President Douglas Dow welcomed twelve other members, and reported that Graham Smith was now home after donating a kidney to his daughter. He is doing well, would welcome visitors, but will not be back at meetings for a few weeks.
Reay Mackay reported that St Michael and All Angels Scottish Episcopal Church had decided to donate its Lent collection to the club's Malawi Project, and that Tom Bowden will speak to the club about his visit to Malawi on Tuesday March 31.
Senior Vice-President Derek Hall spoke about French wine grower and merchant Georges Deboeuf, who was involved in wine making in the Pouilly Fuisse area of Burgundy from the age of six. His white wine became so good that it was in demand in top Paris restaurants, and then he turned to producing red wine.
He was the man who, through expert marketing, created the Beaujolais Nouveau craze in November each year as a reply to the increasing popularity of New World wines. Eventually he was supplying 250,000 cases each year.
Derek said that any wine which had his name on the label is very high quality and to be recommended. His business legacy is sales of 2.5 million cases per year. Mike Jane proposed the vote of thanks.
The weekly raffle for a whisky miniature was won by Donald Fullarton.