Alloway Burns Club have been compiling videos of Club activities for a while now and we felt it would be a good idea to link to their YouTube channel so you might also view their activities. Go to this link : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ei-N_kdD93wBfoqsXOCpQ/videos
New Cumnock Burns Club, a sub group of the aforementioned Club calling themselves ’Burns Club Blethers’ have been meeting 3 times a week, via Zoom, since the end of March.
These evenings have included quizzes, poetry readings, analysis of poems and ‘show and tell’- type topic nights. They have also had on-line Burns Suppers and Scots Verse Nights (Sangs and Clatter). One of their members, Bobby Jess, was inspired to broadcast Daily Poetry Readings via Facebook and Youtube (which he sustained without a break for 3 months!).
In discussing other options for Zoom they developed the idea of a Video Podcast which would allow Burnsians to get to know the personalities behind cronies that they had seen speaking, reading or singing at Suppers, conferences and other Burns events.
They also hope that it will provide a bit of an oral history for future generations. It has been very well received, so they intend to continue to record and broadcast them, so long as cronies come forward as willing volunteers. They normally publish a new episode around 12 noon on a Sunday.
Episode 13 - Henry Cairney - https://youtu.be/mP6eyNV0x5o
Episode 12 - Hugh Farrell - Part 2 https://youtu.be/79LNCPHStVU
Episode 11 - John Morran https://youtu.be/xvxP-slIUo8
Episode 10 - Angus Middleton https://youtu.be/feDqKvsaxQA
Episode 9 - Hugh Farrell https://youtu.be/pXXKsGX2Hx0
Episode 8 - Jane Brown https://youtu.be/U2HWYF2eOIE
Episode 7 - Tracy Harvey https://youtu.be/fIhnMn3LYGw
Episode 6 - Jimmy Law https://youtu.be/DyXVuMGcn0Y
Episode 5 - Stephen Hastie https://youtu.be/VaxpFNO0zLU
Episode 4 - Billy Hastie https://youtu.be/YpFVpqdq_bs
Episode 3 - Willie Waugh https://youtu.be/qpkiyRT5H-4
Episode 2 - Graham Wight https://youtu.be/N1J5np4ZksY
Episode 1 - Bobby Jess https://youtu.be/h3rZvlfGWUw
Lament for a Scupper’d AGM
How the world’s oldest Burns Club was nearly thwarted by a microscopic virus
When Rab turn’d ower the mousie’s nest
That dark November day
His thoughts went tae the rodent’s life
And whaur its future lay
The mousie’s fate look’d very bleak
Oor Bardie was upset
He saw the part that he had play’d
And what micht happen yet
He also took the mousie’s plight
Compar’d it to himsel’
And how mankind was much worse aff
In ways that he could tell
An’ forward tho’ I canna see
Was what he said back then
He guess’d and fear’d aboot oor plight
Tho’ it beyond his ken
He couldnae hae seen the human race
Brought firmly to its knees
By a sleekit’, cowerin’ Chinese bat
And its relentless disease
Is this revenge for Rabbie’s mouse,
Or just a quirk o’ fate?
The question noo across the land
Did we react too late?
The smartest scientific minds
Are lookin’ for a cure
For this disease has nae respect
If ye be rich or poor
The sadness spreads across the world
As death rates rise and soar
Lockdown reigns throughout oor land
Social gatherings are no more
And serious tho’ this a’ may be
Bemoan’d by mice and men
It’s gone it’s dinger noo and scupper’d
The Mother Club’s AGM!
The Committee members were aghast
This surely cannae be?
We hae tae meet, it’s in the rules
But how, we couldnae see!
Technology just won the day
“Keep safe” oor battle cry
An Electronic AGM
And The Mother Club gets by
Ev’n Rabbie couldnae hae seen this come
When he wrote in yesteryear
An’ forward tho’ ah canna see
Ah guess and fear …
Wi’ God’s guid grace we’ll a’ get through
This crisis, safe and well
And hae a Toast at the Mother Club -
But when? Ah, wha can tell?
Iain White
Junior Vice President
Greenock Burns Club
