John MacRae is a retired Police Officer who started his career with the Edinburgh City Police, as they were then called, and retired 30 years later from Lothian and Borders Police. While still a serving officer John took up trialling sheepdogs as a hobby and competing in sheepdog trials against farmers and shepherds from around the country. In 1976 John started the Edinburgh Open Sheepdog Trials and has run the Trials each year ever since.
When he first started running the trials he wanted to donate the money raised at the event to a good cause and when a Federation Rep suggested The St. Georges’ Police Children Trust he decided that it should indeed be the beneficiary of any funds raised. John then went on to run the trials and donate the money to SGPCT each year from 1976 until 1996. It was in 1996 that the PTC established its second treatment centre in Auchterarder and Castlebrae opened its doors to injured officers. John then decided that he wanted to support Castlebrae as well, so from that year onwards split the money raised between the two charities with St. George’s Police Children Trust and The Police Treatment Centres each getting 50% of the takings.
Those donations have come in from John every year since, which means that in total John has now been raising funds for one or both of the charities each year for an amazing 42 years. Last year the event raised £400, the year before £300, but multiply that kind of amount by 42 and you will see that John has over the years raised thousands of pounds for SGPCT and the PTC. We think this is a fantastic story and an amazing example of dedicated support to two very worthwhile charities. John’s son is a serving officer who has used the facilities at Castlebrae before so he is well aware of the good work that his sheepdog trials help fund.
This year PTC Deputy CEO, Paul Grant, and Castlebrae Donor Engagement Officer, Graeme Addison went along to the trials to watch the amazing sheepdogs compete with their owners and to present the prizes at the end of the day. They even presented John with a little gift from the charities as a thank you for all his years of support.
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