December 2019 monthly update

Buylocal! – Oakwood Tourism and Crafts

By the time you read this the Christmas market will have taken place. If you missed we all had a great evening with over 120 people passing the stalls, Christmas Tree Lights switch on and £100’s raised for charity and lots of locally made presents being bought – Watch out for a bigger event next year! Don’t despair though, as here is still time to pick up some more gifts if you missed it – and our producers have some A-M-A-ZING gifts! Although the Oakwood shop is opening reduced hours there will be late night opening on Friday 13th December for those last minute gifts! The shop will reopen in March giving producers a chance to get stock ready for Easter. We hope you will agree the shop has been a great success, with our dedicated band of volunteers welcome thousands of visitors to the area, selling over £12,000 of locally made products and raising much needed funds for the charity! Thank you to everyone who has helped get through our first year!

Loch Group Developments

Now that the community owns the green shed and car park at the jetty, a public meeting was held on the 4th November in the village hall to consult on options. The overwhelming response was to find ways to ease the parking congestion on busy days, perhaps extra space for those without trailers, and to develop the green shed as a shelter and changing space for open water swimmers, kayakers etc. There was no clear way forward agreed on the addition of a pontoon arrangement for the jetty, with some concern that an ‘alongside’ pontoon would severely restrict access on the slip for those with bigger trailers. As a short term, measure the community company will be looking for volunteers to patch and repair the surface of the jetty and repair the undercutting. Anyone wishing to get involved in further discussions, or, to be on the mailing list, please contact us.

The Craft Shed

We are delighted to announce that the Sunart Community Benefit Fund and the Sunart Community Council have both granted funds to enable us to start development of the portacabin – with water and electricity being planned for January, a new door and window son thereafter and then it will be ready for the Men’s Shed group to move in to one end, and a crafter workshop and wee kitchen to be created at the other. Everyone will be welcome and there will be work parties organised to move this project forward. Watch this space………………

Company AGM 29th Oct

Outgoing Chair, David Barker gave a report on another very full and busy year for the company and full details are on our website. Notably David thanked all the Members, customers, volunteers and supporters of the charity who make it a success. Sadly we had to say goodbye to some hard-working Directors – Louise Cameron, Chris Millar Craig, Kate Campbell, Janice Mackinnon and Kate Proctor, but we were pleased to welcome two new Directors, Helen Ricketts and Debbie Calver. Clearly this does leave us with quite a few vacancies and we are very interested to hear from any volunteers with social media, marketing, construction or finance skills in particular. Please get in touch if you can spare the time to assist with fundraising, attend meetings every 6-7 weeks and perhaps support one or other of the community projects. You don’t have to join the Board immediately – perhaps come along and get involved and ‘try before you buy’ or should that be “…before you join!”