Club News
CENTENARY BURNS SUPPER 2026
CHANGE OF VENUE (SAVE THE DATE!)
For 2026, our Burns Supper will be held at:
Number 44 Hotel & Bar (upstairs restaurant)
44 Allardice Street
Stonehaven, AB39 2BU
The Stonehaven (Fatherland) Burns Club will host our Centenary Burns Supper at Number 44 Hotel & Bar on Wednesday January 21st, 2026 at 7pm. The Club has operated continuously for one hundred years and we have a wonderful line-up of speakers to entertain us in January. Tickets will go on sale as soon as we receive information on dinner pricing. Last year, tickets sold out, so be sure to save the date. Updates will be posted here and on our Facebook page.
New for 2025, as part of the annual Stonehaven Folk Festival, the Stonehaven (Fatherland) Burns Club hosted a successful Burns & Scottish Poetry Recital Event for children and young adults. The event was held in the British Legion Hall, Stonehaven on Saturday 12th July and a good number of folk joined in the fun, encouraged by our wonderful MC, Annie Reid. Participants very capably entertained us with a poem, a song, or played a tune on their guitar, fiddle, etc.!​
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2025 AGM
The Annual General Meeting of our very own historic Fatherland Burns Club took place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 20th May at the Cowie Café within the Stonehaven Recreation Ground. The AGM Minute of Meeting will be uploaded here soon.
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We'd like to welcome two new committee members who were elected at the AGM (Susan Henderson and Scott Martin).
Also, three long-serving committee members stood down (Cathie Dawson, Jane Sanders, and Garry Brindley).
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Cathie (who was our current treasurer) was presented with a plaque and honorary lifetime membership of the club as a 'thank you' for all the wonderful contributions she made to the Club over several decades.
The meeting covered many of the club’s activities during the year, including what was certainly regarded as a cracking Burns Supper at the Station Hotel back in January 2025, topped off by a spellbinding Immortal Memory from Professor Sir Geoffrey Palmer KT, OBE, Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, Scotland’s first black professor and a simply lovely human being!
Dave MacDonald
Club President
In Memoriam: Our historic Club is saddened to report the recent passing - after a short illness bravely borne - of former President Douglas Samways, who led the SFBC for three years interrupted by the two-year Covid epidemic. A retired senior educationalist, Douglas had a deep enthusiasm for his hometown of Stonehaven and for his native country including an interest in its Independence, and of course an abiding passion for the Scots and Doric tongue including the works of our National Bard. His role in leading the Club’s Robert Burns input at primary schools throughout the Mearns area for over a decade, will form part of his lasting legacy within our community. Our condolences go to his wife Elaine and family.