Clive Murray - President of the Rotary Club of Dundee

Clive told us, like us, his club had had no face to face meetings since March last year. They too met on Zoom.

To illustrate his talk he made much use of pages from the Dundee Courier.

The idea of a Rotary club in Dundee had been mooted in 1915, but with WW1 raging nothing was done till 1921 when the Perth club arranged a meeting.

With the club formed they had speakers at meetings much like we have today. Paul Harris once came to speak to the members. The club carried on meeting during WW2.

In the 1950s they worked with NCR (National Cash Register), who had a factory in the city, to provide a scholarship for someone to study at Harvard University.

In 1935 there was discussion on the feasibility of building a bridge across the Tay – 31 years before it actually happened.

In 1991 the club was involved in a competition design a new waterfront in the city.

The club started planning their centenary celebrations well in advance. The aim was to raise £100,000 and have 100 members by 2021. The succeeded in raising the money but did not achieve 100 members.

They helped a great many worthy causes with the money raised. Among these was £10,000 on blood pressure monitors and £5000 for 5 years on a bursary for a student to study.

The birthday was in May. With the Covid restrictions celebrations had to be postponed for a while. They did, however, have a tea party which the District Governor and Lord Provost attended and had a mention in the Scottish Parliament. Centenary Cakes were taken to Dundee care homes.

There are many more events to come.