The Rotary Club of Edinburgh
This Week's Bulletin
Bulletin 1,995 - 12th February 2004
Peter Wilson. Eulogy by John Baynham
I met Peter at a Burns supper in Glasgow 20 years ago. He was a generous host as always. Peter and Bunny were competent and in harmony; and she was his best critic! Peter was ebullient and full of zeal. His professional career was outstanding, as you can read in his biography "Purchase Two Kilts." He was a member of a host of committees and latterly two trusts, the Parkinson Agricultural Trust and the Yorkshire Trust. In 1983 he took up the Chair of Agriculture and a gale of fresh air blew through the corridors. Peter loved good food. Well do Marie and I remember an RIBI conference when Peter arrived with a copy of the Good Food Guide and announced we were off to the Mansion House in Poole.
I proposed Peter for this club in 1990 and he was active from the start. He was Kiev Project manager with George Holmes and President in the 90th year of the club. Although schooled in Croydon, he developed a passion for Scotland. He enjoyed curling, but a member was overheard to say "a lovely chap, but he cannae curl." His Paul Harris Fellowship was richly deserved. Our thoughts are with Bunny and the family.
An obituary for Peter, by Tam Dalyell MP in The Independent newspaper, can be read here...
TOP TABLE ANNOUNCEMENTS
A nice thank you letter received from Jimmy Raitt, Pres. Musselburgh. Replies to Malcolm Wylie re Rockland visit by Valentine's Day please. Reg. Robinson needs volunteers for Seagull Trust for boat crew and stewards - AGM Ratho Bridge Sat 28 Feb 10 am, all welcome. Rotary lapel badges are available at £1 each. James Mason alerted us to KidsOut on June 9th when 200 kids visit the Jack Kane centre. Douglas Osler needs names of potential members for the twilight club at 6.15 pm on Mondays at the Overseas Club.
ATTENDANCE, Melinda Wallace 84
Members 79; Guests 3, Visiting Rotarians 2: Mike Henderson, Dumfries & Tony Goddard, Ayr, Queensland. Tony has brought 70 Rotary Exchange Students to Europe. Guests included Gillian Porteous who is the Alumni Officer for Mary Erskines. She is the daughter of Jack Aitken (Aitken's bacon's not worth takin'). John Hull had visited Warwick, Ed Soutar to Wishaw Burns Supper, David Henderson to Braids, Neville to Leeds and Wali Uddin to various interesting places.
DAVID GRAY, PRINCIPAL ERSKINE STEWART'S MELVILLE
Hailing from Inverness, David went to the PM's alma mater, Fettes, and then to Bristol University. He set up and ran a school of English in Athens for 6 years, taught English at Leeds Grammar and became head of Pocklington School. He is now Head of Daniels, Mellies and The Queen Street Girls (the latter founded 1694). Fit as a fiddle, he can beat the entire rugby team in country runs.
Dr Russel Barr put him up for this talk, but apologised he would be absent. Mr Gray told us the combined schools have a turnover of £17 million, 500 employees and 2,600 pupils aged 3 to 18 of which 95% go on to higher education. The surplus is only 1%. In 3 years they have been inspected 3 times and classified as the best in the independent or maintained sector. His message today is to be proud of your own success. Scots can be too self-effacing and tend to hide their talents under a bushel. Better to be proud and teach people to have a sense of purpose to improve society. After the SQA fiasco of 2000, the Advanced Highers are now achieving rigour and objective analysis. However, Standard Grade is dumbing down for the sake of inclusiveness. The gap between Standard and Higher Grades is too great resulting in the 2 term dash, making 5th year a cramming nightmare. Universities are making a mistake with unconditional offers on Highers achieved, instead of conditional on Advanced Highers still to be sat. The matriculating qualification should be Adv. H so that students don't fritter away their last year and can go straight into 2nd year to reduce a degree to 3 years. In Edinburgh 25% of youngsters go to Independent Schools. To maintain charitable status, it may become necessary to pass a public benefit test. We give £1 million pa in bursaries to a wide ability range. Our Sports Centre is used by 60,000 of the public. Our staff give voluntary time to SQA as assessors, moderators, examiners and markers. We help to train Moray House students. We have invited 32 Primary Schools to take part in a concert at the Usher Hall. 400 pupils are doing Duke of Edinburgh Awards and do community service.
Mike Sims thanked Principal Gray for leading from the front and stated that he was still paying fees for 2 off-spring.
ORGAN DONOR CARDS. BILL BARR
Bill has NHS leaflets for donor registration. There is no age limit.
The huge success of transpantation means even more are needed.