ISSUE 16

SPRING 2013

FERRY NEWS LETTER

The Buskers Banquet and National Symphony Orchestra

30 May to 2 June 2013
On 30 and 31 May, members of the National Symphony Orchestra will deliver workshops and tutorials at the school and Silver Band hall. The session at the school will introduce pupils to the orchestra and different instruments, the sessions with the Silver Band will provide master-classes for members of the Silver Band. On 1 June we will be hosting a Buskers Day (Buskers Banquet), with up to 50 buskers performing around the village at various locations (including some members of the National Symphony Orchestra). Each busker has to apply to perform and each busker will be given either red or green bucket (their choice) - money collected in green buckets will go towards the Pensioners Christmas Dinner. Money collected in red buckets goes to the busker themselves.

So if you want to take part in the Buskers Banquet, please email Creetown@btconnect.com or phone the office 01671 820654. Remember you must book if you want to take part. The event will judged and the winner will be offered a slot at the Eden Festival. In the evening the Buskers who take part will be invited to a get-together where they will be fed. On 2 June musicians from the National Symphony Orchestra will give a performance in the evening at the Gem Rock Museum. The event will be free, but people must apply for a ticket on a first come first served basis, as there are a limited number of seats. If you want to attend the Sunday concert at the Gem Rock, though its free, you must book your place. Bulk bookings will not be accepted, the maximum number you can book for is four people. This will be popular so if you want to attend, book now at Creetown@btconnect.com, phone 01671 820654 or call into the Creetown Initiative office.

Britains Youngest Town Crier!

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, it is to be declared to the people of Kirkmabreck Parish that Evie Cloy of this, our town of Cree, shall be our new Town Crier! Although the youngest entrant to the competition, Evie aged just 8, wowed the judges and audience with her confident voice and bell ringing techniques on Saturday 2 March. The competition was organised by The Stove artists collective as part of an ongoing public art project, funded by prize money from Creative Scotlands Creative Places Awards, which was won by the community last year. The theme of the project is Communications, explains Will Levi Marshall, lead artist from the Stove. We have been exploring different methods of communications throughout Creetowns history. This has included flags, the ancient ferry route to Wigtown, flares, bell casting and, of course, reviving the tradition of the Town Crier. We have loads of fun, engaging events in the pipeline; these will eventually lead to a new sculpture for Creetown which will be unveiled in the summer. In addition to claiming the title of the Creetown Town Crier and being involved in many upcoming community events, Evie won a brand new, contemporary Town Crier Jacket made by the artist, Lisa Gallacher. Lisa will be working with the community throughout March as part of the project, designing and making textiles and flags. There hasnt been a town crier in Creetown for 51 years, Evie explains, I love my job! Evie also won two weekend tickets to this years Wickerman Festival. For more information about upcoming events organised by the The Stove artists collective, please visit the projects blog at www.ferrythorn.blogspot.co.uk, log on to the Inspire Creetown Facebook page or call Creetown Initiative on 01671 820654.

p2

Dates for your diary

April 14th May 12th June 9th July 14th Aug 11th Sept 8th Oct 13th

Introducing Creetown Sunday Markets for 2013 . . .

showcasing the best of our regions quality producers, artists and makers 20 stalls including lamb, beef, pork, chicken, sausages, bacon, fruit & veg, smoked produce, pies and pasties, bread, cakes, eggs, preserves, dog treats, cosmetics, chocolates, jewellery, wool rugs, cards . . . and more. So come along and discover something new to try or sample.

