Heritage group wins public vote
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A CAITHNESS village heritage group has been voted as the people’s choice in a new annual arts award.
Castletown Heritage Society came out on top in the Scottish section of the Epic Awards online poll for excellence in the arts and crafts.
The group won the People’s Choice award for last year’s innovative restaging of an Edwardian concert, which originally took place in 1911, as well as the runners-up prize in the judged section.
Chairwoman Muriel Murray is "thrilled" the concert has given the group success in the first-ever Scottish Epic Awards run by Voluntary Arts.
"It is gratifying to have recognition for the months of planning, researching, practising and performing and backstage help from a huge number of people," she told the John O’Groat Journal.
"But, above all, the event was such fun and captured the interest of the community."
Mrs Murray said taking part in the awards, especially the online voting, was a "great experience".
"So many people showed their support by voting for Castletown Heritage Society," she said.
"Not only society members, their friends and families and those resident in our village, but also participants in our skills workshops and other activities, offshore workers and ex-pats, showing us what a broad base of support we have for our efforts at Castlehill Heritage Centre. It was quite exciting to watch the votes increase."
The project started when the group discovered a detailed report of a concert in the Groat from 100 years ago and decided to bring it back to life. Workshops and research went on months in advance of the staging of the show, which took place in the Drill Hall in September.
The hard work paid off and the group is now set to receive gift vouchers for arts and craft supplies, a year’s free subscription to Voluntary Arts’ new online Running Your Group resources and, most importantly, a raised profile.
"Committee members are particularly pleased to see that the prize includes access to training and advice programmes on running community groups," said Mrs Murray.
"We are very keen on training but our remote location can make attending training events just a little more difficult. Having online access to this will be of great benefit to us."
The arts material will be put to good use by the local painting group after a recent funding application was turned down.
"This award bears out the saying that when one door closes another one opens," said Mrs Murray.
"We applied with every confidence in ourselves, but were humbled by the variety and quality of the projects undertaken by the other contenders."
The Epic Awards aim to identify and promote the excellent art and craft activities that exist within the voluntary arts sector.
Voluntary Arts is the national development agency for arts participation. It raises awareness of the contribution voluntary and amateur arts and crafts groups make to the wellbeing of communities.
