The team had the best performance for a century and Scotland was a major contributor to the cause.

This success never comes cheap, and the Big Lottery has provided so many athletes with the facilities to train and compete in to get to this level. While we revel in their Olympic success, let's not forget the funding and health issues still to be addressed at the grass roots of any sport.

The Borders is bidding for funding from a Big Lottery Grant through the BBC2 Primetime programme which is currently being broadcast on Monday nights at 8pm.

The Border Time to Curl project will be aired on Monday, September 1, and features alongside the Girvan Community Garden and Lifelong Carers projects. The target group being the over-50s and the aim is better health, better social skills and better interaction with the younger generations. Each project has its merits, but we believe the local project ticks so many of the boxes set down by the programme makers.

The Border project is called Time to Curl and includes the provision of a local community minibus transport scheme and a series of taster sessions of curling at the Border Ice Rink. To cater for all in the age group there will be transport laid on to enable access from all over the Borders.

There is even an optional free health monitoring service available from NHS Borders.

For this grant to come to the Borders the public will have to vote on the BBC2 Primetime programme this Monday night.

Nobody expects Time to Curl to produce Olympic athletes, but we do hope to help the health and wellbeing of the over-50s in the region.

We can only do this with the public vote, so we appeal for Border people to watch the programme and vote for our region.

It is only a low-cost 15p – you don't even need to speak and five calls are permitted from each phone line.

Bill Cleghorn

Jedburgh Road

Kelso