Newsletter 299 - April 2018

Newsletter


Rotary Club of Stranraer

Monthly Newsletter No 299

 April 2018

Service above self

Meetings – unless otherwise advised

1st and 3rd Monday of month – 1pm

2nd & 4th Monday of month – 6pm

Welcome to new member Chris Brewis

Imminent Activities   

Mon 9th April – 6pm – Our speaker will be Catherine McWilliam, membership and communication officer for the Development Trust Association.

Mon 16th April – 1pm – A.G.M.

Mon 23rd April – 6pm – Tom Mitchell will be speaking about the Childrens Panel system.

Dates for your Diary  

Thurs 10th May – Senior Citizen’s Outing for Coronation Day Centre members – to Logan Gardens for a meal and entertainment.

Fri May 18th – Annual Bread and Cheese Lunch for Christian Aid

Sat June 9th – Annual Mull of Galloway Trail Marathon etc

Fri 29th June – Annual AmAm golf tournament

Wed 13th June - Kids Out Day

Aug 2018 – Local Skiff Regatta in Loch Ryan

July 2019 – Skiff World Championship in Loch Ryan

Recent Events     

Mon 2nd April – 1pm – Fellowship            

Mon 5th March – 1pm – Academy Scholarship presentations and presentation of £500 donation to Hard of Hearing Group – see report below

Mon 12th March – 6pm – New members evening – usual meal followed by excellent presentations from Neville Wright and Gary Small to the 3 potential new members who were able to attend. Gary Ferguson who joined the Club a few months ago then spoke of his experiences. There are also another 2 who have indicated that they want to join but were unable to attend this meeting. New Member Chis Brewis was inducted as a member.

Mon 19th March – Curling with Larne Rotary Club followed by meal at 1pm and a talk by David Kirkwood. It was great to see so many friends from Larne – see report below.

In the afternoon the Primary Schools Quiz was held at Rephad School - see report below.

Mon 26th March – 6pm visit to Mull of Galloway Lighthouse followed by a meal at Torrs Warren – see report below.

300th edition of Newsletter

Our May Newsletter will be the 300th edition. Although it feels like it at times, I have not been responsible for them all – I only took over in July 2003. It is probably too much to hope for but does anyone have a copy of the 1st edition? Is there a copy in our archives? Do we have a copy of the Minutes of a Council meeting from that time? Let me know if you can help.

Stranraer Academy Scholarship Award

This annual award of £250 is given to an Academy pupil who has had to overcome significant difficulties. This year there were 2 nominations from the Academy – Kathleen McClenaghan and Harry Glasgow.

It was agreed that both were deserving cases and it was decided that this year each would receive the £250 award. The award was presented at our meeting on 5th March after Academy teacher, Rhona McCulloch, spoke briefly about each candidate.

Hard of Hearing Group

This local group helps the hard of hearing with things like maintenance of their hearing aid.

Rotarian Barry Holmes, a member of the Group, accepted a £500 donation on their behalf.

Visit by members of Larne Rotary Club – contributed by Ian McIntyre as requested by editor

We hosted 14 members of the Larne Rotary Club They were met at the boat by Ronnie Irving, Tom Stevenson, Malcolm Henry, Donald McColm and Ian McIntyre who transported them to the ice rink where other members joined in for a welcome coffee and a briefing on the art of curling given by Donald. We split into 5 rinks and with two sheets available one rink sat out. We played two ends then swopped round giving everyone the chance to play 6 or 7 ends The Irish contingent certainly enjoyed the curling and promised to return at some point.
Then onto lunch where we listened to a very interesting talk given by David Kirkwood on the Burgh police with some references to the problems of Irish vagrants. Fellowship followed in the ice rink bar then the same drivers returned the travellers to the ferry. A good day was had all round. Thanks to all the drivers and curlers who helped make the trip so enjoyable for our Irish friends.



Primary Schools Quiz – contributed by Walker Miller at the request of the Editor

Another very successful school quiz was run at Rephad School. Many thanks to Head Teacher, Mr Young, for allowing us to use the school. There were 9 primary schools participating and there were 9 different categories of questions. Each category consisted of 4 questions. At the end of the competition the kids had juice and biscuits while the adults/teachers watching were offered tea/coffee and biscuits. The points were added up with Belmont Primary School winning the fierce and close competition by one point. They will now go up to Glasgow to represent Stranraer Rotary at the District competition later this month. Thanks to David Kirkwood who had all the questions on an overhead projection followed by the answers to each section. Hugh Parker must also be thanked for arranging the event and reading out the questions and answers.

Visit to Mull of Galloway Lighthouse – contributed by Walker Miller as requested by editor

20 members visited the Mull of Galloway Lighthouse. The three Diesel engines have been totally overhauled are now in full working order. They produce the pressure which then allows pressurised air to be stored in tanks outside the building. This high pressure air is then used to work the foghorn which gives two short blasts every minute. The sound issued is unique for the Mull of Galloway foghorn. We were lucky to be allowed to go down to the horn and hear it go off every minute which certainly made one hold ones ears as the sound was piercing. After the visit we went back to Torrs Warren for an excellent buffet where we were joined by more members and the two Stevie’s from the Lighthouse. Thanks to Donald McColm for organising the visit.

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. 

Our season ticket holders are again making their tickets available to Club members for individual matches which they themselves are unable to attend.  It is essential that Tom Mitchell is contacted at an early stage before spares are offered to others.

A trip to Dublin for the Pro 14 Final on Sat 26th May has been arranged with cancellable hotel rooms close to the stadium booked. Contact Tom Mitchell if you are interested in attending any match including this trip.

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.

Websites 

 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 22 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.

Success at Crufts – contributed by Walker Miller at the request of the Editor

Yvonne and I went down to Crufts at the NEC in Birmingham at the beginning of March. Although we had all four boxers qualified we only took our 14 month old dog. He is called Walkon Big Star after the horse which Nick Skelton won the Olympic gold medal on, in the 2016 individual show jumping competition. His pet name is Skelly for obvious reasons. There were 223 boxers entered and this was roughly split 50/50 between dogs and bitches. Skelly was entered in the 12-18 month age class and we are glad to say that we won this class. He then went in for the champions certificate against all the other class winners. We were delighted that he was pulled out into the last four best males but age was against him. The winning dog and overall best boxer was sired by a dog we bred and own in partnership. This sire also won the award at Crufts for top stud dog all breeds in the U.K., which is the first time ever a boxer has won this award.

The prior weekend to Crufts Skelly won top U.K. boxer pup 2017 at the annual competition which was judged by an American judge. This completion brings together the top 20 boxer pups from 2017. The weekend after Crufts Skelly won Best in Show at the South Wales Boxer championship Show out of an entry of 160 boxers. This was his second champion’s certificate and one more will make him our 29th UK
champion.
Editor – well done to Yvonne and Walker!

And finally:

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

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