Mon 24th August

Get involved. Help us share the news.

2 weeks to go till the launch of our crowdfunding appeal & I’m feeling nervous. Have we managed to attract your attention? Are we getting you on board? It’s all so nebulous I’ve got butterflies – that reminds me of the story of the storm butterfly which just by  fluttering its wings can influence the formation of a hurricane several weeks later (chaos theory). Did you know there is a social media tool called Thunderclap, that if you can raise 500 followers you can use thunderclap to repost all Twitter& Facebook posts to spread the news? So this campaign starts with each one of you in your small corner – and we are asking you to help us spread the word about the Atholl Centre and this crowdfunding campaign. Can you help?

So why do we want you all engaged? Because that’s what crowdfunding is about – drawing a crowd. And what do we want you to be excited about? The new conference room we really want to build this year. And we’re so nearly there – this is the last push!
Here it is:

So what’s so exciting about a conference room?                                                Well, for a start it’s the last piece in the jigsaw for making the whole of our ground floor into a fully accessible holiday & conference complex with meeting rooms, a place to eat, en-suite bedrooms and even a fully accessible apartment. We’ve achieved so much over the last couple of years. This would make our ground floor complete. Those of you who have stayed here in the past will know how important it is to us, and to you, to offer equality of access to all the groups who use us.

But for the locals who use the Atholl Centre as a community venue it’s just as exciting because such a high percentage of folks here in Pitlochry are retired (25%) or have a disability or chronic illness (22%), so mobility problems are widespread & the current conference room upstairs has been largely useless for them. This new room will not only be easy to get in to (and out of), it will also have built in AV & loop meaning that the significant number of hearing aid users will be able to join in properly to whatever is going on, and when they meet for U3A or WA lunch club for example even videos & presentations will be accessible because the loop will be fully connected to the AV.

Thirdly, this new room will help to make the Atholl Centre more sustainable. How? First it will save us money because having our accessible conference room on the ground floor will mean no future lift costs – either to maintain the lift (~6K per year) or to buy a new one. Second it will make us money. We intend to open up a new income stream in commercial day conferences so we can earn money with this room when the community and residential groups are not using it to balance out the discounts we give to vulnerable & community users, meaning we will no longer have to rely on donations to keep us going.

Now do you see why it’s exciting? Please support us by telling your friends. Share this blog through your emails. Follow us on social media & share/retweet/repin for us.

Thank you J