aChristmasConcerton Sunday, the 15th December

at 7.00pm in Busby Parish ChurchAdmission Free

BUSBY PARISH CHURCH

Great Autumn nights out at Busby Parish Church continued thisyear with a fantastic Jazz Cafe night on the 22nd of November,with foot-tapping music from the Jazz Monkeys who featuredour own Dave Lamont on bass guitar. The event raised over£700 for Church funds and provided a great night’sentertainment for a packed audience with poetry, a DJ, dancing

and refreshments. Everyone agreed it was awonderful evening.

Monkeys Put theSwing intoJazz Cafe

BUSBY DRAMA GROUP presents

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In our Autumn issue, we asked whether there was still acommunity spirit in Busby, and if there was a will to bringnew life and a sense of identity back to our village. There hadbeen posts on the Busby Then and Now Facebook pagesuggesting that there were some local residents who wantedto bring Busby back to life.

Shortly afterwards, a new group was formed called Beautiful Busby Village, foundedby local residents and, even in the short time since it started, progress has been made and there are ambitious plans for the future.So far we have had a number of litter picks, collecting rubbish from Busby Glen, the Main Street and the lay-by on the main road intoBusby from Clarkston. East Renfrewshire Council have agreed to site a litter bin in the lay-by and efforts will continue to make thevillage free from litter, making the annual litter pick organised by Busby Church into an ongoing effort to rid the village of litter andrubbish. Of course, what is needed is a wider sense of community, to stop the litter being dropped in the first place.

Another initiative has been the acquisition of a number of half barrels with the intention offilling them with plants and placing them in strategic places throughout the Main Street. Ourhope is that local businesses and other organisations will sponsor these, at a cost of only £30per barrel to cover the cost of plants, for which they will have their support recognised with asmall plaque on “their barrel”. We also hope that schools and youth groups will “adopt” barrelsto look after the plants and ensure that they flourish. They too will be recognised with plaquesand already interest has been shown by Busby and St Joseph’s Primary Schools with hopefullymore groups to follow. In the meantime, liaising with the Train Station Growers Group and withthe support of Network Rail, planting is to take place at Busby Station.

Busby Glen is about to close for almost a yearwhile Scottish Water install new sewerinfrastructure to prevent local flooding andcontamination of the River Cart. BeautifulBusby Village has put together a vision of theregeneration of Busby Glen, including a newmuch improved play-park, a 7-a-side footballpitch, woodland walks with a Fairy Wood, awalkway and cycle trail which will lead toOverlee Park and connect with the cycle path through Netherlee to Cathcart, and along-term ambition to clear and make accessible the old mill sites on the West side ofthe river to celebrate Busby’s industrial heritage and create a visitor attraction. At arecent meeting with Scottish Water and its contractor, Amey, the group presented itsproposals, which required alterations to the water authority’s plans. Scottish Waterhave signalled that they are supportive of the group’s plans and, at the time of writing,are looking at making adjustments to their own proposals to accommodate them. Wealso hope to meet East Renfrewshire Council, along with Scottish Water, to persuadethe Council to come on board too.

Our other big plans are to start a Busby Lottery to fund projects and to organiseChristmas Lights for Busby for next Christmas. We already have a pledge of supportfrom the Cartvale and White Cart for it and we also plan to hold fundraising events tomake it happen.

At the moment, our group is relatively smallbut, to make a real difference and to make it agenuine community initiative we want as muchsupport as possible. Our next meeting will be inThe White Cart at 7.30 on Wednesday, 15th ofJanuary. So come along and join us. We havealready started to make a difference and, with alot more support, we can really transform Busbyand make it a beautiful place to live, work andvisit. WE NEED YOU!

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The Kwenderana Partnership group had a recent meeting in Busby Parish Church wherethey heard that our recent visitor, Rev Isaac Malongo is being transferred fromEkwendeni Congregation to an academic post in Mzuzu University in preparation for hisyear of becoming Moderator of Livingstonia Synod. He will be replaced by Rev.T.T.K.Nyirenda from Lilongwe.

A discussion took place regarding the signing of the new Covenant and it was agreedthat it would be signed at an evening service in one of the churches on a Sunday close

to the date of birth of David Livingstone, 19th March.

Chris McKenna, Williamwood High School representative, outlined the current projectbeing undertaken by pupils at Williamwood High School to build a 3 classroom block at Emaziyeni where conditions are very poorwith dark classrooms and a shortage of good learning space for pupils. The cost of this venture will be in the region of £32,000which is a big challenge for the pupils, so Chris invited the churches to consider taking part in this project. The KPG members agreedto support this initiative. More information regarding this project is in another article.

After 14 years of membership I resigned from the Kwenderana Partnership Group at this meeting. I am delighted that we now havetwo new members, both approved by our Kirk Session, to replace Lynne Macgregor and myself. They are Alice Eve, who is a teacherin Mearns Castle School and who has visited both South Africa and Namibia and Doug Marshall who is South African by birth andhas worked as a Missionary in both the Sudan and Malta. We are very fortunate as a congregation to be able to call on people ofthat calibre.

I have enjoyed most of my time with the KPG and have many happy memories of visits to Malawi and welcoming visitors fromMalawi to Scotland. I would like to thank all who gave me so much support in this project over many years.

Despite resigning from Kwenderana I do intend to keep up my links with the community at Ekwendeni and after discussion withformer KPG members, we asked permission from Busby Parish Church Kirk Session to participate in a project which was suggestedto me by one of our visitors in June. This will be a Busby Church Initiative not a KPG one. After the New year, we would like to collectunderpants for children, most importantly adolescent children and also good, used bras. Wearing a bra is a status symbol andmeans the wearer is less likely to be raped. It will cost £15 to send each box through the Banana Box Trust so Lynne, Christina andI are considering a fund raising lunch to cover carriage costs. This will not interfere with the work of the new KwenderanaPartnership Group as they do not intend sending items to Ekwendeni at this present time.

KWENDERANA NEWS

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KWENDERANA REPORT

JERRY EVE

This is Joy Nyangulu. Joy is 8 years old and is a pupil at EmazinyeniPrimary School in Ekwendeni, Malawi. The school has 438 pupils and9 teachers. A ratio of 1:109. To make matters worse, Joy and herclassmates spend most of their time in school learning underneath atree as there are no suitable classrooms at the school. The weatherin Emazinyeni can be searingly hot in the summer months and a totalwashout during the rainy season.

The implications for the children are significant. Statistics show thatchildren born to girls who cannot read are twice as likely to die beforetheir fifth birthday. In contrast continuing education can provide asustainable route out of poverty for the children and their families.

Last year 37 pupils at the school sat the School Leaving Certificate Examinations and 24 pupils passed. Only seven of them wereselected to attend secondary school. As a community that values education we want to change this. The Kwenderana Partnershipwill be working to help make this a reality and you can help us do this.

Williamwood High School has enjoyed a partnership with the people of Ekwendeni since 2012. In 2014 they began working with thecharity ‘Classrooms for Malawi’ to complete renovation work at ‘Ekwendeni Primary School’. Sixteen classrooms have now beenmade into suitable learning environments with new roofs, windows and doors. In addition, a newly-built three classroom block now

provides safe and suitable facilities for approximately 200 children.Continued opposite