Summary of 2020 Chair Report
The Chair of the Melville College Trust, Alan Veitch, referred to how the Covid 19 pandemic had impacted all our lives, our own operation, our investments and the day to day functioning of the Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools over the past year.
In the absence of face to face meetings, all committees and the Annual General Meeting were held via Zoom.
The following is a summary of the key points from his report:
- The Trust continued to support the ESMS schools providing bursaries of £230,000 which has enabled 26 pupils – 14 from Stewart’s Melville College, 11 from Mary Erskine School and 1 from the Erskine Stewart’s Melville Junior School.
- £10,000 was made available to the school for small grants to support extra-curricular projects that would otherwise not have received funding across a diverse number of School projects. These included a camera for Junior School Trips, play materials for primary 4 and 5 and support towards the primary 7 Netball Club. The Clubs at MES – Basketball, Rowing and Film-making all received awards as did the Astronomy Club at SMC. In the ESMS Senior School there were purchases of a Canoe Trailer and Challenge scoreboards.
Other Activities –
- A former pupil has donated copies of the Melville School buildings covering various changes from the 1920s up to the late 1950s and another former pupil has drawn up plans of how the building looked at the time of the closure. All these documents are now available on the School archive website.
- The Trust received the exciting news from the School that their new building for Modern Languages and Classics is to be named the Rutherford Building in memory of James Wight Rutherford a former Governor of Melville College and a very generous benefactor to the Melville College Trust.
- Julian Scott, our very long standing Clerk and Treasurer advised us he wished to step down from the post after 25 years service. David Dunsire has been appointed as his replacement.
- During the year the Trust issued 2 further Newsletters to Former Pupils. These have been very popular and have helped generate donations and Melville archive material, some of which is being published in future Newsletters.