Congratulations to the new committee and all who have been elected to serve on it. They follow in many illustrious footsteps. Just some of them added here. On the football front, John Mellish who was President of the Rangers FC and Willie Maley who was long time Celtic manager have been there; our patrons have included a Prime Minister in Bonar Law and Chief Scout Lord Rowallan and numerous Lord Provosts of Glasgow. One of the most famous races in Olympic history was the 1908 400 metres final which was re-run after Americans were accused of boring, there were two Clydesdale Harriers acting as time keepers at the race – Andrew Hannah and A Ross Scott. Hannah had been 5 times consecutively Scottish National cross-country champion and Ross Scott was Treasurer of the SAAA for many years. Leaping up to date, David Bowman was President of Clydesdale Harriers, the Dunbartonshire AAA, the Inter-Counties and the Scottish Marathon Club in the same year! They helped run the club which is the only club in Scotland to have produced Scottish men’s national cross-country champions in three different centuries with Graeme Reid (Linwood in 2003) being the most recent: no other club can do it for another 75 years at least.
Congratulations especially to Robert as the new President after Peter’s long reign there. Bill Hislop, President in centenary year of 1985, always asked of a new president – “What’s his vision for the club?” It will be interesting to see how Robert tackles the problems that he faces. Having looked at the minutes of the past couple of years there are not many new faces there, and the ones that appear seem to hold the same positions. Neither is a good thing. Committee members learn by watching other more experienced before taking on an important position. The importance of the AGM cannot be over estimated because it is where the members can hold the committee to account for the past year but also when the new committee is elected. Many clubs have places on it for younger members – when one local club decided to reserve places for Under 15 and Under 17 to be on board, the cry went up from one older member “Free ice cream at committee meetings!” As far as we are concerned, we did encourage the younger members – U17 and U20 – to come along to the meetings. Derek McGinley ( a much under rated club member) often brought his younger athletes to the committee meeting to see how the club was being run. How else would they learn when their time came?
The other problem that I would see would be in the attendance of club members at national championships. There were none at all at the recent Track & Field championships and there had been none in the national cross-country championships. Why was that? How is it that Cambuslang, Garscube, Giffnock North, Shettleston and other local clubs could turn out runners and we didn’t? It is a position that needs to be addressed by the new committee.
Maybe a slight restructuring would help of course. In our club in the past and in other clubs at present there is a membership secretary who is in charge of recruiting, retaining and in one case, collecting subs for the club. Maybe also a Development Secretary? We have had such as social secretaries in the club too. These are not necessarily isolated positions – a general committee member could double up as such. Doubling up: at times all clubs have one man doing both secretary and treasurer – a mammoth task but one carried out at times by various clubs – Bill Elder of Glenpark Harriers was a quite outstanding example of such a person for many years. In addition, committee members used to switch chairs from time to time – Phil has been President, Secretary and Captain, I have been all three plus Treasurer. It helps for committee members to know what the problems are tasks the others have to perform.
I’d better shut up, I’ve gone on for long enough but I’ll finish where I started by wishing the new President and his committee all the very best of luck for the coming year.
