Annual Reports
ACTSA Scotland: Secretary's Report on the year to the A.G.M 12th November, 2011
This has been quite a heavy year for events, including a Wild Coast Walk and a container send-off. They were concentrated in the latter part of the year, and each was the culmination of a long period of planning and preparation. Most had a Denis Goldberg connection in one way or another.
Events:
Our annual ANC anniversary social took place as usual in January, marking 99 years since its foundation. We are grateful to George Reid and his colleagues for their willingness to come and play for us every year, which always makes it a good night. We raise a fair bit of money as well.
4th August was the 30th anniversary of Glasgow City Council's granting of the Freedom of the City to Nelson Mandela, the first city in the world to do so, and we were glad to be very involved in the Council's event to mark this anniversary. Denis Goldberg unveiled a commemorative plaque at a well-attended reception, and spoke with his usual fluency on the importance of Glasgow's gesture as a contribution to the struggle. He then spent a couple of days responding to media interest, which was reflected in substantial coverage of the anniversary and its significance.
In the course of planning for this anniversary the Council asked Brian Filling to write a short history of Glasgow's links with Mandela, which he did. In collaboration with the Council we have published the result as a substantial and very useful pamphlet "The Glasgow-Mandela Story".
A barbecue two days later gave another opportunity to meet Denis, as well as raising funds for ACTSA and for Community HEART. Some portrait photographs of Denis were taken at this event.
Denis was back in Scotland a few weeks later to give our annual Mandela-Tambo lecture on "Mandela-Tambo: friends,comrades,leaders:legacy". This was hosted by City of Glasgow College, who made us very welcome, and the attendance was excellent. Denis was in his usual sparkling form. The lecture was filmed and we are trying to organise a transcription to enable its publication.
The following night Denis was guest of honour at a fundraising dinner for Community HEART, which also had quite a large ACTSA involvement both in the arrangements and in attendance.
Wild Coast Walk:
Another event that was the end result of much preparation was the postponed trip to South Africa for our third sponsored walk on the Wild Coast of Eastern Cape. The year's postponement paid off in extra participants and funds raised, with six people walking and proceeds that will be in the region of £6000, divided between four projects in Eastern Cape and our own Book Appeal. The group was kept reasonably busy for the fortnight. There was some history, including the Journey of Remembrance round key struggle sites in Cape Town and visits to several of South Africa's really excellent historical museums, including Robben Island, the Mandela Museum sites at both Qunu and Mthatha, the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and the relatively new Liliesleaf Farm Museum in Rivonia, where Denis Goldberg and most of the other Rivonia trialists were arrested. Liliesleaf also has the "Secret Safari" bus which was used to smuggle military material to the ANC during the anti-apartheid struggle, and about which Stuart Round spoke at one of our ANC socials.
There was also a chance to learn more about South Africa's present, having a meal with Ivan Turok, calling at the Streetwires workshop from which we import beaded wirework for our stalls, meeting folk from Amathole and Buffalo City Councils, spending two nights in Soweto and, of course, meeting the inspirational people who run the four projects we were supporting - Bethany Place of Safety, Blythswood Institution, Vukani Old Age Centre, and Masimanyane Women's Support Centre. We were made very welcome at all of these, and at Blythswood we were able to see the new library bookshelves funded from the proceeds of our Mandela Birthday Card in 2008.
In the middle of this was the four-day Walk on the Wild Coast hiking trail. One walker was taken ill in the course of this and spent two nights in hospital, but she has fortunately made a full recovery.
The Walk trip is one way of strengthening the links between Scotland and Eastern Cape through personal contacts, increased understanding and the renewal of existing connections.
Book Appeal:
Our most recent event, the send-off of our eighth container-load of books for school libraries in Eastern Cape, was also the climax of a long process. The sorting and packing operation has been deliberately slower this year, due to a slowdown in the supply of books from our major supplier, Bookdonors Community Interest Company in Selkirk, but more particularly also because we failed to find a replacement storage and send-off point for the completed boxes. Amathole District Municipality also had their own storage problems at the East London end. However, Buffalo City (now an all-purpose
Metropolitan authority) was able to help out again by taking another delivery, and will co-operate with Amathole DM in the distribution. On 4th November we were therefore able to dispatch a full container-load, which is somewhere on the high seas as I write. This was also sent off from Barrachnie Co-op., to whom we are immensely grateful for putting up with a large quantity of books taking up space they needed for much longer than was convenient. Hillhead Library continues to give us space for sorting and packing, and we are grateful too for all the kindness of the staff there. We appreciate also the help of the volunteers who sort and pack, and load and unload. Nine tonnes of books do not move themselves.
We continue to raise funds for the Book Appeal's costs through the Workers Beer Company, with volunteer bar staff at five festivals this past summer. This again raised roughly half the cost of sending a container, plus a few hundred pounds towards fundraising obligations for the Walk. The Walk itself will contribute roughly the other half of the latest container's direct costs, but we could do with raising further funds from somewhere as vans also need to be hired to fetch and carry donated books.
Other Links:
Both the Book Appeal and the Wild Coast Walk are important parts of our twinning link with Eastern Cape, but we also do some other work on a variety of links.
Glasgow City Council's partnership with Amathole District Municipality and Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality continues to flourish. A team from Glasgow was in East London again only last week, as part of a project to boost the tourist industry. Glasgow has now demitted its role as Chair of Local Authority ACTSA and providing the secretariat. Its substantial contribution is much appreciated.
We were glad to have a brief but very busy visit to Scotland by Dr. Tom, Principal of the University of Fort Hare which has long Scottish connections. Meetings were arranged with university and other contacts here. The proceeds of a collection in memory of Dave Walsh are to be sent to support the Liberation Archive at Fort Hare.
We were pleased also to play a part in arranging for the Eastern Cape Development Corporation's major exhibition "Eastern Cape from the Air" to come to Scotland, where it is on display at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre from September 2011 to March 2012. We hope this will encourage both tourist and business interest in the Province.
The Edinburgh Festivals are still working hard on linking particularly with Commonwealth countries, including a major South African presence, over the years 2012 - 2014, covering the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. We understand the negotiations have been very positive, and we hope to continue our fairly modest involvement in what should be an important link-up.
We were invited to an event in Edinburgh with Ombetja Yehinga (red ribbon) Organisation from Namibia and its Scottish support group, and had a meeting with some of its officers to exchange information on our respective activities. We were able to suggest some other useful contacts in Scotland.
Our demining appeal fund for Angola was wound up this year after ten years of operation, and the balance of funds sent to the Mines Advisory Group, earmarked for its work in Angola.
Glasgow College has set up a new connection with nautical training in Angola, and Brian Filling was able to offer some advice on this.
Local Activity:
We have spent some time discussing how best to encourage more ACTSA activity in local areas. Ayrshire Supporters Group is currently the only local grouping we have, but we would be happy to have one-off events in different parts of the country. We invited expressions of interest from our contact list and were not overwhelmed with offers to take on the organising of events, but we will continue to see what we can do. The ANC centenary year is one possible focus.
Other Links:
Our presence at trade union events continued, as did our close co-operation with the STUC in particular. Questionnaires about current connections with Southern Africa were distributed round trade unions, and the results will be used to develop this work over the coming year.
Our stalls continued at all kinds of events, large and small, selling crafts from across Southern Africa as well as spreading information about the work of ACTSA Scotland and of ACTSA more generally. Our fairly basic website continues to attract enquiries, with some very positive results.
As always, much other work we thought of could not be done because of our limited capacity but a few useful things did happen and we look forward to doing more over the coming year.
John C. Nelson (Secretary)
Reports are available to download as pdf files using the links below: