2019 Priorities

Boundary stones

The planned re-survey was partially undertaken in June and will be completed this year. Some work has been done on the Jasper Brown notebook (which we have now copied), plotting stone locations described in it onto a current map. Hopefully, more progress can be made in this current year, assisted by geolocation technology.

Increase Membership

During the year, we welcomed Carol Foreman, Scott Aitken, John Turner and Tony Walker as members, taking our total membership to 10 people.

Mining Memorial and Mining History Book

Regarding these two ongoing projects which we are sponsoring, all funding and planning consents are in place for erection of the Mining Memorial in the Main Street which will be unveiled this summer. Funding is also in place for publication later this year, of the book A History of Coal Mining in Rutherglen and Cambuslang written by members Bob McDonald and Colin Findlay, who are to be congratulated for their hard work and perseverance in bringing these two excellent projects towards successful conclusions.

External and Community Relations

We held an Open Afternoon in Rutherglen Library in May as part of South Lanarkshire Libraries’ History Month, and took our usual stall on Landemer day in June. We continued to enjoy good relationships with Rutherglen Heritage Centre/Rutherglen Library and with South Lanarkshire Museums, and to attend meetings of Lanarkshire Heritage Forum. We will host the October 2020 meeting of the LHF. We posted occasionally on the Auld Rutherglen Facebook page. I was on CamGlen Radio at the end of January to raise awareness of the Society’s activities.

Website

This has been online for almost two years. During this year, a section on Famous Ruglonians was added along with features on the old cinemas of Rutherglen, the Old Parish Church and churchyard, and on the history of Landemer Day. Many thanks to Bill McLennan, Carol Foreman, Robert Harvey, Colin Findlay, Carol Penman and the Auld Rutherglen Facebook members who contributed excellent material and suggestions. We passed 3 genealogy information requests received through the website to the Reference Enquiry service at Rutherglen Heritage Centre during the year. Our website had 2,735 visits in the year, and has 33 subscribers. The most popular page visited was the A-Z of Rutherglen Then and Now. Following the introduction of GDPR, a Privacy Policy and revised Membership Application are now both on the website.

Gill Owen

Gill moved to Fife this year, giving up her position as Treasurer of the Society. We are very grateful to Gill for her hard work as Treasurer and for her valued contribution to the Society generally.  

Bob Kennedy

Society member Bob Kennedy turned 80 last year, and a somewhat belated but well-attended birthday party was held for him at the Heritage Centre Drop-In on 5th. February.

 

 

Carrick McDonald

Convener, Rutherglen Heritage Society

12th. March 2020