The Scotland Island Recreation Centre

The Scotland Island Recreation Centre is the building that was for many years used as the Kindy. Sadly, the Kindy is no longer running, but the building itself holds many precious memories for generations of island children and the hardworking committees that ran it.

The NBC has now made this space available for hire. Booking is easy and islanders receive special rates. Bookings are for the centre as is, but NBC will be making future improvements to the building, so watch this space!

Facilities include:

Additional work on the building will be done over the next year to improve and extend its amenities, but for now the facilities include:

  • Kitchen with refrigerator, but no stove or dishwasher
  • Large open-plan space
  • One adult toilet
  • Three children’s toilets (will be removed)
  • Wide balcony overlooking Catherine Park on two sides of the building
  • A storage room for artist/workshop equipment if you plan to run a series of workshops.
  • Lino floor suitable for workshops

 

Hiring the Recreation Centre

The fees and conditions for hiring the Recreation Centre are the same for the Community Hall. These conditions can be viewed by clicking on the documents below.

 

 

History

In July 2020, a community meeting was conducted by the Director of SIOCS to canvas the views of people in the community as to possible future uses of the space. This was followed up by a Survey Monkey poll in August. The survey was completed by 177 people, 68% of whom were female, 72% were aged 35-64 and 57% of respondents had children in their household.

The results of the survey were circulated in September 2020, but here is a reminder of the main findings of the survey.

In a letter to the NBC from Gail MacKenzie on 4 September 2020, she reported on the survey’s findings:

‘Ideas are not mutually exclusive and we envisage a community focused and multi-purpose offering featuring different activities on different days and times of day.

The strongest interest is in the cultural hub with a focus on art. This idea is popular, and may be reminiscent of the old ‘Gone Fishing’ gallery at the Pasadena, which was managed by islanders (48% felt they were very likely to use a cultural hub incorporating workshops, training, weekend art gallery, cafe, exhibitions, sales). In conjunction with the feedback that the highest interest in services lie in art and pottery classes (over 40% felt very or quite likely to uptake these services), we can see the community would get behind a place of sharing, learning, socialising, buying and selling around art and culture. People are keen on a cafe too, probably as part of this exhibition space.

Next level of interest came the knowledge share and tool library (25% felt they were very likely to use this to recycle and repair, and take DIY classes on typical island tasks). And 24% felt very likely to use a community garden (with workshops, plant exchange and growing space). These are interests specific to life on our island and show a keen interest in ideas to engage in sharing knowledge within the community.

There is also interest in a members’ club which could have social evening events.

Other ideas such as a co-op for buying bulk dry goods scored relatively well’.

In April 2020 the Council made the space available for use by the community in line with the ideas put forward in the survey. SIRA was asked to administer the centre in the same way that it administers the Community Hall – i.e. a hall manager/s, booking system and charging of fees, responsibility for cleaning and reporting to Council when maintenance and repairs are needed.