Communityvenue inneedofnewblood

Dear Editor Friends of Aytoun Hall is a charity limited by guarantee that exists to look after the Auchterarder community’s interests in the Aytoun Hall, the prime community venue in the Lang Toon.

Over the past decade the charity has been successful in making the case for the building’s £1.4M refurbishment in 2009/10 and thereafter maintaining the community-owned inventory. Furthermore, the community, through‘the Friends’, now has a say in the way the venue is maintained and operated through its connections with Perth and Kinross Council and by dint of the fact that the community owns the contents of the building.

The Friends of Aytoun Hall AGM is scheduled for June 7 and will commence at 7.30pm in the Council Chambers of the Aytoun Hall. Following the AGM, if nobody steps forward to join the management committee, it is anticipated that the committee, established for 12 full members, will be reduced to five full members and two co-opted members, the bare minimum.

Thus the committee will be operating with a shortfall of seven full members. This is worrying. There is a need for local people who are interested and care about the Aytoun Hall to step forward and join the management committee.

Without‘new blood’to strengthen and freshen the committee, the only prospect is stagnation and eventually demise, with no formal mechanism existing for representing the community in respect of the future of the Aytoun Hall.

An appeal is therefore made for interested local people, resident in postcode PH3, to come forward prior to the AGM and apply to join the Friends of Aytoun Hall Management Committee. The committee meets monthly except in July and December. Further information and nomination papers may be obtained from David Homewood, convener, by telephoning 01764 663049. Alternatively, nomination papers may be obtained from the hall keeper in the Aytoun Hall. The Friends of Aytoun Hall