It was a great turnout at the Village meeting held on Saturday 11th October 2025. Sadly some of our number were unable to make the meeting. Luckily a recording was made and Caitlin McNeill has gone to considerable effort to produce a transcript of that recording. As an aid to transparency it’s neccessarily long, it has one or two formatting hiccups but it’s all there. So put the kettle on, grab your reading glassses and read on …
Transcript by Chair Caitlin McNeill of the audio record of Clachan
Village Hall (Kintyre) SCIO open meeting Saturday 11th October 2025
2pm, Clachan church
Malcolm Ward (Project Manager, CVHK)
I have prepared a detailed timeline of all the works undertaken, and that’s on the front here. We
also have some pictures of the current state of the hall inside that doesn’t look too glamorous
yet, but it won’t be too long before it does. And there are some drawings up here, which are
relevant to phase one which we hope to complete in the relatively near future. Probably in the
New Year.
So to recap what has already been done. Following the original structural survey, some
essential repair works were done which we got funding for and one of the first things that was
done, thanks to David Spy who did a tremendous job, bracing the apex roof trusses, which had
been noted to have a gap at the top by the structural engineer, and the question is, was this
separation or was it just shrinkage? We actually think it was shrinkage, but David bravely while
we still had the 1st floor by a ladder, supported with a safety harness, bravely took a template of
what was needed to create metal bracings, which we had made by fabric design, DM fabrics
and under all David’s direction, and then he installed these bracings on either side of the trust
with bolts.
He’s done it so well, because they’re painted brown, you go in there and you wouldn’t even
notice them, but it’s a fantastic amount of work. And it’s one expression of how we’ve saved
money, because David did all this on his own for only the cost of the materials, so thank you
very much, David. And another great saving was by volunteers and the trustees here who did
extensive work, removing all the groundwork ground floor partitions that formed the bedrooms
and bathrooms and kitchens etcetera in the hall because I don’t know for some of the
newcomers in here. The free church ceased to be an active church a long time ago and they got
planning, it was bought privately, and for many decades, it was owned in private ownership, and
they got planning to convert it into a domestic or a holiday house, and all through successive
owners, it was never completed. And so that is a lot of the work that had to be done when we
got planning permission to convert it into a community building.
So having removed all these partitions and carted the stuff away by our volunteers, the 1st floor
was then removed and….inaudible…. We then had the windows, either completely replaced or
repaired, and based on the original design. We had the repair and painting of the soffits and all
ornate fretwork, replacement of the old perished guttering with new imitation, cast-iron effect
guttering and downpipes, repair and slating the roof beneath the tower – and we will come back
to that later on, we know that this is a very emotional subject – minor stonework repairs, blocking
up a hole in the rear shed. The front porch is a repair outstanding and will be done once the
weather improves and we have funding for all that. We have already started renovation works
for phase one which we have got funding for this year. Phase one is, for those people who don’t
know it, the idea is that in phase one, we will repurpose the building to form the main community
space that’s shown here. And, we will be able to, on completion of Phase 1, be able to use it for
small user groups up to 20 people limited by the single toilet provision, but this will enable the
resumption of all past local user groups which we’ve listed and we welcome to hear any new
suggestions of how the space can be used. As part of this work, we’ve made some faciliatory
provisions before Phase 2. Phase 2 will be for the extension that will allow for extra storage
space, a catering area, a small meetings room, and private hire and also adequate toilets so it
will be suitable for larger events and with disabled access.
As part of the renovation works for phase one, we got funding to make some structural changes,
which you will see on the left side of that drawing at the vestry end or garage end to enable a
widened entrance into the main hall. A serving hatch, which will connect with the kitchen and an
access door to the storage room, which will be extended in due course, for when the weather’s
bad, instead of having to go outside to bring tables or chairs or whatever in, you’ll access it from
the inside.
So, these slappings as they are called in Scotland apparently, the structural works, have been
done. The first fix electrical installation has also been completed. The damaged floor has in part
been removed and we’ve got a picture here when stripped back, in actual fact it was Martin
Morrison, the a new member of the community who was interested to salvage some of the old
floor and he’s managed to salvage some of it, a lot of it was in a very poor state and unusable,
but he’s given us a donation for what he’s managed to take away, but it revealed the extent of
the joists beneath. And they’re in a mixed state, there is evidence of some rot, there is evidence
of woodworm damage. But overall, there are a number of problems because there’s a camber
from one end to the other, when it was a free church, of about 4 inches or so, and the Joiner
who’s got the contract thinks that it will be better to replace them with new joists, and he will do
that cheaper than if he was to try and make do with the existing, which would have to have
patch repairs, woodworm treatment, they would also have to be levelling up with issues of the
old nails, and so forth. So that’s the plan as we go forward. They have also already done some
initial groundwork provision, because while we’ve got the floor down removed, we want to lay
drains that will come from the extension from the toilets and kitchens and so on and run through
underneath the new floor and go into the existing drainage provisions that serves the existing
hall toilet initially, because that is the most economic way of doing it. And that is all under the
auspice of our architect Julius Weeks, who is a great support to me and I’ve only been able to
manage this with his expert advice and input.
Works funded for and yet to be done very soon; are stripping out the rest of the floor, laying of
cables across the wall, which will be under the new floor, laying the drains, replacing the new
joists and installing the new marine-ply subfloor with under slung insulation.
Then the rest of the messy work can be done and plastering repairs, repair the clock
encasement and gallery and the south main entrance repairing and making good with the new
wall paneling, painting and decorating and then there’ll be the final fix electric work and
installation of the electrical heating system, which will be slimline oil filled energy saving
radiators with individual control panels and after making extensive investigation into various
heating systems, we came down to the conclusion that this was the most economic means of
providing heating. Although the y will be expensive to run at the time, they will only be run for
times when we have events when the weather dictates, but the installation costs are so much
lower, and they are, after all, electrical, and we have an abundance of wind turbines that would
provide that green energy.So then when all the messy work has been done, we’ll be laying the oak floor. We’ve purchased
this with grant money, sorry money that was donated to us, and this is 18mm tongue and
grooved, which will make a lovely finish. And that will be the last thing to go down after all the
messy work’s been done. We also got funding for a reconditioned Genie scissor platform, which we will have in the longterm, which will enable maintenance of the building because of the high ceilings. This mobile battery operated genie platform, I think goes up to 30 feet and will save on costs which would
otherwise be involved, for scaffolding.
I think that more or less brings us up-to-date, we were until recently hoping to be able to open
by Christmas, but particularly because of the bad weather of late, it has set this back, and it
looks like being in the New Year now before all this work will be undertaken. But the important
thing is, we have all the funding in place.
And that brings us onto the questions.
Caitlin M (TSI)
Okay so we’re going to go through some of the questions that were submitted to me in advance
and then passed on anonymously to the board. The way it’s gonna work is I’m going to
introduce a question and then whoever amongst the board feels like they would wish to answer
the question, I’ll hand the microphone over to them and again, these are questions I’ve been
asked in advance, so any other questions that you think on of or that you want to ask can save
them until the end of this section.
And I’ll clearly let you know when it’s time to ask questions from the floor. So first of all the
question that we have first is, “Can we have clarification on exactly how much money has
been spent to date on a new village hall, including the cost of purchase, a breakdown of
exactly what has been spent on consultants, which include viability studies, etcetera and
actual building works would be preferred” so I’m going to hand over to Malcolm.
