Charity Gift Evening 1

Firstly, President John Spittal paid tribute to the effort and achievements of two members in presenting them each with a Paul Harris Award. This award is named after the founding father of the Rotary organisation and is a relatively rare gift.

Isobel Clifford, a club member since 2004 was honoured for her unstinting commitment to Rotary and her great service to other local charitable groups.

Also receiving the award was Ranald Barrie, similarly a member who gives an enormous amount of time and effort to a number of charitable groups who support and assist youth programmes.

Both recipients said they were humbled, honoured and surprised to be presented with the Award.

                    Isobel Clifford, Ranald Barrie and President John Spittal

A busy evening followed as donations were handed to the three prime beneficiaries of this year’s Rotary Club of Kilrymont St Andrews Charity Fund – Homestart East Fife; The Butterfly Trust; and the NSPCC Schools Service “Speak Out. Stay Safe” programme.

The funds were part of the total raised at the recent Kilrymont Rotary International Charity Golf Day at Kingsbarns Links.

In accepting a cheque for £1100.00 Isobel Clifford, who is also chair of Homestart East Fife, said the organisation, in its 30^th year of operation, is currently supporting 65 families who have children under the age of 5 and this includes a total of 162 children who are at risk or disadvantaged in a variety of ways.

David Badura, Administration and Fund-raising Manager for The Butterfly Trust, was presented with a cheque for £800.00. He noted that the Kilrymont Club had been prompted to assist The Trust following a talk earlier in the year by one of his colleagues. The Trust supports people with cystic fibrosis and does great work in raising awareness of the condition, which is life-threatening at an early age and for which there is no cure.

David was profuse in his thanks for the donation, outlining the need to improve home care, quality of life and helping to reduce stress of sufferers, and that the Trust was reliant on financial support from groups such as Rotary to achieve that.

The third donation of the evening, also for the sum of £800.00, went to the NSPCC Schools Service and their “Speak Out. Stay Safe” work. Accepting the cheque, Alan Stewart, the NSPCC School Service Manager (Scotland) told the audience he was privileged to do so on behalf of some 146,000 children across Scotland who have been addressed and advised by the Service in the last year.

Seminars, presentations and talks are arranged in schools in all of Scotland’s 32 local authority regions. The main theme is to encourage children who may be or have been victims of harm or abuse of any kind to speak out, as in many cases they have no-one to turn to or trust for help.

In Scotland the Service has circa 110 volunteers who are highly-trained to assist with such sensitive topics and issues, allowing and empowering children at risk to have a voice.

Club members were quite surprised to learn that Service, on average, identifies a minimum of two pupils in every class of 30 who are either suffering abuse or have been harmed in the past.

Childline, since its inception 32 years ago, has experienced an enormous increase in the number of calls it receives and this has encouraged the NSPCC to widen its assistance all over the UK and introduce programmes to help curb a disturbing trend.

                   Alan Stewart, President John Spittal and David Badura

Closing the evening’s programme, President John said he was quite shocked at the number of children identified to be at risk and was proud the Club could assist in some way.

The same was true for the other organisations in attendance, both of whom were also selflessly dealing with difficult situations which are largely invisible to the general public.

In making the donations, the Rotary Club were doing what all the members are committed to doing every year and supporting the Rotary ethic – helping others.