Loch Torridon

On Friday 11th May 2012 Chinese tile game Mah Jong came to the LTCC in the Highlands of Scotland. Ten players took part with our own local expert Mary Mackay (originally from Hong Kong) on hand to initiate the complete beginners and ensure that winning hands were correctly scored.

The Centre’s function room provided the setting on a glorious evening with stunning views across the loch to Beinn Damh.

The bar was open so a glass of something refreshing was available to keep up the spirits of those not doing so well or for the victors to celebrate.

The Chinese play the game for high stakes but our players were provided with 30p each for the evening with strict instructions to return all the coins at the end! No one got rich but Mary doubled her money.

Another new activity for the Centre. If anyone else out there has something they would like to introduce to a wider audience then let us know.

Another hugely successful Christmas Party was enjoyed by over 50 adults and children on Saturday evening (17th December). A chilly evening with some tricky road conditions did little to dampen the Xmas Spirit – and most importantly didn’t prevent a much anticipated visit from Santa. As part of his busy schedule (having already called in at Lochcarron and Shieldaig on his way north) he arrived, with a full sack of toys, in response to an enthusiastic rendition of Jingle Bells from the assembled children.

After Santa departed on his travels up the west coast, we all tucked into a magnificent spread of cold meats, salads, and huge quantities of salmon, followed by a delicious choice of sweets and cheeses – all washed down with mulled wine and other beverages from the bar.

The children were then occupied playing a number of traditional games, whilst the adults digested their food, before the DJ fired up the ceilidh music for an evening of dancing. This was an excellent opportunity for the youngsters to hone their skills in a truly family oriented environment.

All in all, an excellent evening. Our thanks go out to everyone who played a part, large or small, in making the evening so successful.

The BLAS 2011 special commission concert “HEISGEIR” by Julie Fowlis, with Eamon Doorley, Ross Martin, and Duncan Chisholm, was a sell-out at the Loch Torridon Centre on Saturday 10th September. Julie’s beautiful voice, and the superb playing by the band, of a variety of traditional instruments, using their newly composed material, influenced by Heisgeir (or the Monarch Isles as they are often referred to), was a delight to the ear. This was enhanced by the superimposed visuals of the islands and seascapes, giving a very evocative “sense” of Heisgeir itself. In addition Julie had made filmed interviews with islanders, their descendants, and their tales, and these were interwoven into the evening, giving a warmth and greater understanding of the history and legend of these now uninhabited islands. Julie and the band successfully used all lyrical, filmic, narrative and musical devices to give us a sensational evening, in the true sense of the word!

A big vote of thanks should also go to the Torridon Arts and Culture Group; to all who donated baking and raffle prizes; and to Donald, Alistair and young Angus whose Gaelic welcome to all, ” Bha e uabhasach math”!

We are very grateful to our team of professional consultants, who helped bring the project to fruition:

Adrian Slocombe: who produced the architectural design concept for the centre. Adrian lives locally and has had some of his work featured on Grand Designs. He was also responsible for obtaining planning permission.

Douglas Stuart Chartered Architect, Inverness: carried out detail design work, obtained building warrant, and acted as lead consultant in providing contract administration throughout the build process.

McLeod and Aitken, Inverness: quantity surveyors, obtained tenders and carried out cost control procedures.

AF Cruden Associates, Inverness: structural engineers

Recent research shows that regular exercise has definite benefits in the fight against cancer. Macmillan Cancer Support’s chief medical officer, Jane Maher, say that “If physical exercise were a drug, it would be hitting the headlines.”

A review of studies for the charity concluded that being active during treatment had a number of beneficial effects: boosting energy levels and reducing the impact of side effects such as anxiety, weight gain and depression.

And there has been plenty of other research showing the benefits of exercise in the fight against cancer.

So if anyone needed another reason to get out and start exercising this is it! Get yourselves down to the Centre’s fitness suite and get started on that programme of regular moderate exercise right now – 150 minutes a week is recommended.

For more information, see:
Exercise should be ‘standard part of cancer care’

The new website went live less than a week ago and already we have had over 1000 visitors. We have had excellent feedback from everybody that we have spoken to – and we have to admit that we are very proud of it.

