269 February 2017 - Gryffe Advertizer

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30 the advertizer t: 01505 613340 07731 923970 e: info@advertizer.co.uk Support for Innovation Projects Rotary Club of Gryffe Valley Three pilot projects in Scotland will receive a total of £1 million to drive forward new approaches to innovation. Toshiba Medical Visualisations Systems, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the NHS Innovation Partnership Board, will receive £400,000 to develop a health and wellbeing pilot that will focus on the rapid prototyping and adoption of solutions to infl ammatory bowel disease. CivTech, a digital accelerator which aims to harness innovation in Scotland’s small business and start up technology sector to create new and/or more efficient public services, will receive £200,000. £400,000 will be used to support work with Codebase on the development of a digital pilot in Edinburgh that will focus on scaling up digital entrepreneurs. Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy Paul Wheelhouse said: “We want to support business innovation and to help companies thrive. The £1 million will make a real difference, such as the use of the public sector to catalyse innovation in projects such as CivTech, the world’s fi rst cross public sector technology accelerator.” Mr Wheelhouse announced the funding alongside a new Innovation Action Plan for Scotland, aimed at boosting Scotland’s innovation performance to match the levels of the best performing countries in the OECD. Early priorities will be to directly encourage more business innovation, use public sector needs and spend to catalyse innovation, to support innovation across different sectors, and to make best use of university research knowledge and talent to drive growth and equip Scotland’s people with the tools and skills needed to innovate. He added: “We want to create a culture in Scotland that supports ambitious businesses to use innovation to grow. Our long term ambition is to be in the top quartile of nations in the OECD for innovation active businesses." A TIME FOR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS AND NEW PLANS The new year started promptly with our weekly meeting on 4th January which was a “business” meeting devoted to planning events and activities for the next six months, the second half of the 2016/17 Rotary year. The immediate priorities were to fi nalise the annual Burns Supper being held on 14th January at the River Inn. This is an important fund-raiser as well as a great social occasion and this year the funds raised from the raffle will be used to support our evenings out for Young Carers at The Experience at Hillington, 23rd to 31st of January. Approaching 100 deserving young people will get the chance to enjoy go-karts, laser shooting, slot racing and a good meal. Next in the calendar is our Valentine’s Dinner and then a celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Rotary Foundation, the movement’s own charity. In addition we have speakers ranging from Gillian Craig on “My year in Cambodia”, Ahmad Mourhad with “Tales of a Syrian Weegie” to Rev Donald Campbell, the recently retired minister of Houston and Killellan Kirk. NEW YEAR RESOLUTION – 1 If you are aiming to get fi tter, lose weight or get out more why not include the Gryffe Valley 10K Run in your plans. A little later this year, the event will be on Sunday 7th May. It is suitable for serious runners and for novices and joggers. The funds raised will go to the DEBRA charity which supports children and young people with the skin disease Epidermolysis Bullosa. The club were motivated to give to this charity by a speaker from DEBRA last summer who demonstrated the important work of the charity including essential research being carried out in Scottish universities into the causes and possible cures. You can enter as an individual or form a team with your friends, school, club or company and seek sponsorship in aid of DEBRA or your own charity. There is more information about DEBRA on the charity’s website www.debra.org.uk . NEW YEAR RESOLUTION – 2 If, like some of our recent recruits to membership, you are recently retired or are coming up to retirement why not include Rotary in your plans? We need people who have recent business or professional experience, who want to “give something back to the community” and who will enjoy dinner/speaker meetings with Rotary colleagues and friends. Our membership comes from
@GryffeAds www.advertizer.co.uk february 2017 31 31 the whole Gryffe Valley and adjacent villages, including Lochwinnoch and Kilbarchan. Meetings are weekly on Wednesday night at the River Inn with a meal at 7.30pm. There is no obligation to attend every week, though many of the members enjoy doing so. If you are interested please speak to a member or get in touch via the contact facility on the website www.gryffevalley-rotary. org.uk/ where you can also fi nd out more about our activities and future speakers. SPEAKER The speaker at the meeting on 11th January was Mark Robertson of Kibble School. In September, last year, he led an expedition of staff and school students to Chilingola in Malawi to construct two classrooms to extend a greatly overcrowded school. Working with local people they overcame many issues on the project and, in addition, renovated three existing classrooms. The school has classes of 90-100 very poor children, and minimal facilities and resources. The roll has grown partly through the Mary’s Meals project which encourages attendance. President Peter Dickie gave a vote-of-thanks and recognised the importance of the project. As an aside Mark told us that Kibble has an ongoing project to collect bicycles from the Recycling Centres around Renfrewshire, renovate them and ship them to Africa. He encouraged the club to continue our support for Mary’s Meals, Bagpacks for Africa, etc., having seen the value of such projects fi rst hand whilst in Africa. THANK YOU Many thanks to the residents of Houston (Locher, Gryffebank, Cunningham Gardens and Crawford Rd) and Brookfi eld who contributed very generously to our Santa’s Sleigh collections in December, in aid of the Young Carers project. Thanks also to Santa and other club members for their time and the Bridge of Weir Gala Committee. ANNUAL BURNS SUPPER The 2017 Gryffe Valley Rotary celebration of Robert Burns was held on Saturday 14th January at the River Inn with 185 guests present, despite the weather forecasts. There was a welcome drink and a traditional meal, including haggis, neeps and tatties, excellently served, after the haggis had been piped in by club member Ron Aitchison and addressed in fi ne style by Past President Ian Jackson. The headline speech at a Burns Supper is the Immortal Memory and this year the audience was treated to a superb debut performance by Geoff Urie, Headmaster of the Hermitage School at Helensburgh and a lifelong supporter of St Mirren. We had a surprise intervention by Holy Willie (aka Jim Ferguson). Another Past President, Alan Bowie, Proposed the Toast to the Lassies in his very amusing way and Jean Irvine replied on behalf of the fairer sex, matching Alan’s humorous jibes in fi ne style. All three speakers had impressive CVs, but none mentioned their prowess at Burns Suppers. They should! Between speeches Alan Macdougall and Amy Lewis entertained the company with their music. The Interval raffle raised an impressive sum towards the cost of the Young Carers project. President Peter Dickie chaired the event in his inimitable and efficient style and Past President Angus Mathieson thanked - in rhyme - the speakers, entertainers, the River Inn, his organising committee and all present for their generosity.
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269 February 2017 - Gryffe Advertizer

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