ALEXANDRIA BURNS CLUB
St Andrews Night Celebration 28th November 2014
Once again we gathered in the function suite of the Vale of Leven Bowling Club for the annual St Andrew's Night celebration. More than 80 members and guests gathered there for the ongauns. Robert Mills and the team from Venue Catering provided the usual excellent meal.
The Top Table with Lachie Stewart, Craig Taylor,
Chairman Bryan Weir, Rev. Ian Miller and Frank Kelly
Our new club president, Bryan Weir was in the chair for the first time. Bryan welcomed the company and introduced the top table, which included a special guest, the 1970 Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres gold medallist Lachie Stewart. Lachie had been invited as this year had seen Glasgow hosting the very successful Commonwealth Games. Bryan also mentioned Ross Murdoch, another Vale lad, whose grandparents are members of the Vale of Leven Bowling Club. Ross of course won the 200 metres swimming gold medal in this year's games.
Reverend I.M (Ian Miller) Jolly
The company then enjoyed dinner and following a short interval the evening got started with the Toast to Scotland by our club member the evergreen and ever popular Rev. Ian Miller. Ian offered an insightful and well received toast before his impromptu performance as the Rev. I. M. Jolly, which the audience very much appreciated.
Frank Kelly, a more recent member and a star performer, then played guitar and sang a couple of songs. As usual this was more "twangs and patter" than than sangs and clatter but as expected Frank was excellent.
Bob Wylie followed with a couple of humourous readings. Once again these were very well received by the company.
Bob Wylie
Tom McRae (right) then sang a couple of songs for us. These included his excellent version of the "Song of the Clyde". Despite suffering from a heavy cold Tom's voice was as good as ever.
To conclude the first half our resident harmonica player, Jim O'Hare played a rousing selection with one of his marvellous moothie medleys.
After the second interval a new face was introduced to the Alexandria Burns club. Craig Taylor is from Helensburgh. This was his first time at one of our events. He offered a humourous toast to "oor Toon". Craig's toast was well researched as evidenced by his inside knowledge of a few of the weel kent faces in the sudience.
Craig Taylor enjoys a joke with Chairman Bryan Weir
Following Craig another new performer was introduced in Tom Brown. Tom has been a member for a few years but this was his first appearance as a performer. Tom performs the very funny, "Kate O'Shanter's Tale" a reply by Tam's wife Kate upon his return from the travails of the market day in Ayr.
Tom Brown as Kate O'Shanter
At this point Frank Kelly took the floor again. This time Frank was in comedian mode. He always manages to find new material and with his professional delivery he had the company in stitches throughout.
Frank Kelly
When the audience had recovered from Frank's performance Jim O'Hare performed his second moothie medley. This was another virtuoso performance that was commented on by some of those seeing Jim for the first time. Jim is always guaranteed to get the audience going.
Jim O'Hare
Another successful evening drew to a close with the company joining to sing local favourites , "Loch Lomond " and the "Lovely Valley". The singing was was led by David (Dee) Mitchell performing for the first time.
The evening was then concluded with a vote of thanks from the chairman after which the company joined hands to sing Auld Lang Syne. The committee would like to thank all artistes for their efforts and the audience for their excellent order. We would also like to thank member Tommy Gilmour for providing the photos of the evening as well as the saltire backdrop.
It is worth commenting that we were more or less self sufficient for the whole evening. From the photos to the website and the performers, with Craig Taylor being the only performer who is not a member of the Alexandria Burns Club and that should be remedied fairly soon. Well done to all.
A selection of images from the evening hasd been posted below. Click these to view larger versions in a new window.
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