District News

Strathaven

Beer Festival Strathaven & District Round Table are offering local businesses the opportunity to sponsor the event for only £50. This includes entry for four people, special edition beer glasses (worth £20), your business on the sponsors’ board and a mention in the tasting notes as well as a plug on Facebook. The sponsorship helps cover some of the costs for hosting the event which, in turn, helps ensure that there is more money to offer the community for various local projects. If you are interested, please message the Facebook page with your contact details and committee members will get in touch with you. Balloon Festival The Strathaven Balloon Festival will run from the evening of Friday, August 25 to the evening of Sunday, August 27 in the John Hastie Park in Strathaven. It’s been running since 1999 and is Scotland’s unique hot air balloon event, with 20 huge balloons expected. Launches are at 6am and 6pm, plus the ‘Saturday Evening Glow’ spectacular will begin at around 9.15pm, weather permitting. Stalls and various fun day events to across the weekend. If it’s not wet or too windy, there will be plenty of opportunity to get close-up to a huge hot air balloon. Over the weekend there will be demonstrations of the balloon being unpacked before it is tethered to a heavy vehicle to stop it flying away, where it will float a few feet above the park. Entry is free, though organisers, all local volunteers, hope visitors will purchase this year’s souvenir programme. The programme is an important fundraiser for the annual event, and you can donate to the festival (Scottish Charity SC 046563) to help it run each year.

Chapelton

Silver Circle The next outing is to Largs on Wednesday, August 23. The bus will leave the cross at 10am and return to Chapelton for 6pm. The cost for visitors will be £8. Would anyone interested in going on this trip, please give their name to Jean (300512), Morag (300212) or Rosaleen (300351).