Programme and Projects

Past President Robert Dunn PHF reports on preparations for our Centenary Year

There are two elements to our celebrations,  the first and key is the disbursement of at least £100,000, money we put aside over the last five years to support the local community.

The other is to arrange a variety of social events for club members, their families, the Dundee community and our local and international Rotary friends to mark our Centenary year.

It will not be a surprise to report that due to Coronavirus the dates of our events may change and we have already put back by 12 months our Charter Dinner to May 2022. Our plans to commence celebrations on May 19 this year with our Civic Reception in the City Chambers are also now looking unlikely. We are determined to celebrate our 100^th birthday on that day but how and where we do this is unknown at this stage.

Our Calendar of Events is as follows

• Civic Reception in the newly refurbished City Chambers on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. By the end of March we will clarify our plans. At this function it is our intention to donate our gift, a lectern, from the club to the City Council and we are currently finalising a design. When we celebrated out 75^th anniversary we donated a mace to the city council.
•  Pro-Am Golf Day at Panmure Golf Club on Wednesday, July 28, 2021.
• Dinner Dance/Party Night at the Invercarse Hotel, Saturday, December 4, 2021.
• Charter Dinner, Invercarse Hotel, Saturday May 21, 2022
• Family Day/Picnic, Mayfield, Sunday, June 5, 2022.

We also plan, Covid 19 dependent, to invite during our year of celebrations at least four but ideally six high profile guest speakers to our lunchtime meetings.

The key element of our centenary celebrations is our plan to disperse at least £100,000 to good causes within Dundee . These monies have been accumulated from previous fund-raising events over the last five years or so, and the interest from the Club’s investments.

This is a stunning sum of money for a Rotary Club to disperse, especially at a time when charity budgets are under severe pressure because of the economic impact of the pandemic.

Not only is it a significant sum  but one that brings significant responsibility to ensure the money is spent wisely. I hope this report will provide some comfort in this regard.

The criteria that the Centenary Committee set for the disbursement of our Centenary Fund are :

• Any project should improve the lives of those within the Dundee community with particular focus on the prevention or relief of poverty; the advancement of education especially the young, and the advancement of health
• Any project should have a minimum active life where possible of five years
• Any project should be high profile to allow the Club to attract funding from other locally-based charities/organisations, Rotary District and/or Rotary International
• Any project we support should have long-term economic benefit to the city.

Rotary is a service organisation whose stated purpose is to bring together businesses and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service and to advance goodwill within our community.

We have also tried to take account the effects of Coronavirus to reflect the difficult times families and our local community have experienced over the last year and in the future.

Turning to the plans to celebrate our Centenary Year, the preparations of the Centenary Committee started some time ago.

The level of activity from the committee and those co-opted to assist with our plans has been significant during this Rotary Year and hopefully this report will demonstrate that although we have not concluded our work, we are now well advanced with our preparations.

The Centenary projects approved to date are the following:

* We have agreed to fund five post graduate students in design over the next five years at Dundee University's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at a total cost of £25,000. You will find a report on this project elsewhere on the website/follow link for report on this project.

• We have donated £11,000 for the further development of the successful bowel cancer screening project at Ninewells Hospital aimed at saving many more lives through the better detection of serious illnesses.

• Tutoring for 134 pupils studying for Higher Grades at Craigie High School and St Paul’s, Braeview and Baldragon Academies. This £24,000 pilot project initiative was agreed with Dundee City Council before the Scottish Government’s decision to cancel this year’s  SQA Higher exams and the latest lockdown arrangements.
• The feedback from one of the Head Teachers involved, however, was that this initiative was now even more vital.  (follow link for report on this project)
• We have pledged a total of £15,000 to two matched-funding projects with the historic institutions of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee (£10,000) and the Dundee Guildry (£5000). These bodies are to match our contributions. With the Nine Trades project this will see ten grants of £2000 each being awarded to ten local charities to mark the start of our Centenary Celebrations in May. With the Guidry project the sum of £10,000 will be awarded to a worthwhile healthcare project (follow link for report on this project)

We have donated £11,000 for the further development of the successful bowel cancer screening project at Ninewells Hospital aimed at saving many more lives through the better detection of serious illnesses. 

The population of Dundee would hugely benefit from the research because of its high levels of multimorbidity – people with two or more chronic conditions. 

An opportunity for our Club to be associated with this piece of medical research here in Dundee seemed an opportunity not to miss and hopefully one deemed another project worthy of our Centenary. 

A further centenary project is at the advanced stage of discussion and is due to be submitted for approval to our Club Council and the partner bodies in the near future. It is a scheme to support musical education at two Dundee primary schools .

The ventures mentioned represent a spend of £95,000 this year of which £80,000 is the contribution from our Centenary Fund, and our efforts are aimed at concluding our plans by early May.

We are continuing to have discussions with Dundee City Council and other agencies in the city to explore possibilities for providing support to further projects that meet our criteria.

Other Centenary initiatives under way include a booklet charting the history of the Club and  the latest booklet on our most recent eleven club presidents.

We also commissioned from Goodfellow & Steven the baking of 200 Centenary Dundee Cakes to promote our Club, our Centenary, the City of Dundee and Rotary in general. It’s also for a good cause with £2 of the £12 cost going to Rotary’s End Polio campaign.

Some 30 of the 200 we produced for sale at Christmas remain unsold. They have a shelf life until May so please snap the remaining ones up while stocks last.

We continue to seek to promote our activities in the community at large including in the media.

We were therefore cheered by an editorial comment in The Courier on our century celebrations:

“In an ever-changing world, few things can be relied upon, but if there is such a thing as a certainty, it is that Dundee Rotary stands ready to help the people of Tayside. For just a few months short of a century, the group has been involved in good deeds and fundraising. Its latest six-figure donation to local causes is the perfect fillip in troubled times. More, than ever, communities will rely on such largesse as public funding shrinks.”