Club Bulletins

The Thurso Rotary Club Bulletin will be produced throughout the year to provide Rotarians and members of the public with information about the Club and its activities.

Bulletin No 2    March 2010

President’s Notes

The Rotary year is moving at a fast pace, already we are two thirds the way through, however time flies by when you are enjoying yourself!  As ever our weekly club meetings have been well attended and continue to be a good balance of fun and serious discussion.

Rotarians worldwide do voluntary work in four specific areas providing service in the community, within the club itself and in international and vocational fields.  In Thurso Rotary Club there is often an overlap of these remits but rest assured, we have had a very busy time lately, assisting with and raising money for local and international causes. I must thank wholeheartedly everyone who gave so freely of their time and money in support of all the recent Rotary led events.  It is truly amazing what we can achieve when we pull together!

 A.S.

WHAT HAS THURSO ROTARY CLUB BEEN DOING OVER THE WINTER MONTHS?

In the area of Community Service our Rotary Community Fund continues to provide financial support for local projects and recently we secured the funding to progress a revamped Play Area project at the town's Boating Pond.  In addition as part of our work with the local Mall and River Walk we celebrated the opening of the new footbridge across the river.  

In Club Service our PR team has been working hard in conjunction with the International team to promote our Thanks for Life - End Polio Now campaign which also coincided with Rotary week. We gave two live broadcasts on Caithness FM in the run up, had special car window stickers made and had a number of articles in the local press publicising Rotary and the campaign.   Closer to home the club also won through the first round of the hotly contested inter club Gavel competition against our friends in Wick and East Sutherland.

International Service - During the Rotary Thanks for Life Week in February we visited seven local primary schools to give presentations on Polio awareness and Rotary's involvement with its eradication. All the local schools gave excellent support to the project kindly giving donations and the children had great fun participating in the Purple Pinkie campaign. We also gave all the schools a goody bag containing factsheets on polio and on Rotary itself, Thanks for Life bookmarks and special polio comic books all of which were well received.    Rotarians Don Sinclair and Colin Chessor allowed us to display Rotary `End Polio’ information and posters in their shops and there was a similar display in the Caithness Horizons Centre.  In addition we ran a hugely successful 'Purple Goatee' sponsorship campaign in aid of polio eradication. Several Thurso Rotarians grew magnificent beards and had them coloured purple all in the name of raising funds for the End Polio campaign.  To date roughly £4000.00 has been raised in sponsorship of the Purple Goatees a fabulous sum and thank you everyone who contributed!

FOR POLIO SO FAR IS £6000 

Also on the International service front we ran two bag packs one at Tesco for Wateraid which raised £557 and one at the Coop and these raised £600 for the Haiti relief appeal.  The £600 for Haiti will be added to a further £320 raised from a Burns Night raffle and the combined sum will go to the Rotary Shelterbox charity which provides for emergency shelter in Haiti.   

Rotary Burns Supper 2010

Started some 30 years ago by Past President Peter Murchison, the Burns Supper has become one of the highlights of the club’s annual calendar of events. This year a company of 75 Rotarians and guests enjoyed an excellent evening of entertainment and fellowship celebrating the 251^st anniversary of Robert Burns. Donald Cameron, Past President of Thurso Round Table started proceedings with the Selkirk Grace followed on by Angus Mackay who gave a spirited Address to the Haggis.  The Immortal Memory was eruditely given by Craig Omand while Bryan Dods, Sergeant Major of Thurso Army Cadets and Fiona Macintosh, Commanding Officer of Thurso Air Cadets continued their friendly rivalry with, respectively, the Toast to the Lassies which Bryan gave partly in witty verse and the Reply in which Fiona expertly held her corner. Midway through the proceedings a raffle was held and £320 was raised for the Haiti Appeal. Note perfect music and song were provided by past Mod winner, Raymond Bremner and by piper Alan Plowman and the evening ended, with what has now become an historic tradition, Peter Murchison leading the community singing – with a little help from Raymond!

