2024 Round Up

2024 saw us continue in much the same vein as 2023 - not as just a stay-indoors breakfast club but as more of an adventures group. Life isn't about just existing as you get older, it's about living as well as you can, experiencing new things, learning new stuff, meeting new people and hopefully, making some friends along the way.

Our membership numbers have stayed pretty much the same as last year. We did lose a few members along the way, some due to ill-health or other circumstances, and some just because we weren't for them, but we gained a few more as the year progressed so we're still going. Hopefully the couple that fell away will come back as they'll always be welcome.

We've had a volatile year as far as accommodation is concerned. We'd moved our meetings to Crofthead Bowling Club at the end of 2023. thinking "that's us settled", but unforeseen circumstances intervened and we then moved again to Neilston Bowling Club in May. Hopefully, that's us settled this time.

So, what have we done in our second year?

• We again successfully applied for and received community funding from several sources.

• We visited eleven historical sites or museums, two country parks, attended an international air show, two sports halls, a brewery, a distillery, and we went "doon the watter" on the Waverley paddle steamer.

• We travelled a fair bit doing all of that, over 1,000 miles, visiting such places as Ayr, Barrhead, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenock, Hamilton, Irvine, Largs, Millport, Oban, and Rothesay.

• In-house, we had a goodly number of full breakfasts and we finished off the year with an excellent Christmas Lunch and ceilidh in Neilston Bowling Club.

• We added a Help section to the web site and gradually added articles on Technology, Health and Wellbeing, and Travel.

All of our activities and visits for 2024 are listed and documented here so here are a few images taken from those...

We'd like to thank everyone that's supported us this year - Neilston Windfarm Legacy, Neilston Community Council, Voluntary Action East Renfrewshire, Bourock Variety Club, and all of the Neilston residents that dropped a token into our box at the Neilston Participatory Budgeting event.

We'd also like to thank the following people:

• Our chairman Raymond Kerr for organizing almost everything and badgering people for funds

• Raymond's wife Susan for not divorcing him

• John Mclean for cooking some very tasty breakfasts and John's varyingly attractive kitchen assistants Tam Sanderson and Ronnie Gorrie and anyone else he managed to rope in

• Robert Elliot for "driving" the Henry Vacuum Cleaner

Apologies if I've missed anyone.

Onward to 2025!