McPherson Scots Talk The Clans and Associates of the McPherson Scottish Festival & Games

We had another good year at the festival. Everyone enjoyed the festival this year again,  impressed as always, by the park that we have the festival in so we want to give our thanks to the park department and city for letting us use the park.

The Friday ceremony and supper went off without any major problems. Laird McGregor did a wonderful job for us on the Friday gathering. The supper works good in the cabin and I think it should continued to be used in the future.

Dr. Earl Estill and Nancy Dunn did a great job on Sunday’s Kirking, the clan representative for Clan Campbell said it was one of the best services he had been to.

Lottie Herod of Clan McLean took care of the Hospitality tent in in a grand manner with the help of friends and relatives. Nancy McArthur Cochner of Clan Arthur has accepted to be the host for next year.

We had 26 clans registered and 25 attending. Three of those clans are new clans or have new representatives for their clans. Saturday’s rain sent some clans home early and we had water in a couple of tents. Getting more than 26 or 27 clans accommodated will be addressed on where to place them. If anyone has any suggestions on how to gain more space and still have good foot traffic give me your suggestions.

We are continuing to have the clans have their AGM meetings in the area or during the festival. This is wonderful and we wish to do what we can to encourage their participation.

SAMS “Scottish American Military Society”, have their local AGM here yearly and are going to try and have their national here in the future. Clans Arthur and McPherson are having their AGM meetings in Wichita during or just before the festival. Hopefully they will bring some of their officers to enjoy our festival. Clan Hay is hoping to have their AGM here in 2013 We need to Ann Hastler put together a list of rooms and caterers and local entertainment to supply to anyone wanting to organize their meetings.

It was Suggested by several clans to have the theme of the festival be one of honoring the soldiers and warriors

Lottie Herod suggested that some festivals read a short history of the clans at the sat noonday ceremony.

The SAMS asked if we could have them as an honor guard at the beginning of the sat noonday ceremony. We would like to know what everyone thinks of this idea.

The clans asked about the knobby knee contest and the favorite clans contest so I am going to look into doing something each year.

We need to promote the Friday ceremony more than we do.

We will be promoting the Saturday entertainment more with the clans next year.