Wow! Glasgow had a bit of rain Thursday night and then the cold front gave us a near-perfect weather for a great games week end. This is the first Glasgow games in years and years where the temps weren't over 100 degrees.
We had two tents next to Clan Wallace and across from the entertainment pavilion. We had the new arms on the tent banners and unveiled a new marching banner mounted on a broad sword in front center of the tents. I thought the arms banner was stunning and apparently so did the general public! I lost count of the number of the visitors who took pictures of it and the tent itself.
Mary had printed a flyer with the Arms announcement which Harold and I took to each of the clan tents at the games. Every single one of the clans were happy to know we had been recognized by Lord Lyon. The Wallace representative took his flyer to the games announcer and requested that he read it over the loud speaker system. We had already given the Glasgow Games committee a prepared statement to be read during the Parade of Tartans, but it was nice to be noticed that way. And someone
else blew our horn!
At the close of the first day, we had the Annual General Membership meeting in the clan tent. The formal report of the meeting will be included in the upcomng newsletter. Ed Dietz had a lot of left over items (like a yard sale) and placed them in a chest for sale with all proceeds going to help offset the cost of Lyon Court costs - It brought in over $34. How about that? A really nice gesture and idea.
Beth Gay (New Fangled Family Tree) stopped by to congratulate us and said she would put an announcement in her next newsletter. The "Society of Scottish Armigers" welcomed us and suggested that we become members of the Society.
Mr. C. Hillhouse (a director of the Society) was great help if getting our arms petition approved by Lord Lyon. They have a project underway of making 'Bruce's Castle' into a 'Lochmaben Heritage Center.' They are asking everyone to become a friend of the project (no donations) to support their effort to persuade Dumfries Council to sell or rent the Castle to the group. Please take the time to email susananne.knight@talktalk.net and you will be added to an email list for updates on the project.Sunday was a bit slow until the Parade of Tartans. Harold invited an interested bystander to march along with us and she was delighted to actually march in a parade. Later at the tent we showed her that she was actually a 'Border Reiver' as she was a Graham. She was THRILLED and wanted to know "all." What fun! During the subsequent interview with a reporter from the Glasgow Daily Times, our new Graham reiver insisted on telling the reporter that we were the best people at the games, bar none. The friendliest, most gracious, most hospitable........we couldn't have gotten that much enthusiasm and support with a paid advertisement and we thank her if she's reading this!
We didn't get much in the way of pictures. Several members who usually do a lot of pictures weren't able to get this this year and Mary wasn't mobile enough to get out much. What we do have she will put in the newsletter or on the GALLERY on the website within the next week. Mary tried to get some pictures of the parade of tartans, but something went wrong and it wouldn't zoom and the color is really weird. Don't know if she can put that one up or not.
Ideas for next year's AGM location were tossed around.....the biggest vote-getters were New Hampshire Highland Games, Charleston, SC games, and maybe Virginia (if I have my memory right). New Hampshire turned us down before we got our arms, so we don't know how that will go. Charleston is a fairly large games with about 40 clans. The info Mary had with her was for Williamsburg, VA games but we understand there is a really large games in Northern Virginia and we are going to have a look at that. Obviously, no decisions were made so far.
Anyway, we had a great weekend - thanks to Ted and Pam Herring, Harold and Patsy Bennett, Ed Dietz, Tom Thompson and Barbara Marion, Allen and Heidi Thompson and the people who dropped in. Wish
you could have joined us.
Tom
