Business meeting

Hawick Rotarians gathered at Mansfield House Hotel on Thursday 9^th for a Business Meeting. Proceedings opened with a farewell to prominent member Ron Sutherland on his moving home back to his native Aberdeenshire. Ron Smith in a valedictory speech focused on what a central figure Ron has been in Hawick Rotary. He joined the Club on 1^st February 2000 and over 23 years has held essential roles in the Club. Currently he is joint International Convenor, Speaker Secretary, and Facebook Coordinator. Previously Ron was at the heart of all of our Youth Service activities. He arranged, organised and hosted five Global Scholars from USA and an immense commitment of time went into this. His work with Youth was recognised with the Rotary award of a Paul Harris Fellowship. Ron and his wife Pat have also been instrumental in raising funds for Hawick Rotary through their Seven Trigs Challenge, stewarding at events, and compiling quizzes. A special cake was cut and enjoyed by the company.

The Business Meeting then considered items of current interest. Among those was the progress of the Lend With Care scheme. Linden Warburton recorded that the account balance at the end of December had been £18. Since then repayments of £147 had been made and five new loans of £30 each had gone out: to a farmer and to a retail business in Ecuador, to a haulage contractor in Peru, to an arts and handicrafts business in Vietnam and to a cafe in Thailand. The balance at the end of February was then £14.85. In total, since inception of the scheme, 103 loans have been made, recycling a total of £5079. Of these loans 57 have been fully paid back and 44 are still currently repaying. This is a very popular initiative for Hawick Rotary Club.