Newsletter-275-April 2016

Rotary Club of Stranraer
Monthly Newsletter No 275
April 2016

Service above self


Congratulations  to Jimmy Burns on being elected as President of the Scottish Golf Union.


Imminent Activities 
Mon 4th April - Donald McColm – autobiographical talk  
Mon 11th April – Tom Stevenson will be giving us an update on the Mull of Galloway Trail
Mon 18th April – 12.30  AGM
Mon 25th April – Hew Chalmers, who is involved in sports administration at a very high level, will be talking about 'Doping in Sport'.

Dates for your Diary
Fri 20th May – Christian Aid Lunch

Sat 11th June – Mull of Galloway Trail Marathon  

Fri 24th June – 10th Annual Golf AmAm                                               

Mon 4th July -  Presidential Handover – this is a change of date.

Fri 20th May – Social Evening with Inner Wheel, guests and members of Probus Club. Buffet followed by entertainment – singer Robyn Stapleton. Ticket cost - £15.00

Recent Events    
Mon March 7th – Vice President Bob Fryer presented donation of £500 to Glenda Dewar  of our local YMCA to help them set up and equip their new premises.  


This was followed by Alex Cairns who managed to make his talk about the involvement of Walter Scott in the visit of King George 1V to Edinburgh in 1822, the first Royal visit to Scotland since 1650, both interesting and amusing. He  was certainly less than complimentary about the fat, womanising and cherry brandy loving King!

Mon March 14th – presentation of a donation to Turning Point and autobiographical talk by Peter Baird

Thurs 17th March – A curling evening

Mon March 21st - Fellowship

Mon March 28th – David Brinton entertained us with an excellent tale of a big game hunt in Zimbabwe.


Primary Schools Quiz
Congratulations to winners Glenluce Primary and best wishes for the District Primary Schools’ Quiz Final. Thanks to all those who helped! Drivers will be needed to transport and support children andstaff up to Pollockshaws Burgh Hall, Glasgow on Monday 6 June commencing 1 p.m. President Ronnie will be taking his car but other drivers will be required.


Rugby                      
After Glasgow Warrior’s fantastic performance last season 6 of our members and one member from Kirkcudbright bought season tickets for this season as have 2 of our regular guests. Other members are welcome to join in for individual matches if tickets, which are in short supply for most games, can be obtained - just contact Tom Mitchell.
During March we attended home games against Cardiff Blues, Leinster and Ulster. There is only one home game remaining this season unless Warriors finish 1st or 2nd and get a home play off. This crucial game is on 29th April. We will be there! There is no planned TV coverage so if you want to be added to the reserve list let me know.

Mull of Galloway Trail marathon & walk etc               
We have had a good response so far to the Marathon Trail events entries and Gordon Baird has requested our help in obtaining more.

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 on a regular basis and expect to have an article in the next edition of the District Magazine.
We are in touch with Border TV who are interested in featuring the Mull of Galloway Trail in their Border Life programme. We have suggested that they could tie this with the marathon.

Defibrillator
It is planned to donate a defibrillator to our local community for public access. A site has been identified in Castle Square and installation is being investigated.

Our websites are
http://rotary-ribi.org/clubs/homepage.php?ClubID=1383
http://www.mullofgallowaytrail.co.uk/

We now have a presence on Facebook - thanks to Steve Dampney for organising

Economics explained
Mary is the proprietor of a bar in Dublin. She realises that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronise her bar.
To solve that problem she comes up with with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now and pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed in a ledger, thereby granting loans to the customers.
Word gets round about Mary's 'drink now, pay later' scheme and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into her bar. Soon she has the largest sales in Dublin.
By  providing her customers with freedom from immediate payment demands she gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices. Consequently her sales and profits increase massively.
A young and dynamic bank manager at her local bank recognises that that these customer debts constitute a valuable asset and increases Mary's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern since he has the debts as collateral.
At the bank's corporate Head Office, expert traders see a way to make huge commissions and transform the debts into Drinkbonds, Alkibonds and Pukebonds. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets by the international brokerage houses. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA rated secured bonds are really the the debts of unemployed alcoholics.
The bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon become the hottest selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.



One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that time has come to demand repayment of some of the longest outstanding debts incurred by the drinker's at Mary's bar.
He informs Mary accordingly who then demands repayment from her alcoholic patrons but being unemployed alcoholics they can't repay their drinking debts. Since Mary can't meet her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and all her employees lose their jobs.
Her bank then  tries to get repayment of similar lending but fails and the bank has a large bad debt and liquidity problem. This prevents it from issuing new loans thus freezing economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Mary's bar had granted her generous payment terms but that credit was now worthless.
They had also invested the company pension fund in the booming Drinkbonds, Alkibonds and Pukebonds which by now had lost 90% of their value.
Her wine supplier files for bankruptcy, closing the doors on a 3rd generation family business, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor who immediately closes the local brewery and sacks the workers.
The bank and brokerage houses and their respective executives are however saved and bailed out by a muti-billion euro cash injection from their old schoolmates/cronies in government. This is financed  by new taxes levied on the employed non drinkers who had never been to Mary's bar and by cutting expenditure on helping the needy!

That is why we got into this economic mess. Have any lessons been learnt?