Events Update by Carole Lyons

I can hardly believe I'm writing this with Christmas and yet another year fast approaching! As usual I would like to thank everyone for their continued support whether by way of coming along to events, donating goodies or helping out - thank you so much. I would also like to thank my team; Irene Heffron, Mary Montgomery, Betty Patrick, Jean Nimmo, Lillian Broadly, Maisie McFarlane and Norrie Dallas who all contribute significantly to keep things running. This year has been a bit of a mix of Events with it being our 75th anniversary and a lot happening generally around the Church. Most of the 75th Events have been run by individual Organisations and also Margaret Robertson - so a huge thanks to her. We have had our usual spread of social events including our ceilidh at Clarkston tennis club which was a great sell out success, the Williamwood Singers 25th anniversary concert in spring, and at time of writing we are looking forward to our annual Christmas Fair.

As we move into a new year I hope to run Events slightly differently. We are aiming to establish and maintain a "Church" wide calendar of events and have this on display. This by no means will remove any autonomy whatsoever for Organisations but will allow us to plan a bit better and ensure that we are not overwhelmed with "events" at one time and then left short at a later date. The Committee will continue although it has to be said that our members have been on board for a long time and are keen for maybe a little more help and input - if anyone new therefore would like to join please don't hesitate to let me know. Alongside the Committee however we are, for each individual event, going to establish a separate "project team". We have been and are a bit short on the ground within the Committee for people to help in the planning and organising of events especially the "bigger" ones. So if anyone has aspirations to be a marketing guru, production engineer, props arranger (!) please come forward to help us in coordinating and taking forward any future individual events you could maybe contribute to.

I would just like to finish with a final thank you and to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and best wishes for going into 2013.

As usual, however, I find myself writing this at the last minute having made a New Year Resolution to be organised and have things completed well before due dates!!!  Well maybe next time!

Before going into this year, I would first like to say on behalf of the Events Committee a huge thank you for all the support given to those Events organised last year.  We did have a reasonably successful year last year, where we managed to raise over £3,000 from the various events for our Church.

This year is of course not just another year but the 75^th anniversary of Williamwood Church.  At time of publishing our first celebration event - the ceilidh on Saturday 25^th Feb at Clarkston Bowling and Tennis Club - will have happened, and I hope have been enjoyed by all.

The annual spring Williamwood Singers concert is scheduled for Thursday April 19^th.  This is the 25^th anniversary of the Singers and we are currently liaising with Nora to make sure this is a special night.  We are still looking at what else is going on around the Church; within the Organisations, organised by Session, musical events  etc  - in regard to the 75 years, and we will put together some other activities that can hopefully be enjoyed by all when it is clear what is happening when.

As usual help is always welcome in regard to ideas and in taking forward those ideas / events.  This is especially the case with planning and setting up (e.g. tickets, posters, hall and table set up etc).  So if there are any budding artists, marketeers and / or events organisers out there and have some time please let me know.

I look forward to catching up with everyone at our Events, (slowly getting to know more and more people and putting names to faces!), and will be sure to update all as soon as we know future events and dates.

On behalf of the events committee, thanks for your continued support.