SIR, I note from a report in this newspaper two weeks ago that newly re-elected Chairman of Selkirk Community Council, Grahame Easton, said 'We are talking about Selkirk being a resilient community, but first we need a resilient council’.

I’m not alone in taking that as meaning Cllr Easton thinks that because he has only eight members then he can’t go ahead and kick-start a badly needed Resilient Communities Group because if he were to delve deeper, then nothing is further from the truth!

I have always advocated a Resilient Communities type structured organisation for the town and recently attended a meeting in Walkerburn, a village with quarter the population of Selkirk, where they have a 70 member Resilient Communities Group up and running and it is not run by the village’s Community Council but by a team of dedicated separate volunteers.

The connection between a Community Council and a Resilient Communities Group is firstly that an initial presentation has to take place, preferably in a specially arranged meeting for the public under the auspices of the relevant Community Council, from there things can start to happen with volunteers from the public coming forward and taking over.

The second connection of such a group is that SBC who are more than willing to provide ample equipment and training is that the group must be insured and it can only be provided via the insurance scheme for Community Councils, in return for this the Resilient Comm Group has to report back to the relevant Community Council twice per annum either verbally or in writing.

The relevant Community Council need not take any further participation in such a group, and indeed most of the groups in the Borders already up and running are not run by Community Councils, so Cllr Easton has no excuse not to kick-start things - getting a group set up in Selkirk just because he has only eight members, that excuse just does not wash!

I know of plenty people in the town who would volunteer for such a group and help run it but the Community Council under Cllr Easton firstly has to start the ball rolling!

Disability is no barrier to getting involved as all the Co-ordinators of one Resilient Group in the Borders could all be classified as having physical disabilities and they are as good at what they do as so called able bodied persons!

I am 100 per cent reliably informed that Selkirk Community Council has not to date made any request to get a presentation set up despite the subject of doing so being swiftly mentioned by the Secretary in July 2013 when I was present at the Community Council meeting.

I am not alone in seeing no reason why a request to SBC Emergency Planning cannot be made for a presentation early in the New Year preferably in the main hall of the Victoria Halls as the much constrained Committee Room is no good for such a presentation.

Perhaps Selkirk Community Council should make a New Years resolution and keep it, to stop carping and just mere talking and making excuses not to get a Resilient Communities Group set up and instead take the bull by the horns and kick-start things because sure as Sunday follows Saturday, nobody else in the town can do it.

I am, etc.

Andrew Heatlie Leslie Place Selkirk