Buckie Community Hall 1st Anniversary. Glen campbell Setting Up The Decorated Hall
A LOT can happen in a year, which a dedicated team of volunteers in Buckie have proved by transforming the Fishermen’s Hall. In July last year the Friends of the Fishermen’s Hall Association (FFHA) became the first group of many in Moray to take a council-owned hall into community management, with the ultimate aim of ownership through the Community Asset Transfer (CAT) scheme. It followed a rallying call issued just six months earlier for groups and individuals to join forces and keep the facility open. What has been achieved from a standing start over the 12 months since last July was there for all to see over the weekend of August 10-11, when the FFHA held an open weekend so people could go along and see for themselves what has been happening. The also learnt what is on the cards for the year ahead, and the weekend provided an opportunity for the FFHA to appeal for more volunteers to step forward and join the team. Visitors had the chance to enjoy a trip down memory lane with old photos and newspaper cuttings regarding the hall. Free refreshments were also on hand and there was a chance to see the transformed Supper Room, now a modern meeting and function facility in its own right. A year on from taking possession of the hall keys, FFHA chairman Gen Campbell reflected that a lot of water had gone under the bridge. “It’s been a lot of hard work – it’s the sort of thing which can take over your life – but it’s been very rewarding,” he said. “I said at the original meeting that we’d have to take the rough with the smooth and so it has proved and to be honest, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. “We’re now in a position where we’ve got a good pool of volunteers and trustees but we’re always keen to recruit more. “At the end of the day this is all for and about the community – our motto is one voice, one vision, one community, and that’s as true today as when we started. “If everybody’s willing to contribute a little, then what we have here could be huge.
Full story in Banffshire Advertiser 20th August 2019