Thursday 25th Feb 2016

Did you ever get that feeling the weather just can't make up it's mind? We've been having beautiful sunshine here for the past week and today it snowed again. It's wonderful to see the spring flowers begin to bloom - snowdrops, winter aconites & even catkins.

 And Pitlochry community has been emerging too with Lent meetings hosted by Churches Working Together in the run up to an early Easter this year, a Big Hearted Valentine's Day Ceilidh to raise funds for refugees and a packed NHS consultation on how to improve out of hours provision in rural areas.

More community groups have got going here at the Atholl Centre too. Madcaps music & drama and Art classes started up again this month, both led by ladies who have worked hard to serve their community, but who have had a series of health knocks over the past wee while, so praise God they're on the mend now. Fiona Johnstone, community liaison for PKAVS, another lady who gives endlessly for the community is ill just now. Please pray for her. And talking about illness, Eve (English as  Foreign Language teacher) who had to give up due to ill health hasn't yet been replaced. So that's another thing you can pray for as a fresh surge of foreign workers will be arriving in Pitlochry soon for the tourist season.

Staff here have been affected by the nasty colds /flu going round too so maybe it's just as well we were less busy at weekends than we anticipated with just 2 weekend groups this month - Persona Counselling training & Dundee Central Baptist Church. 2 day conferences also took place this month and we had a small retreat group  in the Chalet and a personal retreat in the flat. 
Ben Y Vrackie from the top of Pitlochryn

There is plenty of availability for self-catering in the flat & the chalet coming up so do recommend us to your friends. We'll shortly be putting them on booking.com to ensure they get used, so get in now before it gets busy. You can book on our website or at bookings@athollcentre.org.uk or call us on 01796 473044.

 We'll also be open for B&B at the Easter weekend and in the first 2 weeks of April to fit in with the school Easter holidays. I read an interesting article recently about a scientific study pinpointing how nature promotes well-being and we've plenty of nature here, so come & enjoy it & tell your friends.

We're holding 2 Thrift shops over the Easter holidays too. The first week (4th-9th April) is to help us raise funds for the new conference room (see below). The second (9th- 14th April) is to help raise funds for the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres to help out with the ongoing refugee crisis, so please donate goods & come & buy too.

This month has seen plenty of activity from our Trustees with a Council of Management meeting looking at last year's accounts and making future plans. We're pleased to say we're really making  progress with the plans for the new Conference Room. We were 3 grants away from complete funding, but we got a phone call yesterday confirming a grant of £7,500 from the Northwood Trust, which is excellent news, so now only 2 to go. We're presenting a complex application to LEADER, who meet in April for a crucial chunk of funding and also have an important application in to the CMH Trust who meet in March. We're getting so close to finally building! Please pray. 

Last blog I showed the Nick Vujicic book for sale here at the Centre. Here's a video to whet your appetite and make you smile:)








No comments:

Post a Comment