Malcolm W
I’m answering these questions because I submitted all the grant applications, and I am
managing how it is spent. I’m also going to speak for Liz for some of her accounts because
she’s not able to be present here. I have prepared spreadsheets of all the grant funding that I
have applied for on behalf of the charity and how that money was spent, including that for key
specialist reports and feasibility studies and options appraisals, and there are copies of these on
the front table here.
I passed all this information on to Liz because a lot of it dates before her time, but she has not
been directly involved in the application process, and I sent her a spreadsheet and she had
formatted it to be compatible with her accounts which she will use. But I’ve had to go back to
mine because, as pointed out by Louise, who was eagle-eyed and spotted that I missed out the
cost of the oak flooring, which was donation funded , not grant funded….but I’ve amended them
and included that, and that’s why it’s my copy of the report that’s there.
So in summary. The short answer to question one is by completion of phase one in the New
Year, the total grant funding for hall repairs and the renovation for phase 1 will be £334000.
There is still over £85504 of work to be done, for which we have grant funding. According to my
records, the total cost of key specialist reports, feasibility and options appraisals are £37572 of
which £19640 was covered by grant applications. Now I know that seems a lot of money, but I’m
going to give one example where we went into great depth, when we looked at how to heat this
building, and obviously there was an effort to try and find some eco-friendly way of doing it.
We had all sorts of mixed reports from other halls who got into financial trouble, because they’ve
gone into underfloor heating that had gone wrong, and they had problems with high costs of
heat exchangers etcetera. So, in conjunction with our architect Julius, we thought the best
option would be to seek an independent options appraisal of what might be the best heating
system. This did cost quite a lot of money and is detailed there.
I think it was about £2,500. And that seemed like a lot of money, you might say, well wasn’t that
wasted? Well, no, it wasn’t because when we saw that report, which was a huge number of
pages long, the bottom line was the running costs and the capital cost for the system, which
was a hybrid system, was a huge figure.
And I can talk about the system which we’re going to implement is back to basics, electric
heating, and is going to be much cheaper to run. So it saved a lot of money, and it’s interesting
to know that some of the grant funding that we got was based on estimates by a company
called CRGP Quantity Surveyors and their estimates were very high. But fortunately, because
the repair grants were based on those, we’ve managed to do it so much cheaper by doing it by
small contractors and voluntary work, we have built up a surplus that actually has funded the
unexpected costs in relating to the tower issue, and the taking down of the tower, supported by
some local donations. Now, so, moving on question 2, sorry.
Caitlin M (TSI)
Can we have clarification about how much money is currently sitting in bank accounts
relating to the village hall old and new?
Malcolm W
Again, there are copies I’ve printed out. I think at least 30 copies. There may not be enough for
everybody here of the current balance sheet that Liz has provided and to summarize, the
current balances at the end of the financial year 30th of September 2025, our year end, the
current restricted balance was £24481 and unrestricted balance £9782. So just to sorry recap
on that the restricted balance is £24481. That means money that is ring-fenced for the project
and ringfenced grant money or donations that have been specifically donated for this project.
The unrestricted is the amount of money that we use for the running costs. And we have £9782,
giving a total balance of £34,253. Liz’s running expense forecast shows we need at least £9910
a year to cover the running expenses, which included insurance with all the other running costs,
the maintenance of the hall grounds etcetera. Again, there’s a breakdown of those costs, we’ve
only got one copy of that, so I’d appreciate you don’t take that away, it is blue-tacked to the
table, but it is of course a prediction only by the end of next year will we know what the actual
running costs for next year will be.
At completion of phase one there should be residual funds to carry over for match funding for
phase 2, and the projected estimate at the moment is in the region of £14000 plus. We confirm
that none of the trustees receive any remuneration and indeed, most of us run at personal
expenses pursuing this charity work that are not reimbursed things like print paper, ink toner,
laminated pouches, laminators, fuel and numerous other expenses.
Caitlin M
The next question we have is, can you confirm how much public money through funders
has been given to the project, and how much has been raised locally?
Malcolm W
This is in part similar to question one and already covered. Full spreadsheets are available on
the table. There will be a projected £13291 grant shortfall for renovation phase one, but as part
of the condition of the grants that have been awarded for this project we have to give some
match funding and the grantors, the wind farm trusts know how much we’ve got in our bank
account because it is one of the criteria that you have to submit current statements, so they
expect us to provide some match funding, and we have got donations and earnings that enable
us to underpin that funding, so that £13291 will be paid with our dedicated restricted funds
available.
Of our own funding substantive donations of £29512 were donated in this financial year.
Specifically, for this whole renovation project, about £12000, was raised by Louise’s excellent
crown funding platform again restricted for this hall project. …inaudible…, which we’ve already
mentioned.
With regard to historic, yes, sorry, moving onto a historic restricted hall development funding.
Because, obviously, we had built up some reserves thanks to a lot of donations and work by our
own charity and great thanks to Chris Norris here with all his input for the numerous events that
he put on to support and fund our project and built up reserves prior to the incorporation in
- But its important to remember that 15,000 pounds was spent on the demolition of the old
hall.
This had to be done whether or not we had pursued a new build, or whether we pursued the
present project, and so it was a legitimate use of the restricted funding that we had for the
development plans for a hall replacement. One of the problems, we did put in an application for
grant funding for the demolition, but a local windfarm trust said, we do not give money for
demolition. They want to see positive construction. But another example of how we’ve saved
money, we investigated getting professional management of the demolition and were quoted
£10,000 from Bowen Stewart surveyors. I managed the process for nothing and in cooperation
with our architect Julius Weeks, who only charged a nominal fee of £345 for a considerable
amount of work.
Caitlin M (TSI)
The next question is, can you confirm if this money is to be accessed for any renovation and not
earmarked for certain projects? And this has been answered in the previous question that there
are funds used for the whole renovation project… Sorry, I misread that, but yes, this has been
answered from the previous question, so I’m going to move on to the next question, which is,
can you confirm if there is no thought at all about attempting to build a new village hall
on the grounds due to the costings of the new village hall?
Morag would you like to speak to that?
Morag D (Vice Chair)
So I would just like to say at this moment in time we’re not planning on building a new hall on
the old grounds, but having said that that doesn’t mean that that’s not gonna happen at some
point in the future. We have, as everyone knows, we’ve got the Welfare Unit, and we got our
semi permanent marquee, which, it’s not up at the moment. But that at the moment is what
we’re using, it would be for future boards to make some decision about that, but the focus at this
moment is trying to get a building that is open, that we can use.
Caitlin M (TSI)
Okay. I think the next question we have here is, can you confirm if the village hall committee
are being consulted by the project manager in every decision being made regarding the
new village hall? Morag are you happy to speak to that?
Morag D
I will answer that unless anyone else wants to?
Caitlin M
Louise?
7
Louis S
Morag, you start and I can add in.
Morag D
Okay. We have endless communications from Malcolm. Sometimes we wish they were less,
because actually there are too many emails, sometimes. But one thing that I would like to say is
that, you know, we are all human beings, and if people feel that there has not been enough
communication, or whatever, like I say, there are endless communications, we are all doing this
voluntarily, this is not… we’re not being paid for this. This is a voluntary thing. And I guess at the
moment I feel like we are doing it under an incredible amount of pressure because of comments
from around. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I would guess I’m just saying that it feels
like there is lots of communication.
Louise S (Chair)
I’m just gonna add that we did investigate looking at employing a professional project manager,
but we were advised that this was gonna cost 35-40 grand and the people that we were asking,
the wind farms nearby, don’t give grant money for employment so we didn’t do that.
