In February 2003 I attended a Lottery Funding
Meeting in Elgin. This was entirely off my own bat as I was curious,
nosey if you like, to find out what sort of money was going begging
for projects such as our neglected Harbour. The main things I found
out that day was that :-
-
The begging had to come from a recognized and
responsible body
with a worth while plan.
-
Only about a third of the money available for
this area was being taken up.
I began talking about the Harbour and my ideas in
the pub and Bob from his position as Barman realized that whilst we
were all talking about the harbour, we were not talking as a group.
He soon had us organized and we had our first meeting almost two
years ago on 30th March 2003. This was soon followed by the
first Public meeting 16th April 2003, where we were delighted to win
the approval of the village to do something about it.
We formed a Committee and started off by
concentrating on the fundraising activities and then by making
ourselves known to as many potential funders as we could think of.
We also started negotiations with the harbour owners, Crown Estates.
It was true to say we were learning the job as we
went along because you just can’t go and get a course on Harbour
restoration and organization. Bob spent many a midnight hour slaving
over a hot computer obtaining and completing applications from the
many and varied possible sources of funds. We picked the brains of
other Harbour groups and gradually obtained enough information to
put together a Constitution.
Meanwhile fundraising continued apace with Discos
and parties not only raising funds but proving the organization we
had put together. Then we decided that we had to raise Public
awareness of our activities and get all the other groups of the
Village involved.
That’s where the Harbour Gala came in, to say it
was a success would be the understatement of the century, the coming
together of the Village and the various groups that one day was a
joy to see and with the unveiling of the Plaque and all the other
associated activities, it told the world at large that we had
arrived, it will now become an annual event and this year the Gala
Day will be on the 23/7/05.
We have also been fortunate to appear in numerous
items in the press over the last 2 years and this, together with the
creation of our own web site, has helped publicize our aims.
The Environmental Improvements that we have
carried out around the harbour have already enhanced the area. With
the assistance of grant funding from The Moray Council, Moray
Badenoch and Strathspey Enterprise and Scottish Water we have, in
addition to the interpretation panel mentioned earlier, provided
seating, signing, notice boards and litter bins. More works are
planned for this summer.
We soon found out that no progress could be made
without Feasibility Study being carried out. The holders of the
purse strings had to know that our ideas were viable so when we had
accumulated sufficient money in the bank we put out tenders to
various Consultant Engineers and finally awarded the task of
providing us with a Feasibility Study to the Halcrow Group. Part of
the Feasibility Study included canvassing the views of the village
and this indicated an overwhelming support for the project.
The full findings of the study will be presented
to the village at a Public Meeting to be
held in the near future. I wish to say a big thank you to all the
funders of the study, The Moray Council, MBSE, Awards for All, Moray
Action for Communities and Crown Estates,
At the same time we were advised that we should
form a Limited Company, preferably with Charitable status. After
much form filling and amendments this has now been provisionally
accepted by Companies House and the Inland Revenue
We will be known as Portgordon Community Harbour
Group Ltd, and registered as a charity.
Also a thank you to all individuals for donations
and gifts and not least to those involved in our own efforts in
organizing various fundraising events from pantos to discos and tin
rattling. A sincere thank you also goes to all the Committee members
for their time and efforts and for sticking at it over the past two
years.
So if you would like to become part of the regeneration of not only
the harbour but of the whole village then lend your support and we
can move forward for the benefit of everyone in our community.
Ladies and gentlemen, to paraphrase old Mr.
Churchill :- “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of
the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning”.
Ron Billing
Chairman
Portgordon Community Harbour Group
Click here
to view a pdf file of a slideshow presentation, including close-up
images of the harbour and a sketch plan of the proposals - 1MB file, not recommended for 56k dial-up connections.
