District 1010 - Scotland

  CLUB NEWS: Quarter 2 - 2009

• Organiser Bill Roxburgh proposed the vote of thanks
• President Bill Montgomery presented the Trophy's and Prizes.

4th June, 2009 -  All four Perth Secondary Schools took part in this event, each school submitting three essays written by pupils in S5 or S6. An adjudication panel, consisting of Willie Coupar, Alison Lowson and Victoria Barclay, found it very difficult to decide to whom the Neil McCorkindale Trophy should be awarded; such was the high standard of essays entered.

 On the day, each school was represented, along with their English Teachers. After Willie had outlined the purpose of the competition, each school in turn was asked to deliver a brief three minute talk about one of the essays or anything of relevance within the English curriculum. All the presentations were delivered with flair and confidence, proving that preparation and practice can do a great deal for the confidence of our young people.

28th May, 2009 - Euan McLeod's job talk, bearing in mind he is a partner in a firm of accountants it was in fact very humorous, peppered with anecdotes and accountancy jokes. One of the more surprising points was that Euan confirmed that he had no accountancy qualifications whatsoever and had originally trained to be a dentist. He subsequently qualified as a Psychologist and on graduating found himself a job with the Civil Service in Glasgow. Slotted in to the Inland Revenue he rose up through the ranks until promotion was not available unless he moved to London. This was not an option financially with a young family and so he looked for alternatives.

• Murdo McLeod proposed the vote of thanks.  

21st May, 2009 -  With our weekly meetings now held a McDiarmid Park, home of local football team Perth St. Johnstone. Our Saints supporting Rotary Club Members took this photoshoot opportunity to have their picture taken with the Scottish Football League, 1st. Division Championship Trophy, which St. Johnstone have just won for Season 2008/2009.(Spot the Old Firm Spy in the Camp)

21st May, 2009 - Speaker Tanya Ewing, 'British Female Inventor of the Year - 2008' gave a very interesting and exciting talk on her very innovative invention the EWGECO energy monitor. "I was 38, and realised that for the last twenty years all I'd done was read my utility meter to get an accurate reading and avoid an estimated bill. Now, I wanted to actually engage with my meter and understand my energy use. I wanted to know how much I would save by turning my radiators down from 3 to 2.5, This in turn inspired me to look at the way my family consumed energy and how much money and C02 emissions we could save by making some simple behavioural changes."

"I started searching the Internet to buy an energy monitor. I found information about 'smart meters' but I discovered they were really only smart for the utility companies and all the consumer got was a digital display instead of an analogue one. I initially thought there had to be existing technology to help people engage with their energy use and understand how to prevent wastage, but I soon realised that there was nothing on the market. That's why EWGECO energy monitor was conceived."

 

"I remembered something my grandfather had said to me when I was young. My dyslexia meant I never did very well at school, I don't think he thought I was particularly bright. He said 'Tanya, you've got to get yourself a patent - that will look after you for the rest of your life. Thirty years on I found myself looking at the patent website to see if anyone else had come up with my idea. I found a link to the Innovator's Counselling Advisory Service for Scotland, (ICASS) It offers free advice on whether an idea has mileage. Meeting ICASS was the start of my journey they conducted the initial patent search and then immediately put me in touch with patent lawyers, industrial designers and electronic developers who began to turn the EWGECO energy monitor into something that could actually work." The rest is history as they say!

• Robin King proposed the vote of thanks. 

14th May, 2009 - Suzzane Cumiskey - Perth & Kinross Council, Project Officer for the forthcoming Perth 800 Celebrations, gave a very interesting and exiting insight into how Perth's 800 years as a Royal Burgh will be celebrated in 2010. Already a very extensive program of events have being organised with many more being added on a dailly basis, our own Club celebrations are still at the planing stage so this was a very usefull update, and gave us a flavour of the events already planed. 

Perth 800 will be a year long programme of events, created for all to enjoy and participate in with the focus on a series of themes including our heritage, our future, our communities, culture and sport, the economy as well as a civic programme. The programme will see a focus in Spring on Culture, in Summer on Sport and Outdoor music and in Autumn on our Heritage.

23rd April, 2009 - Our own inimitable Willie Coupar gave us an a very amusing insight into the obscure world of Hashing and other oddball sports such as Beagling, strange sports that he participated in whilst serving with the British Army, which he enjoyed and has carried on into his later life. Not very good at sport, Willie accepted that he lacked coordination for Cricket, very light when young, Willie got knocked about quite a bit at Rugby, Golf bored him to tears, but in the Army he found his forte, Hashing! a kind of Cross Country race interspersed with a pints of beer. Hashing originated in Kuala Lumpur in 1938, when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds.", to rid themselves of the excesses of the previous weekend. Hashing has it's own Hash Language, on on; on in; on down; checking; shiggy; hash cash; hash horn etc. Hashing has not to be taken too seriously until you cross the line, then the beer and jocularity should flow in equal measures.

• Perth is having a Nash Hash at Scone Palace Racecourse; 28th - 31st August 2009.
• President Bill Montgomery proposed the vote of thanks.

16th April, 2009 - Speaker Derek Hall - Archaeologist, Depute Director with SUAT, Derek studied at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education where he gained a Certificate in Practical Archaeology. Derek gave the club an interesting update on the further excavations of the Carmalites Whitefriars Monastry he recently conducted at the old Normand the joiners site at Doo'cotland. Unfortunately the site has had to be back filled due to a lack of funding. Derek informed that there have been some very interesting finds and the next dig should produce evidence of the main monastry buildings, including the nave, cloister, sleeping quarters and kitchen, also an adjoining graveyard. The Carmelite Family is a religious Order in the Roman Catholic Church. They can trace thier roots back to the ancient hermits on Mount Carmel, Israel. They take Mary as thier model and try to follow Christ with special emphasis on Scripture and prayer.  This way of life was reinterpreted in the sixteenth century by St Teresa of Avila with the help of St John of the Cross.

9th April, 2009 - Fairview School - Perth and Kinross Council recently opened a brand new ‘state of the art’ Additional Support Needs (ASN) school within the existing campus at Perth Academy/Viewlands Primary School. The school is designed to cater for approximately sixty-five pupils across the full spectrum of Nursery, Primary and Secondary education. Forty will be secondary pupils, age range 12 to 17 and the remainder will be primary and nursery age, 3 to 11 – the children that will be educated here will have the most severe and complex needs.

The building sits within landscaped grounds and provides seven secondary and four primary teaching spaces as well as a nursery unit. There is a warm water pool a gymnasium and a multi sensory room. A personal care room serves each of the teaching spaces. For the older pupils there is a ‘life skills’ centre and for the younger pupils there are soft playrooms. There are spacious staff facilities and physio/medical rooms, and a full catering kitchen /dining centre.
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The opening of the facility, designed by the Council’s Property Division, represents a huge leap forward in terms of eco-friendly design and ethos for a building of this type. The building has raised the bar significantly for ASN facilities and has already attracted a significant amount of interest from the Scottish Government and the wider UK Educational establishment who are now using it as a ‘benchmark’ for other Councils to follow.