Malcolm W
Yes. I’m not sure we directly answered the question there, but I can say that I do not undertake
any key decisions without referring to the board and all key decisions are minuted and we have
copies of the minutes here and we can refer to those if anybody wants to relate to any specific
decisions that they don’t feel happy about. If anything I admit to being guilty of overburdening
fellow trustees with information, but I attempt to be as transparent as I can, I feel I have a duty
to inform as much as I can, and the fact is the amount of work that is put into this is
unbelievable. And only my wife Susan knows exactly how much time and how much work and
how much liaison with so many agencies and what I can say whenever I feel out of my depth
about a particular situation I liaise with the appropriate authorities, I liaise with our architect, I
liaise with the planning apartment, I liaise with building standards at Argyll & Bute Council.
Louise S
I’ll just reiterate as well. Of course, there are many telephone conversations that go on between
the board as well, which are not minuted. But they’re just to help support each other, and then
they’re brought to our board meetings, which are then minuted to say that we’ve had these
conversations. It is just supporting each other and you can see the stress in Malcolm’s voice.
Caitlin M
I think as a third sector support adviser, I think one thing that’s important for everyone to
remember is the immense amount of pressure that trustees are under. Anyone who has been a
trustee or, you know, member of the PTA or have been involved in any sports clubs or running
of the church will know that at times there is a huge amount of pressure on people. And
ultimately, you’re just working as a community member in a community group for the best of the
community.
So obviously there has to be the right times to raise concerns and there has to be the right times
for there to be criticism, but at the same time we always have to have respect for the people
who turn up everyday and do the work. I’ll move on to the next question.
Pauline S (Secretary)
Can I just add we do have board meetings. And once a month or even more often than that. So
if you think about that, that’s pretty often.
So we, you know, all the bits and pieces that we’re talking about, all get discussed and minuted
at these board meetings, which are not just once a year. It’s at least every 3 or four weeks. So
it’s all been discussed by everybody, you know, on the board.
Caitlin M
Thank you all. And yeah, and so I’ll move on there and ask the next question, which is, can you
confirm whether there are plans to rebuild the bell tower? And with what funds? Any
board members wishing to answer that one?
Malcolm W
Look, we were all very upset to discover the dire state of the tower. It was a huge shock to all of
us and we fully understand the emotional upset this caused to not only the board members, but
the whole community. It was a particularly challenging time for us. As yet no decision has been
made as to how best to preserve the heritage value that the tower posed.
Currently, we are waiting for the response from the planning department and liaising with
Historic Environment Scotland regarding the retrospective listed building consent application,
which was made by architect Julius. This was submitted at the beginning of August.
Once we have had that response, we will consider our options thoroughly and in full
engagement with the community, and we will have another meeting like this when we just see –
we really don’t know what response they’re going to have. As far as my interpretation, because
we have fulfilled the criteria for the mitigating legislation regarding the listed building consent – in
that public safety comes first – and that the tower had to come down in its entirety. That decision
was not made by us it was made as a result of a structural engineer’s report. But what we can
say is that David Spy and myself went to some length to make detailed recordings and
photographs and, with David’s expertise, we have all the information that David would need to
make drawings and plans to reconstruct the tower on any scale, and in any format.
So before the tower came down, we did collect all that information, and David, you can hear it
from the horse’s mouth as well if you like. David is a qualified naval architect, and we’re very
grateful for all his input and expertise. What we can say is that, at present, we do not have any
funding for putting back a tower, either as per the original structure, or a fibreglass replica,
which would require significant capital funding and significantly increase the maintenance
running costs due to the high cost of scaffolding and crane hire. However, as I say, no decisions
have been made and we will bring this back to you once we hear from the planning with regard
to the listed building consent application.
Caitlin M
Thank you. I appreciate everyone’s patience while we’re going through these questions, and I
just thought it was important that we get these answers. We are getting through them, and the
next question is, are there any plans to redo all the merchandise now the bell tower is no
longer a feature?
Louise S
No, no plans at all, haven’t even crossed our minds, being as the logo is an iconic.. its a logo,
and then you can have a logo depicting anything you want. So we were very happy with it, and I
think it just represents the history of this village and therefore there’s no change in the
merchandise that we’ve discussed.
Malcolm W
If we were to do that, it might seem to condone erasure of the memory of the history and culture
and the heritages of it, so whether or not some tower reconstruction is made, or whether it’s a
model or whatever it is, we don’t want to destroy what was there, and then it’s a constant
reminder of it. And a celebration of its history, yes.
Caitlin M
Is the intention still to have the new building open by December, to allow groups of 20 to use the
hall? We have kind of already addressed that but;
Malcolm
Yes, look, that was our original intention and I had hoped that that would have happened. But as
I’ve already alluded to there have been delays, the joiner has outside work that he was
committed to before he started this project. Bear in mind that we only got the grant funding from
West Kintyre Community Benefit Fund in August. So of the tenders submitted, we could only
inform them in August and of course none of those contractors knew whether they were going to
get the contract, so they still had to continue their work schedule. And so, and particularly the
bad weather in September and the beginning of August, it has put them behind schedule.
I was hoping to present you today with a schedule of works. It was promised to me but it hasn’t
come and no doubt it will in the next few days and I’ll communicate that as soon as we have it.
But it is expected that it will start fairly soon and we will work to our schedule. I think we’ve
already been through what we’re going to do all the joinery work. The electricians will then come
back in, the decorators will come in and finally, the floor will be put down. I have to say it’s
going to be the New Year, don’t tie me down to a date because I don’t want to say a specific
date and then come back in the early New Year and say I’m sorry it’s not happened. But we are
on the cusp of success, and I can honestly say that next year, we will be opening that hall.
Pauline S
This thing about 20 people. We can have up to 20 people with one toilet, but if we have wanted
to have an event like a big ceilidh, or something, big wake or something at the moment we could
get some portaloos, because, if you have 2 toilets, you can have 40 people if you have 3 toilets,
you can have 60 people. It just goes up with a number of toilets anyway. So we’re not stuck to
the number of 20, because the hall is massive. We will be able to have a bigger function before
Phase 2 is going if we get the odd portaloo to make up numbers.
Member of the public
Where will you put it?
Caitlin M
We will save questions until the end, please.
Malcolm W
Can I just add a word of caution? Yes, we can do that, but I wouldn’t be probably be publicising
that too much at the moment, Julius and I had to go through protracted negotiations with
building standards to be able to get us to open this building on the basis of the work done for a
renovation on the understanding that it would be for small user groups, so whilst I’ve no doubt
about what Pauline is saying, I wouldn’t want to do anything to scupper the official lines until we
opened the hall. So I wouldn’t be promulgating that too much.
Caitlin M
Thank you. And so, moving on to the next questions. I just want to say now, so some of these
questions were asked multiple times in multiple different ways. So for the purposes of getting
through these questions, I have compiled them into questions that are asking the same thing so
that we don’t have the same questions over and over again. So the next question, can you
confirm how the project manager was chosen? And were there any other suitable
candidates more qualified for this size of project?
Morag D
Yeah. That’s going back a year or two. So Malcolm was chosen as the project manager
because he seemed to have the most understanding of what was going on with the project, and
he had the energy to put into it, of the people on the board at the time, and that was why we
made that decision. As Louise said earlier, we did look at the idea of employing a professional
project manager and we were advised that it would be between £30-40,000 per year.