The website was developed by Richard Cross in conjunction with local webmaster Pete Meredith. The site uses the popular WordPress engine and is proving very practical to update and maintain. This means that a select group of contributors will be able to keep it up to date and post news articles on a regular basis.

We have been very pleased with our choice of web developer. Richard is very easy to work with and very professional in his approach to the project. His experience of website development meant that we were able to work out the structure of the site from an early point in the development and then proceed smoothly to the finished product. Thank you Richard!

Richard’s associate Helen Wyllie worked on the graphics for the project. Her input informed not only the graphic design of the website, but also we now have logos for letterheads and our soon to be erected Centre signage.

Press Release

03 August 2011

A thriving community centre in Wester Ross is opening its doors this month to show off a new £1 million extension. The Torridon Community Centre was officially opened in 1996 but has recently undergone a significant extension after becoming too small for the community it serves.

An Open Day is to be held at the Centre, on Friday 12 August to allow people to come and see the new facilities and find out what is on offer, including trying out the new fitness suite equipment.

Managed by the Torridon and District Community Association, the Centre is used regularly by around 50 groups. New facilities include a health and fitness suite, exhibition space, information point, conference room and an additional multi-purpose room.

As part of the Open Day, visitors will be encouraged to try out the new fitness suite equipment, with inductions available for those who wish to become members. Before this addition, the nearest fitness suite was based 30 miles away in Gairloch, and many local people travelled more than 60 miles to Inverness.

The project was funded with £506,499 from the Big Lottery, £82,235 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and £433,692 of European funding through the Scottish Rural Development Programme.

Glyn Meredith from Torridon and District Community Association, said: “After nearly 7 years it is hard to believe that the new Community Centre is about to open its doors.

“The main contractor Kingsteps have provided us with a really beautiful building which will enhance the lives of local people and visitors to the area. We hope to encourage businesses to hold their conferences at the Centre where they will find a modern purpose built facility set in one of Britains most beautiful locations.

“The Centre’s combination of light and modern rooms with spectacular views lends itself to being a wedding or special occasion venue. We hope people will come to the open day to see for themselves what we have achieved with the generous funding and the hard work and commitment of local people.”

Lindsay Simpson of HIE, said: “The previous hall served the community well but with such a large number of active users it simply became too small. The new extension now provides a high quality, sustainable and vibrant centre with facilities that will serve the entire community.”

ends
Issued by
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Communications Team
01463 244245

Press Release

The Loch Torridon Community Centre in Wester Ross is opening its doors to the public for the first time on Friday 12 August from 10am to 7pm to show off its long awaited new building. The £1 million project is the culmination of nearly seven years hard work to provide the entire community with a vibrant new Centre.

Managed by the Torridon and District Community Association, the new facilities include a stunning health and fitness suite, a gallery with a light and airy exhibition space as well as a visitor information point. The AV conference room provides state of the art equipment, whilst a well-appointed office/work space is available to rent. There is also a multi-purpose function room with a terrace. The Centre enjoys fantastic views of Loch Torridon and Ben Damph and is fully licensed lending itself to a variety of events, such as corporate conferences and entertainment, weddings and those special occasions requiring a modern venue in a spectacular setting.

As part of the Open Day, visitors will be encouraged to try out the new fitness suite equipment, with inductions available for those who wish to become members. First year special promotional rates will be available. The popular weekly Food and Craft Fair will be held as usual from 10am to 4pm with additional stalls. Free refreshments will be available all day.

The community are very grateful to the main contractor Kingsteps of Nairn, who have provided us with a really beautiful building which will enhance the lives of local people and visitors to the area. The new extension now provides a high quality, sustainable and vibrant centre with facilities that will serve the entire community. We hope people will come to the open day to see for themselves what has been achieved with the generous funding and the hard work and commitment of local people.

The project was funded with £506,499 from the Big Lottery, £82,235 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and £433,692 of European funding through the Scottish Rural Development Programme.

Dina Finan from Inveralligin passed away in July after a long illness. We send our sincere condolences to her daughter Helen and all the family.

The Loch Torridon Community Centre public open day is on Friday Aug 12th. From 10am – 7pm you will be able to look over the beautiful new facilities which will be available to all. The fitness room is now ready so come and try out the equipment and obtain membership. Come to see the exhibition and gallery or admire the superb mezzanine floor over the new function room. The food and craft market will be on from 10 – 4pm and there will be free tea and coffee. See advert elsewhere.

