Ruth Lyle was guest speaker at last Thursday’s Club Meeting.
Welcomed by President Mairhi Trickett and introduced by Scott Elliot, Ruth spoke a bit about her background, especially her time working as a librarian in the Borders. But then - to quote her words - Crash, Bang, Wallop - she suffered a major stroke and instead of enjoying the sunshine in Spain, spent much of her holiday in hospital. This was for her a big mental struggle at first, but with her own determination and support of family and friends, she started the long road to recovery.
Part of this recovery process was volunteering to support and help with various initiatives and groups in the town. Ruth then briefly spoke about each one.
Teri Bikes in North Bridge Street is a non profit community initiative hiring e-bikes to Hawick folk and visitors to the town, aiming to improve health and well-being whilst maximising use of our active travel network. Cycling Without Age Scotland provides transport around our local park and parts of the town enabled by local volunteers.
Ruth then moved onto the Hawick Town Team, Hawick Development Trust and Hawick Place Plan 2024-34, including a mention of the People Power Pyramid - an innovative way to represent peoples' interests, gaining an RTPI Award in 2025 for planning excellence.
Three Borderlands Projects were then reported on - Friends of Hawick Mair, The Arches and Hawick Signage Project. These will require approval by the Borderlands Partnership Board to unlock future funding.
Some of the activities of the Hornshole Greenway Project were then covered including Golden Eagles at Wilton PS, a visit to the top of Ruberslaw with youngsters, various Street Sweeps and tidy ups, designing litter bins for the School Playground at Burnfoot - not provided by the Council - so the Group appealed for help, which our Rotary Club supported, and a letter of thanks written by the pupils of Burnfoot School, was later read out to our members.
Ruth is also a My Name's Doddie Foundation Volunteer involved in MND fundraising and awareness raising. Two statistics - lifetime risk of developing MND is approximately 1 in 300 and approximately 5,000 people in the UK are living with MND right now. Ruth finished her talk by saying she was running in the Kelpies Supernova that weekend for MND (which she successfully completed!).
Gus Neilson gave the Vote of Thanks congratulating Ruth on all she had achieved through her voluntary work in her continuing Stroke recovery, and for the wide range of the various aspects of our town life which she had managed to cover in such a relatively short time.