Froglife is a national amphibian and reptile charity which works to conserve frogs, toads, newts, lizards, snakes and the habitats they depend on. Froglife is currently developing a new project thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Scottish Dragon Finder will work across

Scotland with the aim of increasing records of, habitat for, and awareness of, our native amphibians and reptiles. Although everybody has seen frog spawn in their local pond, suitable habitat for amphibians and reptiles has decreased substantially in the last fifty years and the current distribution of our species in For more information about Froglifes work Scotland is very poorly known. The common toad, for and the Scottish Dragon Finder project instance, is thought to be declining across the UK and please visit www.froglife.org hundreds are hit by cars as they make their way to pawning grounds every year, due to urbanisation of areas where they CREETOW I ITIATIVE LTD used to live. Referendum on the Possible Lease of Land for
Balloch Burn Hydro Electricity Scheme

Dumfries and Galloway provides excellent habitat for amphibians and reptiles and is home to the only known populations of grass snake and Natterjack toad in the whole of Scotland. Running an amphibian and reptile event in Balloch Wood will allow local people to get to know these interesting animals more and to get involved with their conservation. We look forward to seeing you at the Balloch Wood amphibian and reptile event next year!

7th February 2013 Electorate Total Votes Cast Percentage Poll 754 300 39.8%

Here is the result of the Referendum on the possible lease of land for Balloch Burn Hydro Electricity Scheme: umber of Votes I FAVOUR of the lease by Creetown Initiative 243 OT I FAVOUR of the lease by Creetown Initiative 57 The number of rejected ballot papers was TOTAL The majority was 186 IL 300 Proposition

Wheels4Creetown
is here for the whole community to use* offering cars from 2.95 per hour, to as little as 130 for 7 days plus the cost of actual fuel used**. So whether you want a car for 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, a weekend, a week or anything in-between, why not join the scheme and start to save yourself money. The Renault Clio estate and Grand Scenic 7 seat car are located in Adamson Square Car Park to view.

p3

THERE ARE NO OTHER HIDDEN COSTS, NO MEMBERSHIP COST, NO INSURANCE COST, NOTHING
*a minimum age of 22 and subject to insurance acceptance ** fuel is charged at cost price based on 50mpg (Grand Scenic) or 60mpg (Clio)

NEW CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

In the run up to last years Diamond Jubilee Event the organising committee raised 774.70 through donations and fund raising. The expenditure on mugs, bunting etc came to 486.20, leaving a balance of 288.50. This would have been much less had the booked live entertainment materialised but that is another story. The organisers were keen that the remaining money should be put to a good use and following a meeting of the Committee members it was agreed that the money should go towards purchasing new Christmas lights for the Square. The Community Council have already been given 100 for this purpose from Mr & Mrs Oxley from Barholm so we are now well on the way to having a much improved display this and future years. If you would like to make a small donation towards this fund please feel free to do so.

A big thank you to all the businesses and individuals who contributed towards the Hogmanay celebrations in Adamson Square. Their generosity ensured we were able to provide free food and entertainment to the many who braved the weather.

Creetown Service Station, Creetown Stores, Fire Protection (Mark & Sharon Kelly), William Lindsay, Ellangowan Hotel, Howden Skimming, Gem Rock Museum, Solway Solutions, Motorwise, Creetown Initiative, Janet Howie and all those who asked not to be named. And finally to the many helpers who ensured the celebrations went smoothly.
** THANK YOU**
Creetown Football Pavilion The latest instalment is that Sportscotland are considering a request for funding sometime over the next few weeks. This funding, if successful will pay for the materials needed to complete the interior. Castle Cary Holiday Park has kindly offered to pay the labour costs. The project has become a saga stretching over seven years. Hopefully we are nearing the end.

Isobel Campbell, Chair Kirkmabreck Community Council

p4

King George V Playing Field Regeneration Project

As you may have noticed, work is now underway to upgrade our park play area into a fantastic facility for the whole community. Dumfries and Galloway Council have removed the old play equipment and safety floor tiles in readiness for Playdale Playgrounds arriving with the new play equipment on 18 March. The design for the play area was produced by Playdale Playgrounds and incorporates many of the features suggested by our young people and other community members. Perfect for all ages, the play area will be extended and divided into three areas; the toddler area, junior area and teenager and adult area. Toddlers will be able to play in a safer play area, enclosed within a low fence and including a cradle swing, a playhouse, spring horse and climbing frame. Older children will have tons of fun in the junior area, with swings and a climbing frame, whilst the teenage area will have an aerial runway and a mega swing! The play equipment is scheduled to be installed and commissioned by the end of May. Once Playdale Playgrounds have left the site, work will begin to resurface the car parking area to ensure that it is all completed before the Creetown Gala Week!

