At Random
Relishing – and dreading – Am-Am
IT IS only days now until the annual Oban Rotary Am-Am golf competition.
This is an excellent charity initiative that over the years has raised more than £165,000. It is also one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the Oban social calendar, and rightly so.
Played over the beast that is Glencruitten golf course – the 12th hole should either be abolished or have a funicular railway installed – the AmAm will again, I’m sure, be a fabulous day for all those involved.
Now in its 32nd year, the Am-Am, according to Rotary junior vice-president Iain MacIntyre, is crucial to the local Rotary Club’s fundraising. Iain told The Oban Times: ‘ We raised just short of £11,000 last year. If we raise between £10,000 and £11,000 this year, I will be delighted.
‘The Am-Am accounts for about 60 to 70 per cent of our total funds raised each year.’
Among the beneficiaries of the sponsors’ largesse are a number of local causes, with an emphasis on youth- oriented activities, such as school trips, junior golf development, shinty, football and rugby coaching, and the likes of the Oban High School Pipe Band. It also supports Mary’s Meals, the Laurinburg School exchange, the local senior citizens’ annual Christmas lunch and Oban Hospice.
More than 100 sponsors and nearly 200 players are expected for this year’s event, which takes place on Sunday June 4. Inexplicably, thanks to my
Oban Times colleagues, I’ve been shanghaied into the paper’s team. My playing partners might live to regret asking me.
Well-deserved recognition
A HUGE well done to the team at Hope Kitchen in Oban for being down to the final four in the Charity of the Year.
Part of the Scottish Charity Awards, making the shortlist is brilliant recognition for the superb work done by Lorraine MacCormick and her team of volunteers at the Argyll Street-based premises.
Hope Kitchen’s website states: ‘Our aim is the advancement of services which provide food, shelter and companionship to vulnerable and marginalised people living within the area of Oban and Lorn.
‘Where possible and appropriate, we seek to address the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the people attending Hope Kitchen.’
It is a prosaic statement of intent but the team there deliver big time. Now they will have wait until June 22 to find out if they have won.
Regardless of the final out- come, however, Hope Kitchen deserves all the plaudits it has already received.
Is this gaffe a bridge too far?
AND, finally, I received telephone call at The Oban
Times office last week from a reader asking if I knew where the bridge over the Atlantic is located.
When I answered Seil, the caller, who didn’t leave his name but told me he came from Kilcreggan on the Rosneath peninsula, said someone should tell Fred Olsen Cruise Lines.
The caller pointed out that Fred Olsen has a blurb in its marketing material for one of its voyages to the Faroe Islands which claims the only Atlantic span is located there.
Sure enough, I searched online and found on Fred Olsen’s website: ‘ The only bridge over the Atlantic, as it is sometimes called, spans the narrow channel of Sundini to connect Eysturoy with the larger island of Streymoy.’
Shame on them!
What do you think?
Do you have something you want to share? Let me know by writing to me at The Oban Times, Crannog Lane, Oban, PA34 4 HB, or by email to mlaing@obantimes.co.uk.