SERVICE ABOVE SELF


NOVEMBER 2019: ISSUE 127


Fellow Members, October has been a busy month with four meetings, a s o c i a l e v e n t , t h e Kingsbarns Golf fundraiser and a New Members’ Night. The first meeting was hectic! After our Council meeting, we had a large turnout for Professor Alistair Dawson’s talk on ‘Weather in St Andrews over the last 700 years’. We had five guests, four from the USA in addition to a drop-in visit by Immediate Past District Governor Ian Dow and one of his fellow club members. The purpose of Ian’s trip was to present the club with a Presidential Citation for the work we undertook in 2018/19. Congratulations to John Spittal for leading us to this achievement. By the time Alistair stood up to speak it was around 8.20pm! It was well worth the wait, however, as he took us on a journey through a series of ice ages and then warm periods to explain Viking invasions and fish stock movements over time. The New Members’ Night seemed to go well although the true test of this will come later when we see how many guests, if any, become members. The format was similar to last year with a talk on Rotary and the Club followed by the meal. Following that there was a presentation to Claire Simpson of Fife Young Carers and to one of the carers, Lewis Lennie from Cupar, brief talks on their Rotary experiences by long time Rotarian, Bruce Rollo, and new member Eric Fraser. This was followed by a round up at the end. The following week around 30 members and guests assembled outside the Doll’s House for a walking tour of St Andrews. Our guide, Richard Falconer, then took us from Holy Trinity Church across


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South Street to St Mary’s Colle ge , down to St Leonard’s, back up to the Cathedral, Castle (the Bishop’s Palace) and St Salvator’s before returning to our final destination, the Saint where we had dinner. There was an amazing amount of historical detail within a relatively small area. In under 90 minutes Richard produced a litany of facts and stories at break neck speed leaving


some of us astonished by our lack of knowledge of our own town. This was no Wikipedia tour but a well- researched guide strongly based on Richard’s own research, much of which was drawn from the Hay Fleming collection. The last week of the month was particularly busy with our Kingsbarns Charity Golf Event on the Monday, a regular meeting on Tuesday and for Jim Allison and myself attending an area meeting of Presidents/Presidents Elect. We were lucky once more with the weather at Kingsbarns, where a field of 112 golfers from as far as East Sutherland in the north to Surrey in the south competed for a variety of trophies and prizes.


CONTENTS:


President’s Diary - October Busy Evening


700 years of St Andrews Weather and Climate My Life, My Art


New Members’ Evening Historic Tour of Town


Page/s 2 and 3 3


4 5


6 and 7 7


Another Great Day At Kingsbarns 8 to 10 District Conference 2019


Get Your Vocal Chords In Trim 13 October Celebrations and Visitors and the Best of Happy Pound The Last Laugh Calendar Contacts


11 to 13


14 and 15 16 16 16


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