Come and enjoy a night out with friends and enjoy music and dance

With The Saddle Bags

£5 on the door – Children Free

Licensed Bar

All proceeds to the Col-Glen Play Park

Raffle & finger buffet supper halfway through the evening (donations welcome!)

Hooray!

We can’t quite believe it, but we’re nearly there. A huge thankyou to everyone who helped on our working party days. And a special thank you to Harry and his boys whose hard work and expertise achieved so much. The turf is now down and looking freat.There is still some work to do by the contractors and willing volunteers. The turf needs to bed in and then we can turn our attention to the BBQ area.

All being well we plan an unofficial opening on Saturday 21st July at 2pm. This will be low key to allow the children to use the playpark as soon as it is ready.

The official grand opening will be on Saturday 8th Sept. This will be advertised and the local press and ITV invited. It will be a fun day with various stalls. Any ideas welcome - just phone one of us. We look forward to seeing you all.

Thanks again for all your continuing support.

Heather, Danuta, Holly & Jelena

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