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THE ISLAY REUNION IN GUELPH, ONTARIO, JULY 15TH, 2000
| The excitement as people arrived at the
restaurant was evident in their broad smiles and warm handshakes. Name tags given to everyone that included their names, home towns and Islay names they are researching helped dissipate the little shyness remaining. The restaurant had set aside a separate area for our group and the conversation was quite full and hearty during our breakfasts. Each person around the table stood and gave their own introductions and it was fun to put a face and personality to the people we had been emailing with over the past months. In all, our group of 21 people were researching 36 Islay names and it wasn't difficult to make several connections. Since we couldn't have this reunion in Islay (wow - what a dream eh?), Sue Visser brought a taste of Islay to the group by passing around a jar of Bowmore marmalade for everyone to taste on their toast and suggested that perhaps we could consider having a reunion on Islay some day. We were honoured to have Robert MacKenzie, President of the Glasgow Islay Association of Scotland join us for this reunion. Upon introduction, he greeted us with a hearty bonjour, hello and "ciamar a tha thu". Robert congratulated our group for organizing this day and encouraged us to consider repeating this kind of reunion in the future, hopefully on a regular basis and in a broader venue. Robert came bearing gifts and we were delighted to receive copies of the Bowmore CD-ROM which gives us a virtual reality tour of parts of Islay and Bowmore Distillery. Robert's encouragement to continue having reunions bolstered our already growing thoughts along this line and we asked our group to think about it during the rest of the day for later discussion. After the meal, everyone left and reunited at the University of Guelph. Thankfully the rain held off long enough for a group photo to be taken before we headed into the McLaughlin Library. We were warmly greeted by Helen Salmon, Acting Chief Librarian and it was obvious that she had put considerable effort into tailoring a tour specific to our Islay research group's needs. |
Here's a photo album from the reunion! Note: people in photos are
listed left to right |
In the map area, various maps and books specific to Islay
were awaiting us. She walked us through the areas where historical, governmental and
social literature/documents
pertaining to Islay and Scotland could be found. In the lecture room, she had a
computer and screen set up to show us how to access the Trellis group of libraries,
explaining that the University of Guelph, Laurier in Waterloo, and the University of
Waterloo had formed a joint
Tri-University Libraries catalogue that is very impressive. The U of Guelph has the
largest Scottish Collection in North America with over 100,000 volumes, worth more than $2
million, available in general circulation, in the Archives and in the Special Collections.
We were
pleased to learn that we could search Trellis online and get general circulation items
through inter-library loan at our home libraries. Handouts covering Genealogy Information
Sources, Scottish Culture, British History Information Sources and the Archival, Rare and
Special Collections were given to each of us as well as a copy of the Guelph alumnus
magazine of Summer 2000 that includes an extensive article entitled "All Things
Scottish". Following the library tour, we retired to the Archives that had been
especially opened for our group and again it was very evident that there had been
particular care and thought put into our needs for there were rare books, documents and
relics awaiting our inspection. With our hands gloved to protect the items from
damage we were given a couple of hours to inspect to our
hearts delight. Another room had also been set aside for the treasures that our
group had brought with them to share with one another. There were books, maps,
personal genealogies, and personal data bases shared and information exchanged with
generosity. At one point, I looked around and listened to the excited conversations
and saw the laughter and camaraderie and was filled with a sense that this was something
very good.
The reunion guests decided that they wanted to thank the University of Guelph
Library for their special attention to us by donating a book to the library in the name of
the Islay Reunion 2000 attendees and made donations accordingly. Toni and Sandy
Sinclair are going to Islay in a couple of weeks and will bring back something suitable
for this purpose. In the meantime, a special note of thanks is being prepared for
Helen Salmon who certainly went above and beyond the call of duty.
While we had initially asked our group earlier in the day to consider the idea of future
reunions, we decided that we should take this discussion to the SCT-ISLAY-L since our
small group represented only a small portion of our listers. We asked everyone to consider
if they would work on a committee to investigate and possibly organize a future reunion
and we
have 7 volunteers already.
The U of G Archives closed at 4 PM and most people said their farewells then although,
with the rest of the library open until midnight, a couple of others took advantage of
their time there to do some personal research.
The "first" Islay Reunion was a wonderful success. I wish each and every
lister of the SCT-ISLAY-L list had been able to join us. I spoke with one of the
attendees today and although tired, she was still humming with residual excitement from
the fun and interaction of the day. I know exactly how she feels!
Sincerely, Sue (McCuaig) Visser
