A new start

This afternoon the staff and volunteers at the Rockfield Centre were offering guided tours of the newly restored school building, so Mrs M and I went down for a look. 

The school was opened in 1877 and enlarged a couple of times over the years. In 2007 a new primary school was built in Oban and the old Rockfield school became vacant and was put up for sale, with very little interest. Although a 'B' listed building the council attempted to have that overturned - there were rumours that they would prefer to demolish the building and free up a very valuable town centre site. Fortunately this didn't happen and thanks to a few hard-working residents the newly formed Oban Communities Trust raised a large sum of money through various means, bought the building and proposed turning it into a local community centre. Restoration has now been completed at a cost of £2.9 million and the Rockfield Centre is about to open.

We had a very interesting personal tour with treasurer Ronnie Forbes and were very impressed with the proposals for community use. Hopefully it will make a great deal of difference to the town. We in the  Photographic Club will be holding our meetings there instead of using the playground hut.

My extra shows another group having a look at the Alphabet Stone, a device filled with letters and numbers for the children to copy. It was found being used to repair a chimney, hence the smoky half!

Quote of the Day:

Margaret Mead – " Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."