The main contractors Kingsteps have produced a stunning building and the community have been very grateful over the past nine months for the consideration and help offered by Brian Thom and all the men working on the project. We are going to miss them!

There will be a quiz in aid of the senior citizens outing on Friday 5th Aug at 7.45pm – you don’t have to have a team just come along and have some fun.

The Food and craft markets in the main hall every Friday are going well with over 100 people attending each week. The stalls are superb with products of a very high standard – do come and see for yourself!

The Kiltearn Fiddlers – eighteen enthusiastic young people entertained us with superb music and dancing on June 4th. It is a pleasure to see young people enjoying their music making and joining in with the dancing. Thanks to Alpha Munro, their tutor, for bringing them all the way to Torridon again.

North Sea Gas are back by popular demand in Torridon on Thurs 30th June (see advert elsewhere). Those that attended last year will remember their energy and professional performance.

Another date for your diary is Saturday 30th July (see advert elsewhere) when Anthony Hewitt will return to give us a piano recital in the hall. Once again we will be hiring a baby grand piano for this popular event so don’t miss the opportunity to experience what I am sure will be another breathtaking performance.

The Food and Craft Markets will be running through the summer holidays every Friday from July 8th –  Aug 26th. 10 am – 4pm.

Thanks go to the 12 people who attended the Caledonian Challenge again this year as marshals. We may have had a 5am shift but we still managed to have good ‘craic’ even at that time in the morning! Over £1,000 was raised for the hall!

The Tuesday Cafe  on June 21st was an outstanding success. 41 diners sat down to a three course meal and by all accounts had a great time. Lots of them asked for it to be a regular event but it was a lot of hard work for the nine volunteers so I am afraid there will not be a repeat performance for a while. However, the cafe made £400 profit for the new community centre and thanks go to everyone who attended or helped in any way.

Our new community centre is almost completed and looks superb. We intend to hold a public open day on Friday Aug 12th to give everyone a chance to see all the facilities we will be offering.

The craft workshops continue to run every second Monday in the month from 10am – 4pm. Everyone is welcome and the cost is £5 for the day including lunch. The workshop is always grateful for craft materials and if anyone has any remnants of new fabric or old buttons they don’t want they would be appreciated. Please tel 01445 791270.

A new website for the soon to be opened Loch Torridon Community Centre is now under development. This project went out to tender to a number of prospective developers and after reviewing the submitted proposals, the committee decided to appoint Richard Cross to carry out the project.

We are very pleased to be working with Richard, and appreciate his organised approach to the development of the website structure. It is important to us that we manage to showcase the very varied amenities that the centre has to offer whilst keeping the website easy to use. He is using the popular WordPress development environment as the basis of the website and this is proving very helpful in keeping the content sensibly organised.

His associate Helen Wyllie has been instrumental in the development of the artwork for the website and a logo to be used for the centre. A decision has still to be taken about the final details of the artwork but we are well on the way to a consensus.

Richard is currently on leave in sunny Krakow, lucky him, so I am cracking on with developing the content for each of the pages. I managed to take some pictures at the recent Craft Market on Friday and have incorporated a number of them into the site. However, as the centre is still “under construction” most of these pictures are merely placeholders for the moment. Fortunately, Steve Carter from Shieldaig has very kindly allowed us to use some of his superb images and has offered to come and take pictures for us as soon as work is complete on the building. Thanks Steve!

Adverse weather conditions held up the construction during November and December but Kingsteps battled valiantly to get the frame up. They are approx 6 weeks behind at the moment and so we are hopefully looking at completion in June.

Lots of decisions have been made but they have largely been a matter of giving the architect the OK for his proposals. Most decisions are budget related anyway. You will be pleased to hear that local craftsman John Murphy is designing a reception desk and some display shelves.

Furniture has been ordered. More chairs to match the existing ones and conference furniture and settees and armchairs. This was done so early in order to beat the VAT increase.

The Audio Visual equipment has been ordered from Trevor Cross at Audio Light Systems. He installed the equipment at the hall last year and kindly reduced his original estimate to ‘almost’ match the lowest one.

The Fitness equipment has been ordered as has the special sports room flooring from ‘Versatile flooring’.