2009 Christmas Dinner
81 Rotarians and guests attended the Christmas Dinner on the 17 Dec 2009.  It was good to see Marie Mackay and Jean Porter return as guests of the club. Our guest speaker was Stewart Smith an ex Royal Marine and currently the DSRL Site Security Manager at Dounreay. Stewart's subject matter was 'Caithness to Caithness' and he gave an excellent talk on starting out in life in Caithness and how his adventurous career then took him to far off often dangerous lands before eventually

returning back home.  Stewart`s entertaining talk ranged between the serious and the humorous with some exploits definitely not to be repeated!  Instead of a raffle, a quiz was held and a prize given for matching Rotarians names to a collection of quotes expressed earlier to IPP James Simpson on the design/construction of the new MallBridge.  A total of £195 was raised and 50% of the proceeds were donated to the Thurso High School Interact Club.  After much puzzlement the quiz was eventually won by Lorna Sinclair.  All agreed that it was an excellent evening.

Members of the Interact Club entertained the assembled company with a selection of Christmas carols.  Sarah Swanson was presented with a new Interact President’s jewel provided by IPP James Simpson.  President Alan eventually managed to get the jewel around Sarah’s neck without strangling her too much.

PRIMARY SCHOOL QUIZ

This event is always one of the highlights of our Rotary year and in 2010 we managed to hold it on 23^rd February, the birthday of Rotary which fell in the middle of Polio Awareness Week.  ReayPrimary School hosted the competition as past winners and six local schools took part. The competition was as intense as ever with questions on a variety of topics ranging from literature to local history. An extra round was added this year to highlight polio awareness and after a very close run competition there was a dramatic ending as two schools MillerAcademy and Pennyland Primary tied for first place with Reay Primary only one point behind.  A tie break was held and Miller just managed to come out on top.   Well done and congratulations to all who participated, some of the questions had Rotarians guessing never mind the pupils!

Bulletin No 1     October 2009  

Introduction from President Alan

It is a great privilege to be asked to write for the first club newsletter.  This is a new venture for us and I hope you give it your full support and encouragement.

I thought it would be good to let you know about the District Conference which has just finished.

I was accompanied to this year’s conference by Lorna, Graeme and Sophie Dunnett, Kevin and Jean Sutherland, Roger and Barbara Saxon and Donald and Maureen Sinclair and I thank all of them most sincerely for their support. 

Group Study Exchange is a four week exchange visit similar to the Friendship Exchange we have been involved with, but with Rotary Clubs sponsoring young professionals in their area to travel to another Rotary District and learn about their way of life particularly sharing and learning vocational ideas.  There were two excellent reports given, one from the District 1010 team

Not forgetting the fellowship side, we had a dinner on the Friday and Saturday evenings; Friday we were sitting with Rotarians from other clubs whilst on Saturday we sat as a club and had a superb evening dining, wining and dancing the night away…but no sore heads the next morning (only a bit fuzzy).  The entertainment on the Friday was perhaps the ‘low’ point of the weekend but the band on Saturday certainly made up for it.

And, we won an award!! – The Per Capita Cup (for Rotary year 2008-9).  This cup is awarded to the club who donates the highest amount per member to Foundation and in our case, equivalent to $184.  It was certainly a surprise to see we were getting an award and I was very proud to receive it on your behalf.  Well done everyone.

Next year, the ‘Diamond’ conference is being held in the EdenCourtTheatre in Inverness from 22 to 24 October and the District Governor will be George Berstan. If you have yet to attend a conference or have not attended one for many years, may I encourage you to ‘give a go’ for this one.  Hopefully you will find it a truly memorable occasion as I’m sure all our previous attendees will testify

AS

Club Leadership Plan (CLP)

The goal of the Club Leadership Plan is to create an effective Club that pursues the Objectives of Rotary by carrying out activities along each Avenue of Service in International, Community and Vocational areas. It is 3 months since our new CLP structure was put in place and we have already made good progress in following CLP objectives. In particular we have enhanced our performance within International Service and Roger is progressing well with the ‘Thanks for Life’ – Eradication of Polio Project.

Additionally, a Club PR Committee has been established and Lesley, Allan and Ian are achieving big changes both with the website and how we communicate with Club members and the general public. An extensive PR exercise is planned for early 2010 highlighting the clubs involvement in the Eradication of Polio Project.

