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Forward (2010)Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 14th July 2010
Thirty-six members attended the Club's weekly meeting at the Armaan Restaurant on the 14th July, with President Graham Findlay in the Chair.
They witnessed the induction of a new member into the club, Alastair Andrew, former bridgemaster of the Forth Road Bridge.
The speaker for the evening was Rod McNeil from the Rotary Club of Cowdenbeath.
Rod told us of his travels and travails in Africa. The travails included needing to make an emergency exit from a plane that was on fire at the airport at Lake Kariba near the Victoria Falls on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Having survived this Rod and his wife then had to brave their way past 2 muggers on the walk down to view the falls. Another escapade was a trip in a taxi in which the road could be seen through holes in the floor. This taxi then crashed having lost one of the wheels. Rod, his wife and another couple decided to take the offer of a lift in a crowded van rather than risk the taxi again.
But despite all this Rod and his wife love Africa and he did tell us of a wonderful hot-air balloon trip over the Namibian desert and a boat trip along Lake Nasser to see the majestic Egyptian temple of Abu Simbel.
Rotarian Roy Marsden gave the vote of thanks.
Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 7th July 2010
Graham Findlay, 63, was welcomed as the new president on Wednesday 7th July at the regular weekly meeting at the Armaan Restaurant.
Graham has been a Rotarian for 17 years and his commitment to the club has earned the respect of fellow members who were pleased to vote him in as their new president for the forthcoming year.
Graham said: “I am delighted to become the new president of our wonderful club. It’s going to be a very exciting year. We’re hoping to try out a lot of new things and are looking for enthusiastic men and women to join our club. We have a lot of fun and really enjoy ourselves, on top of all the fundraising we do, and would love to hear from anyone interested in joining us and making a real difference to their community.”
The first Rotary Club was founded by Paul Harris in Chicago, USA on 23rd February 1905. Ever since, Rotary’s work has spanned the globe, with clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas and a membership of 1.2 million business men and women.
To find out more, visit www.ribi.org.
Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 30th June 2010
Thirty-four members attended the Club's weekly meeting at the Armaan Restaurant on the 30th June, with President Bill Nicoll in the Chair.
The speaker for the evening was Rotarian Jennifer Martin. Jennifer gave a talk on her interest in art and in particular on a Scottish artist who specialised at some periods in his life in paintings and sketches close to our home area and in one case very close to Jennifer’s own personal home.
The artist was George Leslie Hunter. George was born in Rothesay in 1877 but moved to California with his family when he was 13. He became a painter and had a spell in Paris before returning to San Francisco where unfortunately the 1906 earthquake destroyed a lot of his early work. He joined with Fergusson, Cadell and Peploe in the group known as the Scottish Colourists who drew their inspiration from the French impressionists. George died in 1931.
His paintings are now valued in the hundreds of thousands of pounds range.
Jennifer showed us several examples of his work ranging from a chalk sketch of the Fishermen’s Wharf in San Francisco, to paintings and sketches of French landscapes but she mainly concentrated on his work in Fife including several sketches of Ceres. And the painting that was very close to home was that of Jennifer’s own 17th/18th century house in the Bridgend area of Ceres. This painting can now be seen in the Hunterian Museum and Gallery in Glasgow.
Rotary club secretary Ian Copland gave the vote of thanks for a very colourful and interesting talk.
Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 23rd June 2010
Thirty-four members attended the Club's weekly meeting at the Armaan Restaurant on the 23rd June, with President Bill Nicoll in the Chair.
Before the evening’s speech we were informed that the Westfield Road, Cupar, open gardens day, that took place on Sunday 6th June, had raised over £500 for Rotary funds.
The speaker for the evening was Rotarian Dereck Thomson. Dereck told us the story of the search for his uncle’s world war one grave. George Thomson was killed on 1st July 1916 during the battle of the Somme in northern France. On that one day more than 58,000 British and Commonwealth troops died in the battle.
Dereck’s father never spoke of his brother but when the soldiers’ medals were handed down to Dereck’s own brother the decision was made to locate and visit the grave of George Thomson. With a page of different George Thomson’s listed on the website of the Commonwealth Graves commission the papers that Dereck had inherited were useful as they showed George was buried at Aubigny cemetery.
Dereck and his brother took the Eurostar to Lille and made their way through the quiet countryside of the Pas de Calais via Bethune and St. Pol to Aubigny. The immaculate military cemetery lay next to the civilian cemetery and contained several German soldier’s graves, over 200 French and over 2,700 British and Commonwealth graves. The brothers found their uncle’s grave with his name, the date of death and his regiment, The Gordon Highlanders.
After the visit to their uncle’s grave, the brothers went on to visit the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge and to go through the Menin Gate, the memorial to soldiers with no known graves, at Ypres. The traffic still stops at the Gate at 8 p.m. every evening while the last post is played.
President Bill Nicoll gave the vote of thanks for a truly moving talk.
Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 16th June 2010
Thirty-five members attended the Club's weekly meeting at the Armaan Restaurant on the 16th June, with President Bill Nicoll in the Chair.
The speaker for the evening was Rotarian Dermot Stewart. Dermot entertained us with the tale of his time as a star of BBC Radio, back in the Belfast of 1967. Dermot was nominated by a teacher at his school (‘Dermot, you are a mine of useless information’) to be a member of the school team that would take part in the Light Programme’s sports quiz series Sporting Challenge. There were 8 teams in total, 5 from England and one each from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
On each programme there was a mystery guest to be identified. In the 2nd round this was the British and Irish Lions rugby player Tony O’Reilly (later to become head of Heinz) and in the final Pat Taffe, the jockey who rode Arkle to many great victories.
Dermot’s team went on to win the final and were hoping to repeat the experience but the BBC reorganised their radio stations and Sporting Challenge was one of the casualties of this reorganisation.
Rotarian George Sharp gave the vote of thanks.
Evening Meeting held at the Armaan Restaurant on Wednesday 9th June 2010
President Bill Nicoll introduced a number of guests, including Rotarians from the Abertay and Howe of Fife Rotary clubs.
After the meal the main business of the evening was the Club Assembly, led by incoming President Graham Findlay. This followed the format of the Club Leadership Plan adopted by the Club earlier this year, when the many local and international plans of the various committees were announced. There are too many to list in this report (we will keep you all informed as events approach), but the new Rotary year in Cupar, which commences in July, promises to be busy, challenging and rewarding.
One of the main issues in Rotary nationally is the constant search for new members. Whilst Cupar Rotary membership remains good, the Club is never complacent and is very aware its membership does not wholly reflect this area's demographic mix. Graham Pirie who leads the Membership Services Committee aims to rectify this in a recruitment drive.
Assistant District Governor Harry Leadbitter (who oversees all the Dundee and many of the Fife Rotary Clubs) concluded this part of the business by passing on a few words of wisdom, and wished the Club well.
President Bill asked members to approve several financial disbursements, and the larger beneficiaries will be C.H.A.S., Maggie's Centre, R.N.L.I., Royal Blind School, and Age Scotland (previously Age Concern, Cupar).
The meeting concluded with the traditional toast to Rotary International.
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Thanks to Roger Siddle of the Carnforth Rotary Club for his revolving Rotary wheel.