It’s not just £30000 or £40000 pounds. That’s per year, and that £30000 or £40000 pounds
could have been much better spent somewhere else, and I guess that’s my answer to the
questions.
Member of the public
Caitlin, can I make a comment as a former chairperson? Just to be clear, Malcolm was chosen
by the board because Malcolm has experience in his previous life as a GP of making funding
applications – large funding applications – for similar projects in the medical field, so he was not
chosen just because he was a member of our board, but he had considerable experience in
funding applications.
Caitlin M
Okay. The next question is: given the backlash from the community regarding the removal
of the bell tower and the speed in which it was done, does the committee think that
things could have been done differently, considering that the hall belongs to the village
community?
Morag D
I’m gonna answer that one. So after the brainstorming session in January, one of the comments
was about communication, and we did set up a communication subgroup – this is kind of a preamble to the answer to this question – and I was supposed to be heading that up, and we were
doing fine until we had a school inspection in March and everything went out the window from
my head because we were so intense at school. And that was around the time when the whole
situation with the bell tower arose. Yes, we could have done things differently. I’m sure because
communication is still something we need to work on.
We, on the board, you know, it was hard for us too. Yes, we should have probably
communicated better with that and you know, we need to find out from you guys how best you
want us to communicate with you, because we try all sorts of communication, we do posters, we
do Facebook, we send out things to friends and members, we try all sorts of different means of
communication. And that was something we were discussing in the communication subgroup
meetings. How best to communicate.
We tried the Clachan Post newsletter, and we were trying. So at the end of this session today it
would be really nice to know how you want us to communicate with you guys because we’re
trying. And that’s away from the bell tower but it is relevant.
Malcolm W
If I can just come in here and just inform everybody what exactly happened. We did put notices
out, I think, on the 4th of June and the 4th of July, about what was happening. And we did put,
of course, the dangerous building notice out and it was put on the notice boards, and it was
communicated through the website and through the Facebook page, but just to go over again
for those that don’t understand what happened. The discovery of the dire state of the bell tower
was a huge shock to us all, things happened very quickly.
On the 22nd of May, when contractor joiners were doing the repairs on the tower that we’ve got
funded for, they started working and the more they started stripping out, the more they
uncovered that worried them.
And I got an urgent phone call that they wanted me to come up and have a look at what was
happening and the contractors basically weren’t happy to continue because of the state of the
tower, and they thought that we should have a structural survey done via the scaffolding which
was up and I liaised with Julius the architect and in the interest of public safety, we called for
Cowal Design structural engineers to ask them to come and do a survey because the contractor
visibly could move the whole tower with one outstretched hand.
I was absolutely terrified when I saw that and being as my name was on the building warrant,
and the building planning application I felt a personal responsibility for the safety of the public if
we hadn’t done what we did in taking the tower down as instructed in law by the building
standards department. And Building standards, once they got the structural survey report, we
got the Notice requiring us to take it down.
But things move very quickly. On the first of June, I got a telephone call to go up the tower. I
rang that day after communication with various members of… in relation to connecting with the
board and particularly Julius, our architect, I phoned and spoke to chief engineer John
Blackstock, who sent down an engineer the next day. So on the 2nd of June, he went there and
gave a verbal report to me, “This tower has to come down”. Again, he demonstrated the
physical wobbling of that tower with an outstretched arm. It was just around from then on, within
a few days of I got served with this dangerous building notice. But I had already had a phone
call on that day, the report had been sent to the building standards, and I was actually phoned
up by Tony Caskey, he’s the team lead of building standards. And he said, “take that tower
down”, he said it. And to defend the decision regarding the building standards, if it had been not
done , and we had not obeyed the law, supposing Storm Amy had taken that tower down, not
only could it have damaged the building, but flying debris may have caused public injury, and
that was the overriding consideration. I also spoke to Historic Environment Scotland at the time,
and I also spoke to the planning department, and Bryn Bowker was concerned because of the
natural concern about the heritage value of the tower, he wanted to be absolutely sure that the
tower needed to come down in its entirety. Building standards were happy that the structural
report actually said that, but I went back to the structural engineer, brought to the attention
about the request from the planning department whereby we got a detailed email that went point
by point and I’ve got it, we can go through it if you want.
That made it crystal clear that the whole tower had to come down in the interest of public safety
and Bryn Bowker later phoned me back and said he accepted it and that we proceed with
retrospective Listed Building Consent. The structural engineer’s report mitigated our liability in
terms of taking a tower down when it’s a listed building, because public safety is an overriding
factor.
Caitlin M
We’re gonna move on there to the next question which is: My worry about the current plans
of restoring the free church into a village hall is cost. I feel the project is too big a task for
our small community. Not only now but in the future as well, running and maintenance
costs would be a lot higher than for a simple one-story building. I feel the current plans
need to be re-evaluated, and a new eco-friendly purpose-built structure on the old
grounds to be explored as an alternative option,
Just to say, my community in Colonsay has just built a £3.9 million housing development, and
we have 120 people. So that is to say, it’s possible – anything is possible. Who would like to
answer this one?
Malcolm W
Sorry this question, is it a bit different. Which question are you on, Question 12? Oh, I’m sorry.
Caitlin M
Well, would anybody like to talk about it? The potential of…
Malcolm W
Yes, I’m sorry for monopolising – this has partly been answered. But given we’ve had the
funding for renovation phase one and on the verge of opening this small community is about to
achieve the task.
We did enthusiastically pursue funding for an eco-friendly single storey new hall for the old
grounds in the 5 years between 2015 and 2020, but despite raising funds from donations and
local fundraising, particularly with the support of Chris Norris, his funding effort, we failed to get
any grant funding for a new build, and I have a list of all the applications here, but we didn’t get
any funding grant funding, and not until we embarked… the free church option came up. All the
successes dated to now would suggest that all those funding organisations..the Scottish Land
Fund gave us a 95% acquisition of the cost of £161,500 pounds. That was huge. That was our
first major success and all the wind farm trusts and all the other grant funding came on the back
of that, on the back of the idea of repurposing and recycling an existing building and bringing it
back into community use and making it become active again, saving it – bearing in mind it’s
saving a listed building – and it was underpinned by our business plan, and we’ve had success
since then, between 2020 to 2025 over £334,000 pounds has been grant funded.
Morag D
I just also say that I actually feel that the building that is going to be our new hall has got a lot of
opportunities for raising money. I feel very strongly that it could even possibly provide
employment opportunities. I think it would be advertised as a wedding venue, you know, the
inside of that building is amazing.
I think that you know, that could be a fundraising opportunity. Apart from just being used as a
village hall, I think there’s other ways of using it and that we could potentially, yeah, you know,
anyway, sorry, yeah.
Member of the public (Liz)
To go on from what Malcolm was saying about when we previously tried to build a new hall
2005, we started. And we had consultation with the village on what they wanted, and eventually,
we came up with 3 options of the size of what they wanted. And the minimum, the minimum
requirements from the village back in 2005 was gonna cost £600,000.
Malcolm W
2015.
Member of the public (Liz)
2015, sorry. It was going to cost £600,000. And we couldn’t get the money, despite all the
efforts of the village community trying to raise funds.
Caitlin M
It is unfortunately common in all communities at the moment. Those looking to build, the funding
is just not there at the moment.
