28th October, 2010


Good news. We now have 100% funding for our heating project. Many thanks to Community Energy Scotland (our biggest funder), Rural Tayside LEADER Programme 2007-2013(we got their largest grant in Perth & Kinross this session!), the Gannochy Trust, Pitlochry Baptist Church and you, who  through your giving, have enabled us to put £2050 of Atholl Centre funds towards this. Planning permission has come through for the boiler & solar panels. We're just waiting for building control now. This means that we can start work with the insulation now and so a firm is booked in for mid November to put cavity wall in the Chalet and thicker loft insulation in the main building.

We've been busy preparing for the Baptist Assembly where we'll have a stall and a  5 minute powerpoint presentation on our 40th anniversary appeal. It was brilliant to have Ken, a business consultant, help us formulate our slide presentation and Ian, an author, stranded at the Centre due to illness, who wrote a fantastic script for us. The printing of the leaflets and newsletters which will go out to the churches at the assembly has gone to the wire due to a broken machine, but they will be ready - just. Please pray for Iain, our director & Allan Berry, our chairman, as they travel there and represent the Centre. Please also support our treasurer Norman McNeish in prayer, who has had to resign due to serious ill health. He has also had to resign as treasurer of the Baptist Union.

We had a good first conference  " A Safe Place"  on mental health in the church on the 16th Oct put on by International Christian College, Glasgow. It was greatly appreciated by everyone who went and a group from the Hub at Queen's Park Baptist, Glasgow, who've been the ones encouraging ICC to go with this, made it into a weekend away & loved the restfulness & warm welcome while staying at the Centre. Someone has already done a write up, so we'll upload it as soon as we get a hold of it.

Highland Perthshire Autumn festival is underway as I write. It's a 2 week affair with the Enchanted Forest son et lumiere display every evening, lots going on in the main street & an art & crafts fair put on by local artists at the Centre.The 2nd week Perthshire Amber, a brilliant traditional & modern Scottish music festival, organised by Dougie Maclean, is also on. We're open for B & B while we have the craft fair in, so please come & enjoy all the autumn events.