The Annual Celebration, of the life and works of Robert Burns, is naturally the main event in the Club calendar, but several other events are described in this section. The 2008 Celebration took place on Friday 25th January.
Click for more Annual Celebration description
Over the years the Club's special projects have made an important contribution to the artistic, social and cultural life of the town.
The 2008 Honorary members were James Wilson, OBE, and Phil Cunningham, MBE, composer and musician. There were 188 at the Annual Dinner this year.
The Jan. 2007 Honorary members were Bill Cowan (one of our stalwart Past Presidents), Michael Marra the singer, and George Macdonald Fraser (of Flashman fame). Since then, Rt Hon Gordon Brown and Rt Hon Alex Salmond have both confirmed acceptance of Honorary Membership. The Annual Celebration was once again excellent.
The 2006 Honorary Member was Ian Rankin, author of the best-selling Rebus novels.
Tom Strachan of Springside presented the Club with a framed family tree of Robert Burns and Jean Armour, along with a lectern and an edition of the poems, in September 2003.
Albanian poet, Dhori Qiriazi, presented us in June 2003 with a volume of his translations of many of the Bard's works into Albanian. We will put more details of this on the web-site soon.
The web-site continues to attract the same good numbers, and continues to be developed.
In 2001 the Club dedicated the new 175th anniversary window in the Concert Room at our premises. It is the work of Paul Lucky of the Stained Glass Partnership in Kilmaurs. His partner (and wife) Sue Bradbury created the stained glass window which the Club presented to Irvine Parish Church in 1996, the bicentenary year of Burns' death. This is pictured on a separate page on this site.
The Wits Dinner in November 2002 was also well attended, with about 160 diners present, and four speakers in friendly competition for the title. The date of this year's Wits Dinner is Friday November 7th. It raises funds jointly for the Irvine Burns Club and for Action Research Scotland, both being charities.
The
Annual Celebration of Irvine Burns Club has not one top table, but two,
one down each side of the hall, with up to 200 members and guests attending
Its date is the Friday nearest to the anniversary of the poet's birth
on 25th January. For a top table picture, click here.
The Irvine
Celebration differs from those of many other Clubs in (at least) two ways.
The
Immortal Memory is always proposed by the President of the year, so that
the Club members can enjoy a fellow-member's contribution to an appreciation
of Robert Burns. Secondly, the evening contains a Toast to Bonnie Jean
- a gallant Irvine demonstration of the importance to the Bard of having
a supporting and faithful wife.
Musicians of note play at the top of the hall, and fraternal greetings
from other Clubs are displayed on a stand at the foot of the hall.
On the Sunday of that weekend, Burns weekend is remembered in the Parish Church in the morning, and in the afternoon wreaths are laid at the statue of Burns on Irvine Moor. The President for the following year takes office at the end of that afternoon.
Upstairs, in the Music Room, you can hear, at different times, the best of opera from post-graduate students, and the most enthusiastic of primary school pupils reciting from the works of Burns. The post-graduate students present a spring concert as part of a programme of music events, while primary and secondary children take part in a children's poetry evening at Irvine's annual Marymass festival.
The International Poetry Competition, organised by Henry Mair, makes use of the room each spring. The room, which seats 100 and has a small kitchen nearby, is sometimes let out to other organisations for similar events.
The Music
Room houses a Bechstein rosewood over-size grand piano once owned by Mr.
Don Whyte, and lent in 1978 to Irvine Burns Club in memory of his father
Dr. Ian Whyte (1901-1960), noted Scottish composer, conductor and pianist
and leader of the B.B.C. Scottish Orchestra.
The piano was made in Berlin c.1910 and was purchased by Dr Whyte in 1931.
Installed
in his home in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it was played by many celebrities,
including Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Arthur Bliss.
The illustration here, of Cutty Sark pulling off the tail of Tam O'Shanter's mare, Maggie, is one of the panels in the Music Room central window. These panels were saved from the now demolished Lauder's Tearooms in Kilmarnock.
click to enlarge
a local school
pupil reciting in the North Ayrshire Council Burns competition (Mar.05)
in our Music Room, with the mural of the Irvine skyline, designed by Edward
Odling and painted by Gordon Brown (photo courtesy of Jan Bernhard Rønhaug)
click to enlarge
it