All the hard work over 6 yrs is finally reaping rewards and the project has actually become exciting again – sometimes at a site meeting we will say we remember the committee saying they wanted wood paneling or low maintenance etc. Not everything got into the ‘detailed specification’ document even though it is three inches thick.

Funding has been a nightmare and so far we have not received any funding from RPAC because they take 3 months to give you the money after you have paid the bills and sent them a receipted invoice. We were made aware of this just before the project began and Pete has worked tirelessly to juggle figures and produce updated spreadsheets. It was for this that he studied maths at Cambridge but don’t tell him I said so!

Donald ‘fronts’ the project for us admirably. I don’t think he realsed what that would entail when he agreed to be the main contact.

Sandra is my right hand (literally as typing is difficult for me) and generally gives support and advice whenever it is needed.

To a large extent the Hall committee are gradually taking the reins because they will carry the project forward. At a recent meeting it was agreed to call the new facility the: Loch Torridon Community Centre and to advertise for a strong enthusiastic committee to assist the manager. This committee will, hopefully, comprise of people from the Torridon and Shieldaig areas. The manager’s job will be advertised in a month or two.

Local people of Torridon have worked hard since 2004 to bring plans for their new Hall Extension to fruition. Now they are celebrating as successful grant applications have given the go-ahead for the new project.

Formerly, Torridon Village Hall provided limited accommodation for meetings and club activities. With accommodation always being oversubscribed, local people and visitors identified a great need for new facilities. An analysis was carried out in order to examine precise requirements, and potential for further development. Applications were made for grants to turn these plans into reality. They included health and fitness rooms, full conference facilities with modern audio-visual aids, exhibition space, multi-purpose rooms and a reception and information area, bringing an additional 300 metres of floor space, as well as additional land purchased from the National Trust for car parking. Employment opportunities are also anticipated.

A high priority was to promote at the design and building stages good ecological practice with particular reference to sourcing of materials from sustainable sources, and minimal energy consumption.

The original design concept is the work of local resident and committee member Adrian Slocombe. The architect is Douglas Stuart. Quantity surveying was provided by MacLeod and Aitken. The Torridon Hall Extension Committee members and local community are very appreciative of grants agreed by The Big Lottery (£512,268), Rural Priorities Assessment Committee, RPAC, (£433,692) and the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, HIE, (£72,900). Building work on this project will start next month.

There is more good news to follow on from the recent installation of a ground source heat pump that not only heats the current Hall but will have the capacity to serve the future community centre.

Firstly, The Big Lottery has provided a welcome boost to Torridon and District Community Association’s plans to extend the Community Hall. Its grant of over £34,000 will be used for technical assistance to prepare an application to Investing in Communities later this year.

Secondly, 12 volunteers from the Torridon community worked as marshals for the Caledonian Challenge on the weekend of 14 June, earning £1,800 that they donated to the Torridon Hall Extension Fund. We are appreciative of the hard work of these volunteers; also, it is heartening to see money coming into the scheme outwith the local community.

The Torridon Hall Extension Project aims to extend and transform the existing hall into a high quality, sustainable, vibrant and multi purpose centre. The new Community Centre will provide facilities highlighted by the local community. These include a function room, a fitness room, an audio visual room fully equipped for conferences as well as an exhibition area. Additional facilities will include showers, enhanced kitchen facilities, more storage areas and office space.

Much work has been done since the last bulletin and we now have funding in place for phase one of the project. A ground source heat pump will be installed at the rear of the existing hall. The pump will serve the existing hall and the proposed extension. There will be radiators fitted in the existing hall to give constant background heat. The infra red heaters will remain as ‘top up heat’. The total cost of this will be £60,000 of which the community will provide only 3%. It is hoped that phase one will go ahead as soon as the paperwork is completed.

We have now instructed Douglas Stuart as the Architect who will take phase two of the project forward from the design stage. He instructed a Quantity Surveyor to do an ‘elemental analysis’ in order that we have a preliminary figure with which to begin the lottery application. He estimates the building cost to be in the region of £440,000 plus the cost of the car park. Detailed costings will be obtained over the coming months.

As part of the improvements to the hall the committee now have a full report from an acoustics expert on the requirements to improve the acoustics in the existing hall. This work will be carried out as part of the new project.