Index

Press Release 03/03/8

The Rotary Club of East Kilbride had a very interesting talk from John Hoey. John is a native of East Kilbride and he served for 30 years with the Fire Service. After his retirement he became involved with charity work, first of all with schools and then with the European Commission. For the past five years he has served on the Childrens Panel.

His talk was about a visit to Nepal last year on a mission to help with the rebuilding of a school which had been destroyed in the devastating earthquake of 2015, when much of the area around Katmandu was flattened. Half the population of the region are illiterate, so the provision of schooling is essential.

John was there for two weeks as part of a group of ten, who had not only paid for their own trip, but had raised a considerable sum of money to go towards the school.

The school, East Point Academy, was operating out of temporary accommodation consisting of corrugated iron panels supported on bamboo posts, but the children were all smartly dressed in their uniforms and John showed a number of slides of them in the school.

The new building, which will cost £150,000 to build and will take a further £20,000 to fit out, is scheduled to be completed by June this year, and John is hoping he may be able to revisit the area at that time.

After a lively question and answer session a sincere vote of thanks was given by Past President Bruce Gunn.

The photograph shows John Hoey on the left with Club President Elect Charles Devennie.

Press Release 16/12/17

Huge effort, huge response and huge success for this year's Poppy Appeal collections at the three supermarkets in the town, Sainsbury's in Kingsgate, Morrison's Lindsayfield and Morrison's Stewartfield. It all began with setting up a stand at Sainsbury and signing up volunteers to help with this year's collection, no coercion required! Poppies were available at the three stores each day from 30th October to Remembrance Sunday on 12th November. Volunteers manned the collection points from 10.00am to 4.00pm, totalling 120 hours during the 2 weeks. 13 Rotarians and 32 volunteers made up with locals and from the surrounding area as far afield Cambuslang and, for the first time, members of the 7th Company Boy's Brigade all gave up their time to help over the 2 weeks. Many stories were recounted by the volunteers of conversations with ex service personnel and families of those had and still have sons and daughters in the forces. The appeal was coordinated by East Kilbride Rotary Club member Roddy Shanks, ordering the poppies, collection cans and buckets, setting up a daily volunteer rota and ensuring collection points were covered for each of the days. Roddy was delighted with the response and would like to thank all the volunteers, the three supermarkets and their staff for supporting the Poppy Appeal. £4756.97 was collected from Morrison's Lindsayfield, £3369.62 from Morrison's Stewartfield and £5794.85 from Sainsbury, Kingsgate giving a total of £13930.44 which is up by more than £2000 from last year's appeal. Finally the Rotary Club say a huge thank you to all the shoppers who were extremely generous with their contributions.

Press Release 13/12/17

The Rotary Club of East Kilbride held their Senior Schools lunch recently in the Bruce Hotel.

Richard Maxton, teacher at Calderglen High School, brought along pupils Sam Jackson who intends to study maths, Alexandra Morton who intends to study pharmacology and Carter Leishman (grandson of rotarian Jim Moretti) who intends to study computing science.

Ingrid Boyd, teacher and Deputy Head from Duncanrig, brought pupils Stuart Forrester who plans to study History and Modern studies with a view to becoming a teacher, Gemma Murphy who intends to study languages and also wishes to become a teacher and Kate Law, the school Dux, who intends to study law.

Louise McNair, teacher at St Andrews and St Brides, brought along Nicola Gray, who plans to have a gap year in India and then go on to study dentistry, Chloe Lee, a prefect, who wants to study law, and Caitlin McPhillie who wants to do architecture.

All the pupils spoke of their career plans and the members of Rotary were most interested in what they all had to say.

Press Release 20/11/17

Members of the Rotary Club of East Kilbride heard a very interesting presentation by Sandra Nash, a pharmacist who works in the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. The title of her talk was "The role of the pharmacist in healthcare." She explained that to qualify as a pharmacist involved a 4 or 5 year degree course followed by 1 year training in practice. Pharmacists can work in 4 main roles, Industrial, Primary Care, Hospitals or community (the retail "chemist"). She outlined the problems faced in hospitals dealing with in-patients, out-patients and patients who are about to be discharged. There are significant problems with patients who are on a large number of drugs, and problems in follow up once patients have been discharged. After a lively question and answer session, the vote of thanks was given by president elect Charles Devennie.