If everything goes to plan, the community will have an amazing park play space, complete with picnic benches ready for the summer holidays!!

Creetown Silver Band

We hope that you all enjoyed the Christmas Concert in December 2012. It was heartening to see such a great turnout and gives such a lift to the players. The band hope that this is the start of new found enthusiasm in the area for brass banding. Over a busy Christmas period the band were raising funds for a new uniform and this should be on display very soon. Creetown Silver Band has a long and illustrious association with Creetown; surviving two World Wars; the swinging sixties; and the new internet age. At present we have a senior band, a junior band and a training band, all of which span the age groups youre never too young or too old indeed in the past 2 years we have had many more mature beginners who are now playing in the senior band, indeed at one time we had 3 generations of the same family playing! Training nights are Mondays & Tuesdays at 6.30pm and band practice nights are Thursdays at 7.30pm. If you would like to come along and have a try or just listen, please contact Jack on 01988 850251 or Stuart on 01671 402542. The band can supply an instrument. As to the future the bands have at least four competitions coming up:

p5

Galloway Music Festival :

Junior Band on Monday 11th March 6.30pm in Newton Stewart Cinema. Senior Band on Wednesday 13th March 6.30pm in Newton Stewart Cinema. Brass at the Bard: Junior Band on Sunday 24th March at Burns Museum, Alloway. Fife Brass Band Festival: Senior Band on Saturday 20th April starts 9.30am at Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline. Long term we are hoping to be able to compete in the Scottish Championships in 2014.

As well as these contests, the band will have its usual summer programme which, of course, will include the summer concert in the bandroom. If interest and support in the band continues, we may well be offering membership of the Friends of Creetown Silver Band which is a wonderful way to show support. More on this will be in the next Newsletter. If you are interested, curious or just nosy (thats great!) why not call into the bandroom on a Tuesday or Thursday and see how the band works. Its great fun (and the TVs rubbish those nights anyway.)

An unexpected sight!
(by Pete Robinson)
As our house overlooks Wigtown Bay, binoculars are always at the ready to spot the many bird species which utilise the Bay, especially in winter. On Sunday 17th February a large gathering of Oystercatchers caught my eye, feeding in the mud and following the receding tide. However nothing could have prepared me for the sight which distracted me from the birdlife that day. There in the water, close to the shore was the large flailing figure of a whale. The animal was obviously in difficulty and seemed disorientated as it kept trying to swim towards or parallel with the shore. The tide was also carrying the unfortunate creature closer and closer to the Kirkbryde salmon nets. As it lashed about in the water, a regular, tall spout of water could be seen coming from its blow-hole. The distance from the blow-hole to the small, backward pointing dorsal fin of this whale seemed enormous and indeed the whale turned out to be around 17m (57 feet) in length. My little used Britains Sea Mammals book indicated that this whale was a Fin Whale, the second largest whale in the world after the Blue Whale. Adults of this species can grow to 26m (85 feet).

Attempts to find a suitable organisation to report the whale to were made, and a number was eventually found for the British Divers Marine Life Rescue. A local member of the group was called to assess the possibility of rescue, but with the tide going out and darkness approaching, little could be done. I was asked to report back to the group contact early the next morning and, unfortunately by then, the whale had died. A post-mortem was carried out on the Monday and the whale was buried deeply on the shore. The whale was identified as a sub-adult and was in poor condition. Therefore a rescue attempt even if it had been possible would have been futile. It is difficult to know why whales become beached, but illness and disorientation caused by man-made underwater sounds such as ship engines could be two possible causes. Fin whales are a baleen whale. Instead of teeth they have plates of keratin (our nails are made of this) edged with bristles which are used to strain out their food of plankton, krill, small squid and small fish from mouthfuls of water. Fin whales mainly occur in deeper waters but are seen in coastal waters, mainly in the summer. More commonly seen cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) occurring around our coasts including Wigtown Bay, are the significantly smaller Common Dolphin and Harbour Porpoise.

