News

The Andrew Baird Memorial Trophy

One of our volunteers recently shared this lovely story about one of their members and the wider reach of the club. Please read on as this sums up our mission as an organisation so well. 

Edinburgh resident Andrew Baird was told about the Corstorphine Sporting Memories club in September 2022 and thought it would be something he would enjoy. He came along to our Thursday morning meeting and enjoyed it so much he went home and, with wife Gwen, sent an email to the Sporting Memories office to say how much it meant to him. We were deeply touched. 

Within a few months of joining, Gwen, who worked for solicitors Johnston Smillie, secured the club a £650 donation from their charitable foundation.  We have used this funding on our trips out to supply transport and refreshments. In fact, we have been asked to apply again for this year which is wonderful. 

Andrew attended every week from September until he sadly passed away in February 2023. At his funeral service it was said that after Andrew came along to Sporting Memories, he would not arrange any appointment or meeting on a Thursday morning as this was his club morning. 

At quizzes, Andrew was quick with answers and usually had an interesting story to amuse the members. He was very interested and interesting and was contemplating assisting in the running of the club before his untimely passing. 

We introduced a memorial trophy to remember Andrew by which is to be awarded to the member who amasses the most points over the season in our football scores predictions. Picture below is Gwen who came into the club to present our first winner Alex. 

In addition, Gwen promised to keep us well supplied with biscuits for our meetings and has been as good as her word being most generous.  

One of members’ wives has taken to inviting Gwen and the other ladies who bring their husbands to our meeting to her home for coffee every few weeks and chat while we have our meeting. This was completely impromptu but again shows the power and value of sharing and talking. 

Graeme Hewitt, the volunteer who shared this story finished up by saying: “When I started at Sporting Memories, I thought it was going to be an hour and a half of chat about sport, nothing important, but have found it to be very important to a lot of people and I am proud to be involved. Our meetings require an amount of work, and I could not do it without the help of our other volunteers Joanne, Jim and Keith.”