Malcolm W
If anybody wants a copy of the minutes of that open meeting in 2015 where we gave a
PowerPoint presentation. We actually had I think 4 options at the time, because the 3 options
that Uh, Liz mentioned and that was following an options appraisal by surveyors, Bowen &
Stewart and the options were to just renovate the existing old hall, the existing old hall with an
extension or a third one a new build, the fourth option was to do nothing, but actually it was Lee
Bastow at the meeting, who suggested a fifth option which would be included, that was to join a
forces with this school and make a combined new building; new school, a new hall, and that
was also put to the test, I don’t think it got much support, logistically that might have been a
quite a complicated thing to achieve. Even though in principle, it might have sounded like a
good idea. And the majority, although there was a wide spectrum of opinion, the majority
supported, at that stage, a new build. And that’s what we pursued for the next 5 years.
Caitlin M
Okay, moving on to the next one we have. There are a number of questions with concerns
about parking, mainly on the road adjacent to people’s houses on the way into the village by
Clachan lodge and just in yeah, various concerns about parking, so I don’t know if anybody
would like to quickly speak?
Morag D
I’m happy to answer that one unless anyone else wants…? So I think probably one of the main
concerns about parking has been because of some of the recent big events..well this year and
last year, there were concerns around a big event that we had this year. The REACT Festival…I
know people were parking all over the village and that was an event down at the old hall
grounds. Last year it was similar with Clachan Classics. We had people parking all over the
village.
I think this possibly refers to that, I think it’s probably partly in relation to that. And partly in
relation to what’s going to happen once a hall is open, are people going to be parking
everywhere? If we hadn’t postponed Clachan Classics this year, we had negotiated using other
pieces of land where we can park vehicles.
So it’s something we definitely need to really consider. But actually, the main issues for parking
recently have been events on the old hall grounds. And I think when the hall is open because it
is in the centre of the village, a lot of people will be able to walk and so therefore it won’t be
quite such an extent of a parking issue, you know, something we are aware of and we are going
to be constantly working on it.
Malcolm W
I agree with everything Morag said there, but I think this is a question that is obviously a
legitimate concern and a recurring concern to everybody, and it is something we’re going to
have to look at. And I thought that even maybe we should work in conjunction with the church
about this, because it can be a problem for them also, particularly when there’s a big funeral, for
example, and it maybe that we should be investigating, as Morag alluded to, to looking at other
landowners in the vicinity who might have bits of land that could be temporarily used on specific
occasions for extended car parking, and this is something I think we should investigate.
Caitlin M
Thank you. There’s a few more questions here, these questions we only received yesterday, so
the board hasn’t had quite as much time to consider. But we wanted to give our best attempt at
giving some answers to all questions that were asked.
So if there’s anything that you feel wasn’t covered by these answers, then you’re absolutely
welcome to get in touch with the board or with myself. If there’s anything that you would like
clarification on etc.. so the first question was about communications generally and
transparency going forward. Which we have touched on already. I don’t know if there’s
anything anyone else would like to add about communications with the community.
Morag D
I think the main thing is just can we please have some idea how you want to be communicated
with because we are doing our best with what we understand and the way we are trying, but if
anyone has any other ideas how we communicate and then please let us know and come and
join the board, come and be part of the communications subgroup – help us to do it because
we’re trying.
Malcolm W
So we’re always wanting to get new members of the SCIO at the moment, if you want to
become a member of the charity, there’s no liability or costs involved but we would like you to
sign up to it and provide your email address.
Caitlin M
Yes – that’s on the agenda so I will talk about that a little bit. The next question was, do you
have a business plan for the project and asking about future sustainability?
Malcolm W
Yes, we do. And the business plan has underpinned all our applications. It’s a dynamic model, it
changes and is adapted to the individual applications, and it’s been successful so far, that’s not
to say anything can’t be improved. If anybody wants to see a copy of the existing one. It runs to
some 23 pages. I’ve got a copy here, we can email it, but you know, whenever we come to
phase 2, we hope it’ll be a good opportunity to look at this new funding opportunity and have a
business plan that could evolve and be grown directly with that project. And anybody who wants
to put some input there would be greatly appreciated.
Caitlin M
Okay. The next question is, has this SCIO considered alternative options such as selling
the Free Church and reinvesting into a purpose built facility on the former hallgrounds?
Malcolm W
Basically yes, has the SCIO considered alternative options such as selling the free church? That
option need not arise, given that we are on the verge of opening the present project facility. To
pursue this suggestion could be financially, potentially financially reckless, given that all the
money that has been granted was awarded specifically to repurpose the free church. If it were
possible to sell the building, the funders have the right to pursue us to refund the money that
they have given. Now it is true that the Scottish Land Fund did indicate verbally to me that 5
years after transfer, if we failed to get any funding to convert it for the purpose we wanted, that
they wouldn’t pursue us, but the fact is we have got funding to do it, we’re about to open it so
that doesn’t apply. And we have case precedent that the local wind farms will, actually, when
that money was given for this purpose, if we sold the free church to try to use the money for
other purposes, they have the right to claim the money back, because that’s not what the money
was given for – it was specifically for this project.
And we have case precedent, because when we got grant funding to put solar panels on the old
hall, when it had to be demolished, we thought “well let’s get some money back on the solar
panels”. So we sold them. The West Kintyre Windfarm Trust got to hear about it and demanded
that we give the money back that we got so that happened, that is the truth of the matter I’m
afraid.
Caitlin M
Apologies, I realise we already kind of had that question in a slightly different form beforehand
but we’ll move on now, and I think this is our final question that we have that we were set in
advance: is there a plan to sustain volunteer engagement going forward as there? There
are currently only a small number of people who are running events and keeping the
projects going on? Does anyone have an answer for that?
Morag D
Yes, so you know, a plan to sustain volunteer engagement….We are trying, but again, it’s the
communication, the same thing about communication. How do we communicate with
volunteers? How do we recruit volunteers? I think that we certainly, as the small group of
trustees that there is, are struggling. Even though we cancelled the Clachan Classics, by the
end of our season of events, we were exhausted and I have nothing left to give. And we
desperately need some more volunteers. So again, yes, we need a plan to sustain volunteer
engagement, but we need volunteers. We need people to help us because we actually cannot
do it by ourselves.
Louise S
We need volunteers to help us create a plan for volunteer engagement!
Morag D
But I think this comes under point 5 on the agenda about, you know, about Board Recruitment,
possibly.
Caitlin M
I think in the interest of getting some time to ask questions. It’s now 10 past 3. I’m just thinking
we want to just move on to the section where people can ask questions to the board, yeah?
Yeah.
Obviously we want to have a chance for people in the room to ask questions. However, there’s
a couple of ground rules. Keep it friendly, keep language clean – we are in the church lest we
forget – and I will probably speed people up if they are taking too long. We do have a limited
amount of time. If there’s anything that the board doesn’t feel they can answer right now, they
will be able to get back to you in the, you know, in the coming months or at the AGM. I will take
notes of anything that I think I can help with.
So yep, is there anybody in the room who has a question that they would like answered?
Member of the public (DS)
Okay, it’s not really a question, it’s just that I’d like to add to the comments on the church tower, I
have here, a drawing – scale drawing – of what the tower looked like, which I’ve made up with
Malcolm’s assistance. There are 2 types of people in the world I hate – well there are more than
that – but 2 kinds of people in the world I particularly hate are bureaucrats and structural
engineers. Wendy and I are rebuilding our own property. It’s 15 years into a 10 year project so
we’re feeling the pressure too.