Other actions ongoing as part of the plan, are a review of the roles and responsibilities of key positions within our Club and consideration is being given to a training programme for future office-bearers.

GD

ROTARY FELLOWSHIP ACTIVITIES 

The 2009 Fishing Trip

A Tractor, a Salmon and a Song

This year’s fishing trip must go down in the annuls of Rotary history as one of the most memorable ever undertaken.  Undeterred by weather which could not have been wilder; 14 bold Rotarians braved rain, floods and gales to journey out to the wilds of Loch Caluim.  With a considerable amount of the track underwater all credit must go to our skilful drivers, Peter, Sandy and Kevin for getting us there.  Peter and James organised a wonderful lunch and all Rotarians chipped in with copious amounts of liquid refreshments along with additional fare.

In the morning despite a screaming westerly gale coupled with some horrendous showers some of those who went out on the loch did manage to catch trout while those who ventured on the river found only the upper stretch fishable.  Having had to put on her chest waders to cross the bridge (the far bank was under 3ft of water!) Rotarian Crawford struggled off upriver and after a few casts suddenly became attached to 4lb grilse which after an arm wrenching solo struggle was duly landed.  This was the first salmon ever landed by a Rotarian in 20 years of fishing Caluim and having achieved this milestone the remainder of Mrs Crawford’s day became increasingly hazy, some very nice celebratory malt may have had something to do with that. 

At the day’s end the Caluim Trophy went to President Alan for doing the dishes and not making too many speeches and Lesley C. was awarded the new Hook Hoskins Tankard for the largest fish caught.   The day was

rounded off with some great singing and the bothy duly tidied and vacated by 5pm.  The drama was not over however for all three 4x4`s managed to get completely bogged down in the mire outside and had to be towed out by Mr Clarence Munro`s tractor, many thanks to him for coming to our rescue.  The scene that greeted him with 3 trucks lying askew in the bog and some very well refreshed Rotarians staggering about in the heather (high winds and lashing rain were making it difficult to stand upright!) must have looked like a carnage, but actually we had all had a really wonderful time.

Going to Loch Caluim is always a big adventure but this year’s visit could not have been more drama filled – book your place for next year now!

LC

SPOTLIGHT ON…. YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES

To the general public, fundraising is probably our clubs best known activity but it is not the only business undertaken by Thurso Rotary.   The list of `Where the Money Went’ is a hugely impressive one, but charity donations are not the sole interest of the club.

 In this Bulletin the Spotlight is on the involvement we have with local youth in terms of their personal and career development.

Each year we sponsor a number of different youth related schemes. 

These include the overseeing and development of an Interact Club at ThursoHigh School with the aim of allowing young people to literally `interact’ with Rotary activities and manage their own community related schemes.  Initiated by Rotarians James Simpson and Heather McLean, Interact has been involved in activities ranging from carol singing at local residential homes to coffee morning fundraisers.  A healthy membership of around 40 Thurso youngsters now takes part.

Thurso Rotary is involved every year in sponsoring 6^th year pupils to attend RYLA (Rotary Youth leadership Awards) schemes run as summer courses where youngsters are encouraged to develop their leadership skills in challenging outdoor situations.  In 2009 Thurso pupils Liam Gray and Lynsey Harper attended and returned to give the club an inspiring talk on their progress.

We also arrange important practice interviews to assist 5^th and 6^th year pupils on to the right career path.  Over the years Thurso Rotary Club have staffed or brought in specialist advisors in the fields of medicine, engineering, teaching, university and apprentice schemes with the aim of helping youngsters to prepare fully for job and/or further education interviews

In addition the club aims to encourage personal development of youngsters of all ages.  In February we run an annual (hotly contested but great fun) Primary School Quiz featuring all the local primary schools who often outclass Rotarians in their general knowledge!  In March we sponsor an annual Speechmaking event for Thurso secondary pupils and again are greatly impressed by the quality and diversity of the talks delivered by the youngsters.  Both these events are usually `full houses’ being   attended by enthusiastic parents and Rotarians.

Youth development forms a highly important part in the activities of Thurso Rotary Club and is well supported by all club members.   -  In the next Bulletin we will look at our clubs involvement in the field of International charity work……

Where the Money Went in 2008