Alison Rennie - Children's Hospice Association Scotland and Sarah Morley - ChildLine

24 Rotarians attended the weekly meeting in the Westlands Hotel last Thursday. The meeting was again chaired by the Senior Vice President Iain Smith.

We were delighted to welcome two guest speakers; Alison Rennie from CHAS (Children's Hospice Association Scotland) and Sarah Morley from ChildLine/NSPCC. The Rotary Club of Bridge of Allan and Dunblane supports both of these charities through fund raising activities during the course of each year.

Sarah began by telling the meeting that ChildLine is now in its 25th year. She also told us that apart from Esther Rantzen, who still actively mans the phones quite frequently, there is still one original volunteer who is still part of the regular phone counselling team.

Since the early days the operation now has ten telephone centres, to which have recently been added two on line centres. These centres receive approximately 50,000calls per day, and 95% of these are answered by the counsellors.

When ChildLine was started in 1986 it dealt with 23,000 cases in that year. Last year it dealt with 265,000 cases, and has helped over 2.6 million children since 1986. The most frequent reason for the call is bullying but possibly the most concerning statistic she told the members was that the counsellors have dealt with over 20,000 children who were suicidal since 1986.

Alison told the members that the Club had been supporting CHAS since 1994, which was two years before the first purpose built facility was opened at Rachel House.

She thanked the Club for its generous on-going support which has helped to raise sufficient funds to open a second facility, Robin House in 2000. CHAS offers support to children suffering from terminal illness and also their families. It provides not only support and respite care for the families, but also has specially designed space for teenagers and young adults within both Homes.

She highlighted the importance of Art and Music in the process of helping the children deal with their condition, and that both Houses have special facilities to assist with these activities.

Because the increasing and widespread of demand for these services, a pilot programme of providing an "At Home" support service was successfully launched in Inverness. This was so successful that it is now being extended to the whole of Scotland.

Both charities only receive very modest support from central and local government. Alison informed the meeting that it takes £7m to run CHAS so that the funds raised by the Club are vital to the maintenance of the services provided by them, and the same is true for ChildLine.

John Kilby gave the vote of thanks, not only for the two very thought-provoking talks, but also for the invaluable work that both organisations provide for the community at large, and children in particular.