Christmas Joy - Advent Calendar

Rotary in Kirkcudbright puts a positive spin on the Year End

Christmas came early in Kirkcudbright with an Advent Book based on an Advent Calendar. After a difficult year for all fund-raising organisations including all Rotary Clubs, Kirkcudbright Club came up with the idea of asking local businesses and individuals to help to sponsor the Book or donate a prize. Given the financial pressures of an extraordinary year, their response was amazing, as was the uptake buying the books.

Each Book had a number, and for each day from the 1st to the 24th December there were prize draws for the numbers that were random computer generated. A net profit of over £3,800 resulted. Proceeds from the sale of these books are being used equally in helping to support our own Kirkcudbright Youth Project for young people between the ages of 9 and 24 and to help provide clean water throughout the year for rural farmers in SrI Lanka. 

Rotary in Kirkcudbright has been delighted to bring some welcome joy in these trying times, and to help to have our business community and the public work together to deliver such a positive outcome.

This is only possible thanks to the generosity of so many people.

Editors Note;   There will shortly be a press release including presentation photograph. In the meantime here they are on our Website and Facebook;-

ADVENT WINNERS PRESENTATION;-

Club President Dr Mike Moore supported by the Advent Calendar Team presenting Sandra Carsewell with the magnificent quilt, and Janice McKeand with the beautiful pendant.

In common with many other organisations, the Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright was hit hard by Covid-19 during 2020.  Not only have our regular weekly meetings at the Selkirk Arms Hotel been impossible, but normal fundraising activities have had to be suspended, while our spending plans for projects and events have also been severely disrupted.

However, we continue to meet fortnightly using Zoom and have found novel ways of raising funds and supporting local, national and international causes.  Here are a few examples:

Our Advent Book project in the run-up to Christmas has proved enormously successful.  Huge thanks to local businesses and individuals, as well as Club members and their families, for supporting this effort which has raised over £3800. This will be split between the Johnston School Youth Programme and a clean water programme for rural Sri Lanka.

Also on the International front, Rotary members and friends have donated a total of 59 “shoeboxes,” containing small presents and essentials for some of Eastern Europe’s poorest families in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, while we have also been able to donate an Aquabox to help provide clean drinking water for refugees in Yemen.

Through our Youth committee, we have been able to fund two young people from Kirkcudbright Academy to take part in a Remote RYLA (Rotary Young Leaders Award), a virtual experience rather than the usual residential activity experience.  The success of this has encouraged us to look at how this “virtual” model could be used to deliver other activities for local young people.  We have already agreed to support a virtual “Young Musician” competition which will be held  in Kirkcudbright Academy in February 2021.

Our ‘Young Photographer” competition for young people from Kirkcudbright and the surrounding area has also proved very successful, attracting more than 100 entries.  All entries will be displayed in the  Tolbooth and The Galleries in Kirkcudbright from January 18th until March 28th.

Rotary continues to support the international fight against Polio, having raised more than $2.1 billion worldwide.  Now, with Covid on our doorstep, each of us understands the importance of immunisation and, with your help, we will continue to contribute to the ultimate eradication of this disease.

Finally, Club member Mike Duguid and his wife Pat have distributed several patchwork lap quilts, made by Pat, to lonely or poorly residents in and around the Twynholm area.

Thanks to all for your continued support.