerary for the club visit in May- including a brewery tour and interactive Audi driving experience – but not both on the same day!

Following a suggestion of a fellowship dinner with Glenrothes Club, we will be looking into the possibility of a date in June at the Adam Smith College. The weekly raffle raised the unusual sum of £30.50.

This week’s speaker was Jonathan Williamson (Jo) who is a voluntary Cancer Campaigns Ambassador for Cancer Research UK and he spoke to the club about why he is involved in volunteering and what his ambassadorial role involves. Jo is retired and lives just outside Dundee. His career started in the brewing industry and included working with Scottish and Newcastle. In 1993 his wife was diagnosed with a very rare cancer – pheochromocytoma- while their four children were teenagers. Fortunately, she was able to uptake a radioactive isotope which prolonged her life, until sadly in 2003 the toxic treatment that had kept her alive took its toll and she passed away. Jo got involved in a variety of fundraising activities for Cancer Research and in November 2013 became involved in a new way as Campaigns Ambassador. His role is to influence his local MPs, MSPs and MEPs and to help roll out Cancer Research’s ongoing campaigns in his community. Recently he was part of the successful campaign to introduce standardised packaging for cigarettes in a bid to reduce the appeal of cigarettes. Currently- in the run up to the May elections for Scottish parliament - he is involved in "Scotland vs Cancer" campaign to get as many election candidates as possible to show their support for improving early testing to diagnose cancer.