We don’t even live in Clachan, but we do feel that that clock tower is one of the important
landmarks in the entire area and we’re dedicated to ensuring that it returns. So I have the
drawings, and I have to tell you that those 2 hated people, the bureaucrats and the structural
engineer… I saw that video, and I thought “this guy is just showing off”. So I went up the tower
with Malcolm and sure enough, it wiggled around by pushing against it, and the structural
engineer was actually correct.
The worry though was not if it dropped and did some damage, because the shape of the thing
and the condition of the thing meant that that lovely airfall shaped roof could have landed in
somebody’s building. It was lead lined, and it was the correct shape to be lifted by some of
these high winds, so it was, in fact, extremely dangerous. However, it was also very poorly built
and very badly maintained.
The main thing it suffered from was steel fastenings, the timber wasn’t terribly good, some of it
pinch pine, some of those normal pine, but the steel fastenings had rusted. It had rusted and
caused the timber to rot.
And as soon as the timber starts to rot the woodworm get in, so the game’s over. It wasn’t
particularly well built, it wasn’t particularly ornate, but it is quite easily reproducible, so I don’t
think you should be too worried about the ability to reconstruct it. It all just comes down to
money. Yes Gareth?
Member of the public (GR)
Listen I’m more than happy to help the fundraising to get the tower rebuilt, and it would be nice if
I can have access to the drawings at some pointMember of the public (DS)
They’ll have the drawing and have a full set of photographs and a set of notes so it can be
reproduced. I spent most of my working life recently rebuilding and maintaining wooden yachts,
as well as building models. But I have to say that Malcolm came out in the early stages, asking
about having a model made well, frankly, building a model is probably going to be more
expensive than building the real thing, because the real thing is not a big deal.
It can be reproduced in modern materials and it can be made in such a way that it can be lifted
on and off for maintenance. And where I fall out with the bureaucrats is that when Malcolm told
me the cost of getting a crane in to remove the bell I asked, well, how do you think they got that
one up in the first place? A couple guys, a few ladders and some blocks and tackles, but the
problem is that we live in this difficult world, and it’s up to people like Malcolm, or we need
people like Malcolm to go out there in that difficult world and sort through all the red tape in
bureaucracy and deliver what is a very difficult task and it’s really… I really take my hat off to
him, because I could not stand it.
There are so many barriers put in the way to progress, and it’s all paper pushers and pen
pushers and box tickers. So I’m more hands-on and I cannot tolerate what Malcolm goes
through. But I’ll just finish by saying that Wendy and I are committed to this project as well, and
we will work hard with you to see what we get put back up there.
Applause
Caitlin M
Thank you very much. A testament to needing both types of people to run a community. Any
more questions? Yes –
Member of the Public (Liz)
I want to put a bit of lateral thinking out there and it is to do with the bell tower. If we replaced
the bell tower is the bell going back? I would like to consider donating the bell to the grounds of
this church at some point, it being housed in a secure cabinet, but then it could be rung every
time we have a service in this church. At the moment we use a tape recorded bell because we
do not have a bell so by all means reconstruct the tower and put it back on the iconic building.
But let us hear that bell being rung at least once a week.
Applause
Caitlin M
Anything else anybody like to add anything? The board would like to come back on that?
Member of the public (GR)
Can I say that the communication group, not everybody that’s on the communication group,
which includes myself, is a member of the SCIO. But one thing I constantly been pushing for is
the idea that there is actually a, you know, whether it starts off as a quarterly and then becomes
a monthly Clachan Post. Well good news is that our laser printer has been secured to make
sure that that can actually now be done.
And the other thing that I have been pushing quite strongly for, with regards to the Clachan
Post, is to actually use it as a regular means of surveying what people think and also putting
other ideas forward. Yes, it may be true that years ago, there was an issue over rebuilding an all
singing or dancing new hall down on the field but my own feeling, and I’m repeating what I’ve
said in the past is that the building that we are calling a village hall now is more of a civic
building, and I think things like weddings are more efficient events is my own personal feeling.
There is a business plan to be had with that. But it has been said several times that really all we
need down on the field is a glorified cow shed with toilet facilities and it may not necessarily be
as much as we think it might cost. And I’m more than happy to help fundraise for that, separate
to any work that has been done by the SCIO.
Applause
Caitlin M
Anyone else?
Member of the public (Joyce?)
On the communication thing – I’m not on Facebook. So Facebook was mentioned earlier on soMorag D
How would you like to be communicated with, Joyce?
Member of the public (Joyce?)
Well…email. You know, I get things through SCIO. But just someone mentioned where
communication via Facebook and I’m not on Facebook, so I don’t see any of the Clachan news
that goes on.
Louise S
I’m not on Facebook and I’m the Chair.
Member of the public (Pauline’s daughter?)
There hasn’t been a lot on Facebook, actually, apart from, like, apart from advertising things
that’s been going on. And there was a bit, there was a bit of I think, with the whole bell tower
thing and emails going out. But people had already seen the work starting ‘cos it was so soon.
So the community, a lot of people got really upset about the bell tower coming down because
they didn’t know it was going to come down, because the emails hadn’t gone through. But
anyway, there hasn’t been lots of general information about hall updates on Facebook. There’s
been some, but not lots, not regular.
Member of the public (Liz)
Can I just say, Louise does send out the newsletter. There are updates on the Clachan village
hall website. It’s just a case that we have to go and log on to it. I don’t do Facebook either.
Malcolm W
Just with regard to the tower, a notice was put up on the 4th of June, the day we got the
dangerous building notice. I have a copy here of the dangerous building notice served on me as
the representative of the SCIO and that was sent out, I received that on the 4th of June.
I published it throughout the village and posted it on the postboards myself. It was also sent to I
emailed it to all SCIO members and again it all comes back to: join if you want. If you want to be
emailed, join the SCIO. I can only send emails out to people who we have signed up to the
SCIO because of the data protection we have, you have basically given us permission to
communicate with you. So that went out, and I also put our own notice It was very quickly done.
It was quickly approved by Louise and Pauline, if not all the board and I personally posted this
on the bus stop, the notice board that I put up outside the free church, on the village notice
board. I think I put it on the church notice board as well.
And I think it went out on Facebook as well, and on the website. So to say we have no
communication at all is not true. Whether we can do better, I’m sure we can do better, but you
tell us how.
Member of the public (GR)
This is why I’d like to see a monthly, if not quarterly newsletter going through everybody’s
letterbox. The majority of people have got multiple ways of receiving their information. Now, but
yet, the Argyllshire Advertiser survives, and the basis of all online campaigns anyway does
actually start with the old media like the radio and newspapers and television. So I do actually
believe it’s important. And I’ve seen with my own eyes how important a local brochure stroke
magazine can be. In fact, you don’t need technology, you just need to be able to see it.
Member of the public (Maria)
Hi, Maria here. Been here a number of years. I think what I’d maybe say is for the everyday run
of the mill things that are happening with the village and the hall or the Free Church. Oh, it’s not
really necessary to go very personal with it and yes, these things can then be posted on notice
boards or put on Facebook or wherever. But what we’re talking like here is a little bit more
important than just the run of the mill, oh we are going to have a sale or art next week and you
know, can you turn up at 6:30, whatever you know, we’re talking about quite significant choices
and decisions that are being made, I think one of the first kind of communications that we’re
forgetting here is actually just send out a letter to every household in the village and it’s a very
simple thing to do, and it won’t cost a lot. You got one simple wee printer, you print out a letter
and you put it round all the houses. Now, that’s not a difficult thing to do, either, because as I
think Liz can confirm, we used to have different people in different areas sending out letters
about communion is going to be on that Saturday. Sunday, I should say. Each person in the
areas would go round their specific houses and pop in. So it’s not a huge amount of time, either
for one person to do, and so that’s what I would suggest on the communication front for
important decisions that have to be made. I think it needs to be put into every household in this
village.
