It was a great honour to have the company of our Patron The Princess Royal and also to have been given the use of the Palace by Her Majesty the Queen for this event. We had people from every walk of life with us including Oscar Schiappa Pietra who currently advises the Minister and the Secretary of National Planning in Papua New Guinea as a UNDP Officer. Oscar in the past has been a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Executive Director of the Peruvian Agency for International Aid, in Peru. He has also been a great friend and advisor to the Trust. It was also great to see some of the first members of the Trust attend the dinner and to remind ourselves of our early challenges and difficulties.
However it is because of people who were prepared to carry on in the face of difficuties that we have the Trust as it is today. We all had a wonderful time. I was especially pleased that Princess Anne highlighted the work that the Trust is now developing in partnership with schools in the UK and also paid tribute to the way we work trying to be innovative and inclusive networking accross the whole strata of society.

I can hardly believe that 25 years have past since we first opened the Branches shop here in Bo’ness. Today much of our success has been brought about by the grace of God working in the hearts and minds of people of faith and even no faith. I particularly want to say a huge thank you to Willie McPherson our Executive Director and his small but dynamic staff who have worked so hard to make the Trust an effective partner as we work alongside Scripture Union in Peru bringing Health care to over 100,000 people in the Amazon through our Medical Programme and supporting over 200 children in the five homes we have built and continue to fund. All this is a far cry away from our first falteriing steps as we opened a shop in the Market Square in Bo’ness. Its a great privelege to be Chairman of the Vine Board and to have such a creative group of people on our team.