Press Release 17/11/17

3 Pupils from Calderglen High School and 2 from St Andrews and St Brides High School attended an interview process last night with the selected pupils representing East Kilbride Rotary Club and Kittoch Rotary Club in RIBI Euroscola poject

Jean Murray from Kittoch Rotary Club carried out interviews in French with Leslie Irvine and Ray Porrelli from EK Rotary Club interviewing in English.

The criteria for the Euroscola selection is a high standard in French, fit in as a team member or leader and to have the necessary skills to debate in French with 500 other pupils in the Strasburg Parliament.

As part of the selection each pupil supplied a CV and an essay on their chosen topic about Europe.

After a great deal of discussion Kirsty McMonagle from St Andrews and St Brides and David Logan from Calderglen were chosen as the 2 Euroscolas.

Both will travel to Strasburg early next year and spend 5 days mixing with Euroscolas from other European countries. On one of the days they will venture out onto the streets with their own questionnaire and on the Friday they will take over Strasburg Parliament for debating.

Press Release 09/11/17

East Kilbride's Youth Speaks out!

Last Wednesday and Thursday 8th and 9th November, pupils from the East Kilbride high schools came together for the annual East Kilbride Rotary Club Youth Speaks competition.

The Rotary Youth Speaks competition is a four stage national competition promoted by Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland and 39 pupils, representing Calderglen High, Duncanrig Secondary and St Andrews and St Brides High took part. The winners of the Club stage will now go forward to the District competition and hopefully further to the Regional event and eventually to the UK National finals

The East Kilbride Club first sponsored this competition in 2011 with 2 teams from Duncanrig Secondary School taking part.

The competition is split into two sections, Intermediate for pupils between 11 and 13 and Senior for pupils between 14 and 17 and was held in the lecture theatre of the East Kilbride Group Training Association.

Members of the East Kilbride Speakers Club provided the judges and timekeeper for both competitions.

7 teams took part in the Intermediate competition and 6 in the Senior, with the marking on both evenings being really close. After a number of recounts the Intermediate winners were declared as St Andrews & St Brides team 2, comprising Katie Nelson, Eloise McNulty and Naimh Greig with their topic of "Material Girl".

On the second evening the scoring was even closer but eventually St Andrews & St Brides team 4 of Amy Martin, Caitlin McPhillie and Neeve Brown were declared the winners. Their topic was "Selfie Obsessed"

Both the winning teams will now go forward to the Rotary District finals in February where we hope they will progress to the Regional final being held in Dundee in March 2018.

Press Release 09/11/17

Members of the Rotary Club of East Kilbride heard a very interesting talk by Carlton Murphy, a qualified pilot and sky diver with over 1000 jumps to his credit. He showed the helmet he wears during jumps with both still and video cameras, and explained that this was identical to the helmets worn during the filming of the James Bond movies. He outlined the history of parachute design, with the current square design allowing extreme accuracy when landing. He showed two short videos, one from the cabin of the Cessna 206 aircraft showing the divers leaving the aircraft and the second taken from outside.

He then produced a parachute and demonstrated how the primary chute deployed, followed by the reserve should the primary fail to deploy. A sincere vote of thanks was given by Ian McPherson.

The photograph shows President Elect Charles Devennie, Carlton Murphy and visiting Rotarian Bear Williams from Sacramento, California.

Press Release 12/09/17

East Kilbride Rotary Club were taken a visit down memory lane at their meeting on Friday 27th October. The speaker was Max Flemish from Darvel Telephone Museum. Max set out the development and history of the telephone over the last 100 years. The introduction of Morse Code allowed sound to be used to send messages and this was the beginning. From there the telephone handset was developed early on, these being quite large and certainly not very easy to move around. If you made a call you were first connected to an operator at the switchboard who may have had to transfer you to another switchboard to move your call on to its destination, many people were employed doing this. The invention of the wireless meant that there was now no need for wires. Satelites were then used to bounce sound off and send messages. The Post Office Tower in London was able send messages around London to a maximum of 40 miles. Max then talked about the range of early telephones that he had brought along ,some of which members could remember using. The vote of thanks was carried out by Honorary Member Edwin Robertson who had many memories having worked in the industry.