Member of the public (Pauline’s daughter?)
Yeah, I’m on the communications group, but not on the board and uh, I originally did well, I
actually wanted a new build down at the old hall site, but because my mum and dad are so
passionate about the free church, I stepped back off the board because I didn’t want to be
totally split and that’s me being really personal. So I just support everything that’s going on. I
can see the work that’s done. I can see how tired it’s making everybody.
You know, and it does make you really sad. When you know, it splits the village, which it has
done so it would be really nice to see everybody getting behind things again. And supporting
things again, I’m really happy that all the people came here today.
Actually, so yeah, I’m on the communications board. I don’t feel like I’ve done very much, but I
do lots of things in my own ways. I would not have patience to do any of the paperwork that
Malcolm does, so I take my hat off to him. And I do think it’s amazing that the building is gonna
be preserved and used as well, but I still would like to see some sort of pavilion at the old hall
site or something because I love it down there and that’s where we have our small holders
gathering and other events. So yeah, I keep on supporting things.
Louise S
Regarding communication and subgroups really, I’m just thinking it would be really helpful if a
volunteer, not a board member, actually led each of these subgroups with a representative of
the board on each of these subgroups, so they can report back to the board because the idea of
it It’s great idea. I’d love to have the newsletter. every month and I did try and do that when I first
came onboard, but it exhausted me and I was doing it all myself, really. Maybe I should have
convened a group then, but it’s who do you ask? So if somebody else took the lead on these
subgroups, who was not a board member, it would be really helpful and then they can organise,
who puts all these through the letterboxes, and because again, that’s another job for the board if
it’s the board who’s leading it. Thank you.
Member of the public (Young person)
Yeah, after Garreth’s statement about a big shed, on behalf of the children who live in the
village we’re very lucky to call Clachan home, to walk out in front of the door and be surrounded
by hills, beaches and forests. Everybody that’s a kid in the village thinks it’s an amazing
playground to build dens, play manhunt and play football. As the nights get darker and the
weather’s poorer, we struggle to play out with getting soaked cold and miserable. If we had a
large shed and a big enough space, we could play lots of sports, like badminton, basketball,
volleyball and football, as well as having a village hall where you could host events in it, and we
can also get the older generation involved. So we could play like bowls, pickle ball or even a
chess club or board game night.
There are 16 under sixteens in the village who would definitely benefit from a safe, warm, dry
play place to play, not to mention the grandchildren and friends of the residents of the village
who visit at Halloween, Christmas and Bonfire Night. Thanks.
Applause
Caitlin M
Very intergenerational in Clachan! It’s what I like to see. Has anyone got anything else they’d
like to add or questions?
Mark F (Trustee)
Yeah. I’d just like to say that what we’ve heard from …names inaudible… and it’s great, it’s
great and people are getting involved. I think one of the things that we do miss is the idea that
our committee has got to be focused on one thing and that’s getting that church hall open as a
village hall for events and activities. And to start earning its own keep, earning its own money.
That’s where it would generate funds for other ideas. Yes, it’s great. And we can tell, let’s start to
talk about stuff on the village green. But that must not take us away from the idea of our
commitment to getting the village hall open.
Let’s do lots of great and wonderful things, but let’s have a focus. First, let’s have a place where
people can meet and talk and pass information to each other, because that’s another one of the
things that’s been really interesting with the amount of times that people are talking about “we’re
not hearing this. We’re not hearing that.” And one of the greatest communication channels is
people actually getting together and talking about it.
It’s kind of a bit of a shame that we kind of stay in our own homes and say, well, “nobody’s
talking to me, nobody’s doing this, nobody’s doing that”, it’s about getting out there, getting
involved meeting people and making things happen, anything else kind of is just conversation,
but again, I applaud the young lady’s ambition and ideas for the young people but our
committee must get this village hall was sorted out. Thank you.
Malcolm W
Just following up from what Mark was saying there, I come back to what I was saying at the
beginning. When we open that hall, we would like to see resumption of maybe the youth club,
the bowls club, Dunskeig singers, old Pals group, Women’s Institute rural group, school PE, tai
chi, dance group, women’s Guild, quiz night etc.
Hopefully these can be resumed in that building, but we’d also like to know how the space can
be used in other ways and we’d like the people to come through, we’d like to run any ideas that
they’ve got and any of these groups to get them going. So it would be nice if people could start
thinking about this and feed into the board.
Member of the public (GR)
There’s nothing wrong with a focus on the centre of the village and restoring a historical tower.
There’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s also nothing wrong with unleashing the potential of
others in the community who can fundraise for other items. Uh, you know the SCIO can do so
much. But ultimately, its main purpose is to have a look at other ideas as you just said Mark.
And if the funding could be raised to do other things, why hold that back? The SCIO is in charge
of all the assets, not just one.
Caitlin M (TSI)
Okay, we’re gonna go to Arthur, then I think we’ll have a couple more questions before I’ll move
on, just so we can all get out of here in a timely manner.
Arthur (Trustee)
Thanks. I don’t feel that we can only concentrate on the KFC. I think there’s enough of us, and I
think there’s enough interest that we could actually concentrate on two things. We got the
marquee up in the old hall grounds, and I was more than a little disappointed when we had to
take it down, because we were within 2 days of actually starting doing things there. I was going
to start with the youth club back up again, but I don’t feel that the KFC is actually as good a
venue as down in the hall because I’ve been doing youth club since pretty much we moved here
20 years ago and the grounds around there are the best of any youth club I’ve been involved
with. And I’ve done a few around the place. I don’t think that you could get a better place
because it’s safe, there’s fences all round, there’s really interesting places to go in but I loved it.
But I don’t feel the KFC is as good. The grounds are much smaller, it’s close to roads, there’s
not enough parking around it, but I mean, these will be resolved. It’s just that I’m impatient. I’m
not gonna live whatever I don’t want to wait another 100 years before actually getting on with
things.
I feel that it would be quicker to actually start concentrating on doing something in the old hall
grounds, either a bigger marquee or something similar. We don’t need bells and whistles on a
big building down there. £160,000 is way way beyond what we need. We need a barn that’s
insulated through the kitchen and you can start with a barn and then get the kitchen. But this is
a permanent building.
I mean, folks were saying, oh, we need the space for the parking. But if you got a building you
don’t need anywhere near as many marquees, so there’s a lot more space on the field for doing
stuff. That’s my humble opinion, but I just want to get going with doing youth club and events
again.
Applause
Member of the public (Maria)
Okay it is with great sadness that I don’t think I’m convinced that we have gone down the right
route in this project, I think I’ve said that from the very beginning, everybody knows that I’ve not
been in favour of having the village hall in the free church. And we’ve had the village hall down
at the hall site for long enough, and it was the best place for it. In regards to parking, in regards
to noise and the whole kit and caboodle.
I need to gather my thoughts here. I just feel that the expense of this building, the disregard to
the extent repairs that would and should have been considered at the beginning. The way that it
was brought in at the time of completely restricted gatherings where nobody could actually have
a debate. the last time we got together and talked about doing something was down at the bell
tower, and there was 3 choices that I remember we were talking about which was either keep
what we had, repair what we had or build new.
