Lunch time ZOOM meeting - 1pm - Barry Fisher CEO Keep Scotland Beautiful Charity

Six apologies for absence were received.

Our speakers this week was Barry Fisher CEO of Keep Scotland Beautiful who has extensive experience in the youth sector.  He joined Keep Scotland Beautiful from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in March 2020, where latterly he held the role of Scotland Director.  Prior to this Barry worked with the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland. The environment has always played a massive part in all his past employment roles as he sought to engage young people with activities dependent on clean, healthy environments. Keep Scotland Beautiful are your charity for Scotland's environment, with a vision for a clean, green, sustainable Scotland.We are lucky to live in such a beautiful country and we want to keep it that way. Keep Scotland Beautiful have three goals - to combat climate change, tackle litter and waste, and protect and enhance the places we live, work and visit. They know that we cannot make a difference on our own, so they work with you to enable positive change. They support the ambitions of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals. The vision of the Global Goals international action plan is to set out a positive vision for the future - to tackle poverty and inequality and promote sustainable development across the world.  There are 17 Global Goals which form the basis of a global partnership for sustainable development. Keep Scotland Beautiful’ s latest Annual Review celebrates their work in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to sign up to adopting the Global Goals in 2015.  More than 190 countries have now signed up to the vision to end poverty, hunger, inequality and to protect the environment. Keep Scotland Beautiful play an active role in the implementation of the Scottish sustainable development agenda through their work on sustainability and climate change, local environmental quality, sustainable development education, and food and the environment. Sustainable development is at the heart of their vision, mission and strategic objectives. In aligning their work to the Global Goals, they have a clear view on how they contribute to, support, and promote understanding of, and engagement with, sustainable development. They are committed to evidencing and demonstrating how our activities contribute to the Global Goals. Across their own activities they have identified where they have the biggest potential to contribute to the 17 Global Goals and their 169 targets. He spoke about Eco schools, Climate ready classrooms and climate emergency training. The talk continued by talking about Carbon emission reduction, Reduction in litter waste and the Turd and Tag campaign and how we can protect and enhance places. Many countries are involved with DRS Deposit return scheme where the public are rewarded for the return of glass and plastics.

The Rotary Vote of Thanks was given by Brian Johnson.

Our mother club Kirkcaldy Rotary celebrate 100 years on 11th May 2021. We wish them well as they celebrate this amazing achievement.

 The Old Tools and Sewing machines project lead by Rotarian Iain Oates (phone 07423 195333) in conjunction with The Ecology Centre at Kinghorn’s Tool Shed who are refurbishing old tools donated by the public and, with the help of the charities Tools for Self-Reliance and the Global Concerns Trust, are shipped out to people with physical disabilities in Malawi. Although this is an ongoing project with a focus also on haberdashery / patterns, we are looking to draw our involvement to a close by the end of May.

The Books abroad project is gathering momentum as support is coming in from schools and the public.

This coming week Thursday 13^thMay 2021 our meeting will be held on ZOOM at 1pm with Senior Vice President Brian Johnson taking the chair in the absence of President Geoff Sampson our speaker will be Mike Delaney from Happy Beaches Fife.

Vote of Thanks to be confirmed.

If you were interested in supporting the community and international projects get in touch by Private message on The Rotary Club of Glenrothes Facebook page. You will be made most welcome.