Baugh News

Early Days
During 2006 and 2007 early discussions in the fellowship about our buildings began. It soon became clear that each member should be consulted and views sought from the whole fellowship. With this objective, each member of the fellowhip received a questionnaire and a personal visit - the response was very encouraging and lots of ideas emerged from this process. To see a summary of the responses - click here.

Once the responses had been summarised, the results were presented to
the whole fellowship and a series of meetings arranged to discuss the
future of the two buildings. It was finally agreed - by vote - that the church at Balemartine should be sold and Baugh Church renovated and extended.

Following these meetings a project group was established - to develop
ideas and progress the project. The group - The Baugh Management
Team (BMT) - had a remit is to identify tasks, complete research and carry through actions which will progress the planning, funding and building of the buildings at Baugh.

August 2008
We welcomed two visitors to the island during August. Graham Collings is
an independent fundraising consultant visited us on 26th and 27th August
to help us plan the financial aspects of this project. In addition, we also a
visit from Ray Davis, an architect who has a great deal of experience in developing churches and who made a preliminary visit to survey the current building and discuss ideas for development. These two visits mean that the project is 'on the blocks' and ready
to progress.

September - First Report
Following Ray's visit he submitted a very thorough report about the condition of Baugh Church and offered some preliminary ideas for the development of the building with additional space and community features. These initial drawings can be seen on the right.

Following Ray's initial report, and Graeme's visit to Tiree - the church leaders agreed to appoint Duncan Davis as the project architects and Graeme Collings as our fundraising consultant.

November - Further Visits
During November we were delighted to welcome Ray back to carry out further measurements and meet with the BMT. During this meeting further design modifications were suggested and Ray was able to explain some of the underlying ideas to his original design. Once we have the results of the community consultation we will be able to make the final design changes - incorporating ideas which will enable the building to be used as a community facility and a chruch.

We also welcomed Bill Slack and Norman McNeish from the Baptist Union of Scotland, who visited us to discuss our plans for Baugh Church. They seemed delighted with the current plans and were very supportive of the project. They offered practical and financial help - and gave an indication that they would continue to help, where possible, with the redevelopment of Baugh.

Both visits were very positive and a great encouragement to the fellowship here on Tiree.

February 2009 - New Plans & More Meetings
We recieved a new set of plans and artists impressions of the front and back elevation (seen on the right) from our architect. Following the safe arrival of the plans we had an open meeting with the fellowship to discuss the new plans and to consider any further amendments or changes we would like to make. These plans had a lot more detail - and were the result of several consultations with the Project Group, the architect and the planning department. These plans incorporate lots of felexible space which will have a variety of community and church uses - and will be a great asset to the island. There will be more meetings - and more plans - but we seem to be making steady progress towards a start date for the re-development and new extension at Baugh.

Summer 2009 - Further Ideas and Meetings
During the summer we undertook an audit of sections of the community here on the island. This process was informal and we spoke to many of the key
medical, social and facility providers - seeking their views regarding the past service the church had given and asking for ideas regarding what future service our church fellowship could offer the community here on Tiree.
Many of those consulted were exttremely positive, and encouraging, about our proposed plans and offered a wide range of suggestions for ways in which we could continue to serve this community. These ideas were fed into the planning process.

The final plans were submitted to the planning authority - and these were approved. Further work to refine the plans in preparation for building control are now nearing completion.

These have been positive months - and many of the potential obstacles
have been resolved or overcome - often by the generosity of folk from
outside our fellowship.

We will be holding an important meeting on Friday 30 October. This meeting, of the whole fellowship, is to look at current plans, to discuss costs and investigate possible funding and fundraising opportunities. We will be joined by Graham Collings - our independent fundraising consultant - who is making the journey north (for the third time) for this special meeting.

October 2009
We had a good meeting with Graham Collings to reviewed the current plans for Baugh and to get an impression of the funding which may be availble for our building project. There were a number of design changes suggested and some ideas which may reduce costs. It was hoped that some renewable energy spects could be added to the plans.

Spring 2010
We have had two church meetings recently to discuss the first practical step towards the renovation and development of Baugh. After much discussion it was agreed, by a very large majority of the membership, that we should proceed with the sale of Balemartine Church building. It was felt that this would be a step of faith towards the development of the Baugh site. In the meantime, from the beginning of September, the fellowship will meet in
An Talla - our community hall - for all our main services and family meals and events. Adverts for the sale of Balemartine have been placed in newspapers and a prospectus has been prepared. To download the prospectus for Balemartine Church building (PDF 1.45KB) click here.