Now, there was a good turnout for that, and we decided on building new down there so why this
hasn’t happened, it’s beyond me.
Multiple voices
Money! It’s money.
Member of the public (Maria)
Well, you know, there’s different opinions, and I’ve not known what has gone on in the
meantime. Now we’re supposed to be allowed to speak. This is an open space for us to say our
opinion, yes? Okay, so this is my opinion. It’s this Free Church, which has stressed everybody
out so much that you’re sitting here saying how stressed out you are, and nobody has been able
to do anything about that but just hear you saying that you think we’ve done so much work.
Nobody knows or has seen or has had that communication of what has been going on. Now
what you tell me is, you know, you’re basically ripping out the whole centre of the free church
just to get it up and running for what is being classed as a small user group. So I think why on
earth have we gone to this extent for a small user group facility when we had what we had, and
maybe if there have been other involvements, we could have looked at more funding our
different fundings down at the village hall, and somebody else would have had different ideas of
how to do that.
I don’t know because we don’t know the full extent of what has happened before. Okay. So I’m
sorry, my opinion is I’m not convinced that this is right, and I still can’t support it.
Caitlin M
Okay, we’ll give the board a little option to speak here, but then we’re gonna move on after this.
Malcolm W
I just want to just correct some factual things. The open meeting that Maria was referring to was
in 2015. When it was pointed out, actually that it took about 11 years to build, to get funding for
the original hall, which just shows how much time it takes. We also had Robert McPhail there
who was representing Tarbert hall, and he told us that it took 10 years to get the hall there open
and benefiting them, and they had the benefit of the millennium fund in year 2000 which also
funded the Tayinloan hall and the Whitehouse hall and sadly Clachan missed out on that golden
opportunity, and I go back to that, because I have the minutes here as I say, yes, we did start up
with 3 options, but then during the course of that open meeting, which I gave the presentation of
the survey, that actually 5 options we came up with in the end, because there were the 3
options. As I said renovate the existing hall, renovate it with an extended footprin - Member of the public (Maria)
Sorry, we had voted on 3 options. There might be other things discussed.
Malcolm W
No, I’ve got the voting results, I’ve got the results here, and one was to do nothing. And another
one was the suggestion by Lee Bastow, which was a good one too, an interesting one anyway,
to join in with the school and build a new result.
And basically, option c, which was a new build did win, but there was a split of opinion basically,
and then going back to why was there a change of direction?
Well that goes back to 2020. When so many members of the village brought to our attention that
the free church was coming up, and we had to, we’d have been silly not to investigate that as an
option as we had not got any grant funding for a new building. So basically, we had 2
consultations, 1) should we look, apply for funding? And then the results were 60% in favour of
pursuing it, and making an application to the Scottish land fund. And then when we actually
were successful with a successful bid and a feasibility study undertaken, as well at a cost of
around £10,000 that concluded that the Free Church project was the most viable, we had
another consultation as to whether we should accept and that was undertaken by an
independent Community Links Scotland and I’ve got the results here from a Steven Stringer
who was the director of the company, 98 ballot papers returned, 1 not completed as not resident
in Clachan. 96 completed papers, 57 voting in favour to apply for the Scottish land fund, which
is 59% of a completed papers, 39 voting not to SLF acquisition funding – 41%, so basically,
there’s an 18% majority via democracy.
That is why we went down this route and it has been successful. We’ve got £334,000 of funding.
Morag D
Yeah, so I guess I would just like to say that it feels like… I totally understand there are people
in this village who are against the use of the free church as a village hall, I totally get that. And
yeah, I understand a lot of the concerns. What I would like to say is this is the situation we are in
just now. The people who made the decisions then are not all still on the board we’ve had, you
know, it’s, it’s like this is where we are, we need to accept where we are and move on from
here.
Because we can’t keep going back and back and back and saying, oh yes, we should have
done. Maybe retrospectively, yes, we could have done things differently, but we’re here, and
this is what we need to focus on, and it’s..yeah.
Member of the public (Liz)
I’d just like to say something a bit more positive. I’d like to thank the people who’ve been on the
board for however many years, and everybody down the years who has volunteered to help
whether it’s a board or a committee, to continue through adversity with the various events that
have gone on in this village, which make it the community it is. It might not be everybody’s cup
of tea, some of the events might not be your thing, but it’s the fact that we still persevere. We
put things on which are there for the enjoyment of the old, the middle-aged, the young and
those who are going to come after us, and that’s actually what this village hall is all about. It’s
not about us that are sitting here today. It’s about the people who will still be coming and living
in this village in 20, 30, 40 years time, and they will want somewhere where they can do
community things, and that’s what we should be concentrating on; supporting each other and
doing the things that make living in a rural village enjoyable.
Applause
Caitlin M
Okay I think my microphone has run out, which is probably it telling us it’s time to move on so
I’m gonna just finish up by talking a little bit about how you can get involved. The AGM is
coming up for the SCIO and we’ve obviously talked, there is actually an awful lot of consensus
in the room. There’s a lot of people… we all seem to understand here that the same things are
needed.
It’s just how you get there. The only way ultimately you do get there is together and working
together. Obviously not everybody is going to have time to volunteer as a trustee of a SCIO but
they might have time to commit to a communications subgroup or a subgroup who set up to look
at what happens in the old hall grounds.
If you’re passionate about something, if you’re interested in something, do give your time and if
you can stand as a trustee, absolutely do that. It’s much easier to understand if you haven’t
done it before the pressure that people can be under, but also the the way that it’s rewarding,
when you achieve something which you’re all about to, it’s going to be a great feeling, and you
will continue to have those great feelings as a community going forward, but it can’t always be
on the backs of the same people, and that has to change and people have to accept that it’s
their turn and yep, just get involved where possible.
So if you want to know everything more about being a trustee, you’re welcome to contact me. I
can talk to you from TSI’s perspective. We are also happy to give training to people who if they
don’t, if they haven’t been a trustee before, or if it was a while ago, we’re happy to train
treasurers, secretaries, chairs, anything like that, so you really don’t have to have any
experience if you want to get involved.
And I think all we have to say, really next is yeah, if you’re interested in being involved in any
way, leave your contact details with me, leave your contact details with a member of the current
board and yeah, just get excited about the community and become involved if you can.
We’ve reached the end, really, unless there’s anything the board would like to say. Is there
anything anybody else would like to address? I think we’re happy.
The only thing that we would like to do is, I’m gonna leave a notepad up here. If anybody wants
to join the SCIO or leave their email address to be contacted by the board and also, I’m gonna
leave a flip chart on the table here as well – If there’s any ideas that you want to leave, write
them down on your way out, have a look at the documents that are here and I think aside from
that just thank you everyone for coming, it’s been great to have such a good turnout, it’s been
lovely to meet some more of you.
The date of the AGM is the 22nd of November at 2 o’clock, here again, you’ll be able to catch up
on what’s been happening and stand to be a trustee. Maybe! if you feel so inclined, but yes,
thank you everyone, thank you very much to the board and everybody who has attended today
and I look forward to seeing you all again in the future.
END OF RECORDING.
The meeting was kindly supported by Argyll & Bute Third Sector Interface. Contact
Caitlin McNeill: caitlinmcneill@argylltsi.org.uk/07443631835
To make the post even more accessible an MP3 file is included below which was recorded during the meeting