Press Release 12/09/17

Hurricanes overseas, unsettled local weather all had the East Kilbride Rotary committee running their fund raising golf AMAM fretting about the weather conditions for the competition being held last Friday at East Kilbride Golf Club. However clear skies early Friday morning brought cheer to the camp and after a photo call the first team out, "The Donnelly Team" teed off. Our volunteer snapper John Murphy was at the 1st tee to take a photograph of each of the 21 teams entered as they teed off. Meanwhile two of the EK golf club ladies assisted by Rotarian Jim Anderson, welcomed the teams signing them in and giving each team a goodie bag. All the teams agreed the course was in excellent condition confirmed by some of the high scores recorded. The customary hospitality tent after the 8th hole was a welcome break for the teams tucking into a burgher washed down with either a soft drink or a beer and served by Kath Shanks and Frances and George McGraw. Back in the clubhouse the weary teams were treated to a delicious 2 course meal as Brian Doig , manager of EK and District Dementia Carers Group, sold raffle tickets with the star prize of a Kia Stinger for weekend and an overnight stay in the Cardona Hotel, Peebles, donated by Phoenix. Team scores were checked and collated by Ann Roulston. Rotarian Ian Macpherson announced the results in reverse order, The Late Entry in 3rd place,

Clyde Fasteners in 2nd place and The Donnelly Team taking 1st place with a score of 92 points and lifting the EK Rotary Club 50th Anniversary trophy. Longest drive was won by Johnny Diack. Ian with assistance from Iain Wiseman and Ian Craig auctioned donated prizes and golf days. Iain Wiseman donated a 20 year old £100 coin in a special raffle which was won by Brian Doig, a very popular winner. East Kilbride & District Dementia Carers Group and the Christmas Toys for Kids will share in the £3800 raised by the AMAM. East Kilbride Rotary Club in partnership with Chesapeake East Kilbride purchase toys each year for those children who due to whatever circumstances will not receive a gift at Christmas. The toys are wrapped and distributed personally by the local social services.

Press Release 04/09/17

The members of East Kilbride Rotary Club were recently delighted to hear how their support had helped enabled the Duncanrig Secondary School Concert Band and Choir to arrange a summer tour to Holland.

Three of the participants, pupils Molly Fairley, Brea Jenkins, and Heather Gildie accompanied by the trip organiser, Mrs Jane Ramsay, Head of Music and Drama at the school, had lunch with Club members and then gave a presentation on their trip which involved public recitals in Ripon (en route), Delft, Noordwijk and Efteling.

However the girls also had some leisure time; touring the canals of Amsterdam; and visiting its Dungeon where they were scared and entertained by real life character actors, who told the horrible history of the city.

All the band and choir members had enjoyed the camaraderie of the trip, with several year age groups involved, and this apart from the cultural knowledge gained, had been one of the significant benefits of the tour.

The pupils also reported on their fund raising efforts, which helped pay for the tour and acknowledged the financial support given by both Rotary Clubs in the town.

During the vote of thanks Rotarian Kath Shanks commented on the high quality of the presentation by the girls and the value of the memories they had gained from the tour. The Club was pleased that its support had been of use in providing benefit to all the pupils who toured.

Press Release 05/07/17

It was out with the old and in with the new at the East Kilbride Rotary Club Handover dinner in the Crutherland Hotel last Friday. Each year at the end of June the current President steps down and like Doctor Who a new President is regenerated. Bruce Gunn, outgoing Club President, hosted the first half of the evening which included a scrumptious 3 course dinner. After welcoming Rotarians and guests Bruce gave a summary of a busy year during his time as President. Some of the events were arranging the primary school Burns competition, the High School's youth speaks competition, schools visit to the club, fund raising garden party, the golf AMAM to raise funds for the Dementia Carers Group and Toys for Children". Throughout the year the club had many excellent speakers at their Friday lunch, a number of them memorable - Jacqui Nelson and Angela Quinn's talk on their trip to Lourdes with disadvantaged children, Jenny Cook, our club selection for Rotary International Young Citizen and the EK Hangout Club. Our annual dance was a joint effort with our daughter club and raised £1000, donated to EK Hangout Club. Roddy Shanks organised the Poppy Appeal and collected over £12000. Throughout the year money collected from the wishing well in the Heritage Park was disbursed to local charities. Incoming President, Leslie Irvine, thanked Bruce for a successful year and his wife, Jaz, for her support, presenting a gift to Bruce and a lovely bouquet of flowers to Jaz. Leslie introduced his officers and outlined his plans for taking the club forward during his year in office notably the drive to increase the club membership