Photographs courtesy of Gavin Chambers

Youth Hood!
Following the popularity of the youth club trip to see the pantomime in Dumfries in 2011, we organised to take both the junior and senior youth clubs to DGOne again, this time to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in December 2012. All 29 young people who attended the trip loved it and it was a lovely, magical way to round off the year.

Winter Events
In Senior Youth club we have been celebrating Scottish culture and held a mini Burns Supper on 24 January. The young people made from scratch their own two course meal of Scotch broth followed by Cranachan and it was complemented with some of Scotlands finest Irn Bru! A couple of members also performed some Highland Dancing for the rest of the group. Both the Primary and Secondary schools were off on Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 February, so I organised some activities for the local children and young people to participate in. On Monday 11, we took the senior youth club members horse riding at Calgow Equestrian, near Newton Stewart and the young people learned about stable management and horse care and rode out on a hack through Kirroughtree and Blackcraig. At the end of the morning, each young person was awarded with a rosette for taking part. On Tuesday 12, I organised for two Sound Engineers to teach three two hour workshops of computer music composition. They brought all the laptops, keyboards, microphones and editing software and set up a mini music recording studio in the Waverley hall. Over the course of the day we had 27 children and young people aged between 7 and 16 take part in the workshops. Each participant took home a CD with their own compositions on it and there were many very excited children who were proud of what they had achieved and wanted to play their music to their families as soon as they got home!!

Easter Activities
On 30th March we will be holding an Easter Egg Hunt around the village for any child or young person to come along and join in. Meet at the Square at 3pm! We are hoping to organise a trip for the junior youth club, a trip for the senior youth club and another activity during the Easter holidays (open to any child, youth club member or not), so please keep an eye out for posters, leaflets and on the Creetown Youth Club facebook page and Inspire Creetown facebook page!

New Team Member

We are delighted to welcome new youth worker Jody Steele to the team! She will be helping out at Senior Youth Club and co-running other events, activities and trips for children and young people in the village.

For information or queries about Junior Youth Club please contact Eddie on 01671 820568. If you have any comments, ideas or questions about Senior Youth Club or about any events, issues or activities affecting young people, please contact me on 01671 820654 or amydeetighe@gmail.com
Amy-Dee Tighe

Barholm Arms
Last year we started looking at what could be done with the Barholm Arms.
The basic idea was to create a shop on the ground floor which would be run as a cooperative of craft makers. This would open during the summer season. The rest of the year it would become a charity shop, run by a cooperative of local groups, creating an opportunity for them to raise funds. The upper floors would become a bunk-house. This is cheap accommodation, very cheap, no frills, no food, just a bed. The idea being that people using the bunkhouse would use the local shops to buy food, meals and so on. Bunk houses are popular with walkers, bird watchers and the like; hopefully it will encourage new visitors to the village. To the rear of the building we would build work spaces. These would be low rent work spaces, hopefully attracting start up businesses or expanding home based businesses. The over-riding idea is to attract more visitors, support existing businesses and create some jobs. The good news is the Lottery like the idea and we have passed the stage one Growing Community Assets application.

p7
We now have 6-9 months to complete the stage two application. That sounds like a long-time, but it involves business plans, architects designs, financial projections and a whole lot more. During the process we will be consulting with a wide group of people and we invite anyone with ideas to get in touch. We have already had a lot of ideas sent to us, one being that we include a small laundry that the public can use. Which we think is an excellent idea. Overall we have been delighted with peoples response to the idea. There is great support and enthusiasm for the project. After all why shouldnt there be, its a positive step to create new and support existing jobs, whilst doing something with a boarded up building which if left, will decay and impact on the whole village. Andrew Ward Creetown Inititiave 01671 820654

