New Building – Facilities Upgrade
Frustratingly, despite our hopes and aspirations last month, the building works at Longcraig just don’t finish off!
One of the bigger delays was in laying the specialised flooring, which needs overnight curing for each of several layers of material put down. During this time, other workmen were unable to access anything, which set aside a number of days for flooring work only. And, due to a quirk in the weather – a warm day and night causing condensation on our still chilly concrete floors, the material did not cure, and so had to be carefully removed, prepared for a re-coat, then coated again – so a few more days passed us by!
It is fair to say that pretty much everything is now done, but some items are not yet ‘signed off’ as complete, and we’ve not yet been allowed to gain full access to the building until workmen have gone and completion certificates are signed off.
Unfortunately, these continuing delays have caused more impact to another number of bookings, and we have worked with groups to reschedule their activity dates or make alternative arrangements. Once again, we apologise again to those groups affected by this!
We are assured that we will be delighted to welcome groups back very shortly and equally delighted to show people around our new facilities.
Training Courses
The following courses have been planned for later in the year:
RYA Dinghy Sailing Level 2/3: Weekend 29/30 July – 2 day course.
Open to people who have done a little bit of sailing but wish to become more competent, gain a qualification, or perhaps to lead towards an activity permit. This course will also cover a number of proficiency badges and awards in the scouting programme!
For more details of this and other training opportunities that are possible, please get in touch and discuss your needs, whether for adults or for young people. We can then advise on the best solution to help you meet those requirements.
Please contact us at bookings@longcraig.info
Volunteering?
A very big Thank You to a number of people who have come forward over the past weeks and months, and like everyone else, are looking forward to being able to get back into the Centre and start volunteering in earnest!
But we can still make great use of more volunteers.
Longcraig is run entirely by a team of volunteers, both for our activities on the water and for things onshore and around and throughout the Centre. To help us ensure we can meet the growing demands from young people and our growing scouting movement, we need to keep increasing our band of volunteers to enable us to keep pace.
We have opportunities for volunteers to help out on the water – either qualified or unqualified (in which case we will help you reach a qualification so you can gain some skills and take a more responsible volunteering role).
We have opportunities for land-based volunteers who help operate the Centre. Sometimes these require admin skills, but sometimes we need folks who can run a range of land-based activities which supplement our programme.
And sometimes it’s just people, who work behind the scenes, perhaps covering promotion activities, recruitment, fund raising, or assisting with the book keeping, bookings, or even keeping the equipment in good order. Or it could be helping run the kitchen to provide catering or just simply cups of tea to the other volunteers!
But, best of all – volunteering to help at Longcraig doesn’t involve a regular weekly commitment as you would expect to need to run a section of scouts (Squirrels, Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, etc) – we can accommodate volunteering at a time and pace that suits you!
We are holding open sessions in the next few weeks to meet potential volunteers and explain what we do. We’d be delighted if you could pop along to one of these sessions, All we ask is that you pre-register with us so we know how many are likely to come along (and we can arrange the necessary facilities/resources)
The next dates set up for this are as follows:
Friday 16 June – Longcraig 7pm
These meetings will be held at the time shown above, starting off with tea and cake, followed by some brief presentations and an opportunity to discuss what we do and how we do it. And, more importantly, how you might fit in to that too! And we will have people on hand to answer any questions that you may have too! And, a tour of the new upgraded facilities!!
Please simply contact us at getinvolved@longcraig.info with your preferred meeting date and your contact details.
We’ll take care of the rest!
If you can’t make the set aside date above, please still get in touch!
We can meet up with groups from one person up to a good number, at other times as well as the set aside dates, so just let us know what suits and we will try to accommodate.