It's the end of an era for charity staff
Published 26 Dec 2011 09:30
HOUSTON charity Sunbeams will say goodbye to two of its most dedicated workers next summer.
Alison Muir and Lorna Cairns are set to depart in May 2012 after 26 long years of dedication to the group and will eventually be looking for someone with the energy and new ideas needed to take over.
It has been a very successful, non-profit making and voluntary youth organisation for primary school girls from Houston and the surrounding areas which has been running in the village hall for more that thirty years now.
Twenty six years ago Alison answered an advert in the local newspaper looking for volunteers to join the group, and when Lorna moved to the village four years later from Yorkshire, a great friendship was formed and Houston Sunbeams was to see some of it's best years.
Wishing to involve her daughters in village life, Lorna brought her youngest daughter Elaine to Sunbeams, but because her little one was so unsettled at first, fellow helper Cath Donaldson managed to persuade Lorna to stay and help.
When the organiser at the time, Irene Strachan, moved on Alison and Lorna agreed to run the group together.
And all these years later, the pair have remained the best of friends, Alison told the Gazette: "It was the start of a very long friendship, a lot of the time it's very close to our hearts.
"Our children have all grown up together, and all of it was just through the chance that her daughter wouldn't settle.
"We are both from guiding backgrounds. I started at the group when I first moved to Houston and went to help out Irene Strachan - who then ran the group at the time.
"I never imagined at that point that I would still be here 26 years later, but it just shows you never know what is going to happen.
"It will be sad to leave but Lorna and I will certainly be keeping in touch and hopefully Sunbeams can carry on well into the future as it was been in the Houston community for so many years now and is very popular with the local parents and children who attend."
Over the last two decades together they have enjoyed organising all the fun games, craft activities and many themed parties with the regular help from their youngest daughters Elaine and Fiona, the many Sunbeam mums, Girl Guides and girls working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Award.
However all good things must come to an end and they have decided it is time to move over but they hope Sunbeams will continue in the village for many years to come.
This article appeared in The Gazette 26 Dec 11
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