A twenty year journey

Ian Whewell

THE millennium was for many a time to take stock, and Portsoy on the Moray coast was no exception in looking ahead with a vision for the future.

That vision included redeveloping our church hall in the centre of the town, formerly the town’s ‘Auld Kirk’, to again use it both as the parish church and for community activities. The vision was that the existing parish church would be closed as it was expensive to maintain, and neither well-located nor people friendly, in particular for the elderly.

Wind on through the years and, although the vision did not die, little progress was made. Eleven years passed before our then minister decided to investigate the feasibility of proceeding with the redevelopment, and the first drawings were produced for discussion and consultation. Initially the plans involved simply carrying out the essential external repairs and upgrading our existing facilities but this was felt unambitious – a theme that was going to recur throughout our project! So back to the drawing board with evolving plans, each more ambitious than the last, developed in consultation with the congregation. The words ‘if we are going to do this we may as well make it the best we can’ struck fear in the fundraiser’s heart.

In 2014 the congregation was formally asked to approve the project, which received assent by a small majority. The project continued to evolve with fundraising now a major issue, and to spearhead the work the entire session became the Redevelopment Group, meeting regularly specifically to guide the project.

It was at a critical stage in the development of the project in 2016 that our minister felt called to another parish. Now in a vacancy, undeterred, we ploughed on. Following a visit by members of the Development Group to another recently redeveloped church it was again decided that the current plans were not sufficiently ambitious!

The final proposal for which we needed funding involved completely stripping the inside of the old ‘B’ listed kirk building, reinsulating, double glazing and fitting underfloor heating provided by air source pumps. The old 1950s extension to the rear would be completely demolished and enlarged to provide a larger meeting room, new enlarged toilets, a new kitchen equipped to professional catering standards and additional storage. Total project cost was now in the region of £650,000.

2017 was a busy year fundraising, investigating options for funding grants and completing application forms. Disappointingly we reached the end of the year with no major grant funders although we continued to be optimistic. Timing however was becoming critical as our largest potential funder – the Aberdeenshire Leader Fund, a joint EU and Scottish Government fund – was being impacted by Brexit and the money available for projects such as ours was nearly exhausted. In a flurry of form filling and cash flow spreadsheets all our funding was finally secured by July 2018, and the project build commenced in September 2018.

Our new parish church and community resource, now officially known as Portsoy Church Centre, was formally rededicated by Presbytery on September 6 2019. Still without a minister, we press on and hope that our new church will become the focus of worship and community life as envisaged in the millennium vision 20 years ago – not least because it is always warm both in the welcome and the temperature!