President’s Handover

“Thanks to everyone for engaging this year. My theme throughout the year was trying to get folk engaged and I think we've managed that. And I genuinely mean we.

“These things wouldn't happen without you guys coming to meetings or going to events. I'd like to thank those who led the groups in youth and local community, international, the fundraising we did, social media and all that, it's brilliant. I think we're really making real positive steps towards what I hope for is engaging local communities.

“We've had some real positive meetings with local communities in the last couple of weeks, and I think that can only get better throughout the course of this year. My final thanks is to all the formal office holders, and I'm going to call out Janice and Morag, but more importantly Robert, who had to step in during my numerous absences at the tail end of last year. And as I said previously, I use the word tail end in commas.

“Thank you very much, you have no idea how much it is appreciated. I genuinely believe as a club we have the foundations for ongoing successes both locally and internationally, and that comes down to the folks in this room and the folk that give us their apologies when they can't make it. 

“I would love to work harder on those that we don't see, and I think we'll continue to do that next year, but I really do think we've got a good foundation for taking us to the next level. So thank you very much. 

“As I said to everyone when I was at the Charter Dinner, I never thought it was going to be it, but I'm kind of glad I did, in a strange masochistic sort of way. So with that, I'll move on the meeting as we've actually got to do the formal handover.”

President Robert said that he was looking forward to moving things forward as much as we can in the next year. “Hopefully we can get some new members, that'll be one of the main points to concentrate on. Neil's already making good contact with community council, we've got somebody coming next week, so that's promising.

“Aileen's going to give the youth service a kick up the backside, now I've departed, so fingers crossed. As Mark said, we've got the foundations, we've just got to build on it, so if everybody supports us then we'll be okay.”