The TAC building and programme belong to YOU, so please make the most of them.
click here to see a fly-around of The Ardchattan Centre (old School)
In 1866, in the village of Bonawe, in the parish of Ardchattan, near Oban in the region of Argyll, the Ardchattan Primary School was built.
Due to centralised services, the school was closed in 2016 and pupils are now taken by bus to Lochnell school in Benderloch, a few miles away.
Community members collaborated to create The Ardchattan Centre (TAC) in 2018 as an agency and place for community benefit, and to raise funds to buy the building and grounds from Argyll and Bute Council in 2020.
We are a registered charity Company Number: SC642989.
Trustees include
- Emma Vincent
- Jennie Larney
- John Campbell
- Ronnie Campbell
- Chris Lavis-Jones
- Breege Smyth
- Alan Kerr
- Deirdre MacKenna (Chair).
If you would like to join as a volunteer, on one of the Working-Groups or as a Trustee, please just email us on events@theardchattancentre.org, thank you.
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OUR VISION
Our vision is to be a vibrant Centre that engages and inspires people of all ages and all walks of life to enjoy, move to and love this area.
OUR MISSION
To provide and manage a Hub for all the community by maintaining the building as a sustainable social enterprise which:
- celebrates the identities, heritages and cultures of Bonawe and Ardchattan, Loch Etive and the surrounding areas
- promotes wellness,
- stimulates enterprising activities,
- offers education and recreational opportunities, and
- nurtures creativity and confidence.
The building and grounds have been at the heart of the community for decades, providing space for community events and activities.
The school once served a thriving community of nearly 1000 people mostly employed and supporting the staff of the Bonawe Quarries and Bonawe Furnace, and today is home to around 150 people in the village of Bonawe with many more in the wider and neighbouring parishes.
The closure of the school impacted the community in many ways; by removing a meeting place for young people in their own community; by out-sourcing education services and by closing the public meeting-space. The need to travel elsewhere to access basic education and meetings changed the community’s sense of itself from having been its own centre to feeling like it was a satellite of someone else’s centre.
Informal dialogues, semi-formal consultations and community dialogues confirmed the community’s agreement to secure the School building and grounds for community use.
The local community came together to form The Ardchattan Centre and successfully secured £157,000 from Scottish Land Fund to purchase the building and grounds from Argyll and Bute Council in 2020.
Volunteers, working groups and the Trustees are now reflecting upon the first few years of TAC Programme activities (which were heavily impacted by Covid) and working on and delivering plans with a twofold priorities:
(1) Building Maintenance and fit for purpose: deliver a realistic service which protects, maintains and develops the building and grounds at the heart of the community as a hub for its programme of Activities,
(2) high quality Programme of Activities: deliver a consistently high quality programme of activities (eg meetings, explorations, celebrations, learning, creativity and other);
all of which supports well-being and stimulates growth, encouraging people to build confidence, a strong sense of identity, and contributes to a well-populated community undertaking enterprise and collective self-care.
OUR VALUES
- be open and transparent in our governance, decision making, planning and evaluations,
- promote inclusive behaviours based on trust, friendship, generosity and collaboration,
- work to build community resilience, developing local skills and promoting the circular economy,
- take an enterprising approach to running the centre, striving to achieve financial independence,
- take care of our places, resources and knowledge, and share this for the benefit of the community as a whole,
- work constructively and in a spirit of collective collaboration with our neighbours, locally and nearby,
- be mindful of The Ardchattan Centre’s environmental impact, aiming to minimise the carbon footprint and always be guided by the principles of environmental sustainability.
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Annual General Meeting (AGM) of
Sunday 21 July 2024.
Documents:
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