Annual Dinner

The most important meeting of the year is naturally the Annual Dinner, always held on the poet’s birthday, 25^th January, except where this falls on a Sunday. Indeed, it was a member of this club, RA Smith, who is reputed to have been responsible for establishing that date as being the correct one, rather than the previously accepted 29^th January, when he researched the parish records of Ayr. The Dinner, which is formal, was for many years, held in the Paisley Town Hall, but  latterly in other local establishments, and the members bring guests with them, the company normally numbering around one hundred. It has long been one of the principal occasions of the Paisley winter, and speakers and singers are always drawn from the club membership. One practice worth mentioning is that the haggis is not piped in, but following the original practice, is led in by a fiddler. The senior member invariably addresses the haggis.

The Dinner is referred to further in the Documents Page, where an example of the toast list is set out, and an opportunity provided to download recent Immortal Memory addresses.