24th April 2015

We’re having an Open Day on Saturday 6th June at 1 pm here at the Atholl Centre. Why? To officially open our new accessible facilities completed this year (to be opened by our local MSP and Deputy First Minister, John Swinney), and to thank you for your generosity and give you a chance to be nosey and take a look for yourselves. We’ll start with a buffet lunch, then a couple of speeches and a chance to take the tour. Preparations are in full swing and already several people have signed up to come. If you want to come please get your name on the list so we have numbers for the lunch.

As I mentioned last month we’re also having a Big Lunch (Eden Project scheme) on Sun 7th June to launch the community garden where we hope to be eating some of our own produce! You’re very welcome at either or both events for this big celebration of what God has done & is doing through us, but do let us know if you’re coming. Any volunteers to bring food to share at the garden lunch?

We had the last soup lunch of the season today & Fiona Johnstone was busy interviewing people with her i-pad. We’re making a video for the open day to showcase all the community groups who meet here, so if you’d like to take part let us know.

In April we welcomed 3 brand new residential groups: A group of Iranian asylum seeker families came with the Tron church. This was a group which grew arms & legs. We started off thinking there would be 10 and ended up with 52, 42 of whom slept at the Centre! As well as bible study they had great fun playing badminton & football in the amazing sunshine. Persona counselling group spent the week here and kept us on our toes and we also had MECOPP disabled folk & their carers from the Travelling community as a mid-week group. They not only loved our new accessible en-suites, but really enjoyed that their folk in wheelchairs could be equally involved in every activity because of our inclusive space. That week the Centre was full of music, laughter and creativity led mostly by Pitlochry specialists.

The thrift shop to raise money for the new meeting room with AV & loop went disappointingly slowly this month, but praise God we were awarded £30,000 towards it from the Community Innovation Fund. Only £35K to go! Have you tried easyfundraising? Do pick up a leaflet from us next time you’re in to find out how you can raise money for the Atholl Centre at no cost to yourself when you shop on-line.


The garden continues to develop and we’ve now started to buy plants. However if you have colourful or scented shrubs, herbs and ground cover plants you could donate from your own garden please get in touch. This way we make our budget go further and you share in making the community garden. 

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