Sandy Bannerman: Kitty Morgan - RYLA; Jim McPherson - Bilometer

President Linden Warburton welcomed an almost full house of members and guests to last Thursday's meeting . First to "sing for her supper" was HHS pupil Kitty Morgan who had been selected by the Club to attend the Rotary Youth Leader's Award week at Ardreonaig. When she climbed on to the bus taking all the girls to the venue, no one was speaking as they were all strangers to each other, but that soon changed! During the week the girls were put through a number of challenges, both team and individual, and Kitty gave an amusing account of the various enjoyable feats that the girls took part in. By the end of the week, all the participants were best friends, and Kitty, in thanking the Club for having sponsored her, said that the week's course had been very enjoyable and had improved her self confidence and communication skills and she would encourage the girls at HHS to apply for the course next year.

The second speaker was Jim McPherson of the Selkirk Rotary Club who is seeking assistance from the Border Clubs, to purchase a number of Bilimeters for use in the NHS. At present, NHS Borders only has one of these for use in the Special Care Baby Unit at BGH, but it is hoped that, with the assistance of Border Clubs, Rotary grants and funds even from South of the Border, sufficient funds would be raised to enable six of these Bilimeters to be acquired, and deployed to local Health Centres, so that newly born infants could be treated more quickly. Jim explained that many newly born infants can suffer from jaundice, which often can only be recognised by invasive procedures, while the Bilimeter can identify the level of bilirubin in a baby without the need for that invasive procedure. The Club will consider the request for this funding at its next business meeting.

President Linden thanked both speakers for their informative talks.

It was reported that the recent Coffee Morning had raised over £660, and that May Telfer had won the bottle of malt whisky for correctly guessing the location of the treasure on the map .