Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest

© Julie Goucher, 2025

There is something rather cathartic about the start of a year. The promise of potential. The ability to set your own goals, hopes, dreams, promises and intentions for the year ahead. Despite popular belief, these do not need to be set on 1 Jan, otherwise I have failed miserably, as I am already a day late! 

Below is a quick snapshot of how I approach this:

• Take a sheet of paper and just write what you would like to achieve. At this point include everything, across a variation of topics.
• Take another sheet of paper and divide the page into four, each one representing the four quarters
• Look back at the list you created at step 1 – 
  • Set to one side the items that are likely to be unachieved
  • Divide the rest of the items into the four quarters
    • These might be aligned based on the seasons, holidays, other dates
    • These could be aligned based on tasks – so cemetery trips during the better weather months
    • These could be unaligned, so you don’t get bored with one particular topic
  • The reality is that you will likely have more items on the list than time to achieve those items. If that is the case I identify the top three things.
  • What to achieve?
    • Don’t neglect the “quick wins”, even if they are not in your top three.
    • Don’t neglect the things that are already “in progress”
    • Keep the lists under review, I usually review at the end of the month, with a glance at the list at the end of the week.
    • Sometimes things thwart even the best made plans
    • There is no failure.
    • There is no requirement to have a list.

Image courtesy of Smyth’s Toys

Just before Christmas we headed across the border into Scotland to have a quick visit with our niece and to drop off Christmas presents for our great nephew and his sister.

The highlight, as gifts go was a rocking sheep which I am told my great niece loved, and we were sent a photograph of her sitting on it with a huge smile.

As we sat for dinner at the hotel my husband who had a birthday on the weekend we were away commented that he had not been in Scotland for his birthday since 1988. He was able to pinpoint the date exactly because that was the day that flight Pan Am 103 crashed to the ground, killing all onboard and eleven locals, including several friends of my husbands.

It was no surprise that there were others staying at the hotel who made the journey across the Atlantic to honour their loved ones. We also met a lady who worked for Pan Am as flight crew, who knew the crew who perished.

Over the years I have visited the memorial at the cemetery in Lockerbie and at Tundergarth, a hamlet just outside of Lockerbie many times. I have not shared my photographs here, but do share this from Undiscovered Scotland. There have been several books about the disaster published as well as documentaries, several of which were released last year. 

What I am reminded of, is that like all historical events, there are many different facets to those events. One event is shared by the families of all those that died, those who were from Lockerbie who became involved in some way, those who were Airline staff, or students from Syracuse University. Each individual, however they were involved, has their own interpretation and memory, all of which adds to the collective.

Firstly, this is a post written by me and does not reflect the views of any of the genealogical or other groups that I maybe associated with.

This post has been in draft waiting to be published for more than a couple of months. I hesitated to post because it seemed to be a moaning and whining post. This morning, having got up early, with the first thought related to my Trusteeship of an organisation I decided to post, having written this first paragraph which I have inserted.

As many readers know I am the Trustee of the Guild of One-Name Studies, in fact I am currently the Chairman. I became a Trustee in 2015, and a decade ago we had a flush of volunteers. Yes, we did have vacancies, but not as many as we have today. The situation has got worse since the pandemic and this is not a situation isolated to the Guild, it affects many genealogical (and others) groups.

As members of genealogical societies we pay our subscription, read the journals and access the website, hopefully taking full advantage of our membership benefits. What we perhaps do not consider is that those membership benefits that are free to members, are not free to offer. The society has to pay for website hosting, domain name purchases and many other things that enables the society to visually function.

What we do not see, is the volunteering that enables that functioning visibility. Where there are vacancies the Trustees fill the gap to ensure that we can continue to be the best organisation we can be for the benefit of members and the public. So what is the reason for this post?

In the summer, I received an email from someone who wrote to tell me that they had written to me the day before and I had not responded. The reason for my delayed response of 24 hours was the occasion of my 30th wedding anniversary. The content of the email is irrelevant, other than to say it was not an emergency note. I wrote back, apologising for the delay and explained why I had not replied sooner. I answered their question and directed them to the relevant information, ending with the invitation to contact me if they had further questions. No further email was received. No acknowledgement, no thank you, simply silence.

As I said earlier, my first waking thought this morning related to a Trustee matter. I looked at my phone, the time was 4.35am. Alas, the moment I wake up is when my brain switches on, I very rarely go back to sleep, and today was no exception.

Volunteering matters because it shares the workload, and reduces volunteer burnout.

It means that volunteers that serve as Trustees and Committee members can slot in actions and tasks relating to volunteering, around other matters, rather than other matters taking a back seat to volunteering.

The next time your genealogical society calls out for volunteers consider if you can help. The adage of many hands make light work has never been more important.