T H E W AY W E W E R E . . .
THE BELLMAN . . . The recent competition to find a new Town Crier has no doubt brought back memories for some people of the last Creetown Bellman. It is generally thought that it was Mr James Blake and that Creetown was one of the last places in Scotland to have a Town Crier or Bellman. Mr Blake took up his duties around the end of the First World War and carried on until he had to stop for health reasons in the 1950s He had an exceptionally powerful voice and used to go round giving notices of meetings, football matches, whist drives, dances and so on. His was not a very well paid job; in 1840 the Bellman was paid 6d. per week (two and a half pence!), although this was raised in the 1920s to half a crown (twelve and a half pence!). The Bellmans bell is kept in the Heritage Museum, but it does make an annual appearance each Christmas Eve courtesy of Father Christmas who rings it as he arrives in Adamson Square during the carol singing.

THE LOCAL HISTORY GROUP

In December the group had the privilege of being shown round Barholm Castle and of finding out how a building put up several hundred years ago had been adapted for living in the 21st Century and how many problems had to be solved along the way. In January, Archie McKie spoke about life in the former Solway Pre-Cast Works and explained how the products were made and where they went. Photographs and publications showed where many of the firms claddings for buildings can still be seen. Peter Howie told in February how the Heritage Museums photographic collection had been started and how photos were copied and processed in the early days. This has led on to what he is doing now which is gradually making all the prints - over a thousand of them! - available on computer, where they will be classified and cross-referenced for the benefit of future viewers. The March meeting considered the latest version of the Creetown Historical Walk, first devised by John Cutland over twenty years ago. We did it the easy way though and instead of actually doing the walk, we looked at photographs of many of the things it is still possible to see or touch around the village - like cobbles in Harbour Street, a halfhidden packhorse bridge, or a former school of industry for girls!. The remaining meetings this year will be a talk in April by Pam Bell on tracing your family tree, and in May Ivor Waddell will speak about Billy Marshall, the King of the Gypsies. The group meets at 2pm on the second Wednesday in the month in the church hall.

Support the Ferry News

The Ferry News is distributed free of charge to residents throughout the entire Parish of Kirkmabreck.
Copies are also made available in local businesses for tourists and visitors to access. To enable the future production of the Ferry News, it is now imperative that Creetown Initiative Ltd receives financial support to cover the professional artwork and printing costs. To help do this, advertising slots within the magazine will now be made available to local businesses. Example advertisement rates are provided here.
6cm x 4cm 4cm x 6cm 6cm x 6cm 6cm x 8cm 4cm x 8cm 12cm x 4cm 12cm x 6cm 12cm x 12cm 10 10 15 20 13 20 30 60

FREE

For Young People, Children and Families

For other sizes please contact us to confirm the cost (contact details at the bottom of this page). One year block booking receives an automatic 10% discount.

Meet at the Square Saturday 30th March 3pm

Home:01671 820252

Mobile:07900 247539

GM Services
Home and Garden Maintenance
In the Garden: -Grass Cutting -Hedge -Landscaping -Weeding -Pruning -General Tidy Up In the Home -Painting-in/ext -House Painting -Decorating -Flat packs -Small Removals -Labour for Hire

ALL JOBS CONSIDERED ALL QUOTES FREE NO OBLIGATION

Solve the clues and follow the trail to win a prize!

C Morris Newsagents 63 Victoria Street Newton Stewart
A large selection of cards, gifts, stationery and toys Tel: 01671 402636
www.cmorrisnewsagents.co.uk

ALAN BLAEN JOINER, PAINTER & DECORATOR

HOLMBANK, CREETOWN

Museum Tearoom Gift Shop Open every day

(Free admission to Creetown residents)

TEL: 01671 820458 MOB: 07809 713765

To contribute to the Ferry News Letter, please contact Carolyn Stephenson on 01671 820216 or carolynmackay@btinternet.com
Your input is vital so please do get in touch with any news, views, events or advertising.