Bring your own drink and donations for the Food table. At Colintraive Village Hall from 9pm onwards.

with Tigna a’ Truish + friends.

We provide the music, you provide the wine and food.

£5 and kids free. from 8.30pm at Glendaruel Village Hall

On 19th December 2006, there will be a carol concert at Kilmodan School from 7pm onwards.

On the 18th December from 7pm, there will be a Fellowship Ceilidh at Glendaruel Hall

This is the image of our community that was broadcast to the nation on Wednesday 15th November. The genuine community spirit it demonstrates was instrumental in winning the votes of viewers on STV’s Scotland Today. In a head to head with Port Ellen on Islay, we won a Peoples’ Millions grant of £50,000 to achieve the long fought for dream of a playpark in Glendaruel.

This success is attributable in no small measure to the indefatigable efforts of Heather MacVicar (far left). She has been campaigning to this end for some years, organising fund-raisering events, filling repeated applications, appealing and cajoling. The application for funding from the Wind Farm Trust was approved subject to securing matched funding which has now been achieved in some style.

Heather and her committee are to be congratulated on the formidable organisation of this campaign. Weeks prior to the final they had produced leaflets which were distributed throughout the Cowal and beyond. The local press ran articles and pictures raising further awareness. On the day itself a mass telephone strategy swung into action, encouraging family and friends to call in and vote from far and wide. It obviously worked.

The following evening folk, nursing bruised dialing digits, gathered at the Glendaruel Hotel to watch the announcement of the winner. Joy was fairly unrestrained, drowning out the details. As the programme ended more and more arrived to join in the celebrations. A good evening was had by all!

The Playpark Committee of Heather, Jelena Finnie, Danuta Steedman and Holly Walker, with the involvement of Annie Craig, Jim McLuckie, Duncan Tyler and Elizabeth Fairbairn are to be congratulated and generations of children will have cause to be grateful for their efforts.

Work on the playpark should commence soon and we will be reporting on its progress in 2007. Well done!

Michael Kaufmann