Issue 43 December 2015 - January 2016

HIGHLAND DANCING

Highland Dancing classes are now finished for 2015; they will be resuming on Tuesday 12 and Thursday 14 January in the Session Room at the Church Hall.

Highland Dancer Awards:

Carmen Thomson - Pre Bronze

Katie Bath - Bronze

Katie Birse - Bronze

Hayden Thomson - Bronze.

Sally Buchanan - Gold Bar 2

Leah Thomson - Gold Bar 2

Sally and Leah also achieved Bronze in the Village Maid, Scotch Measure, Heilan' Laddie, and Earl of Errol, Bronze Bar in Sailors Hornpipe and Irish Jig, and Silver in the Flora and Barracks Johnnie.

Well done, dancers - and now onto the more difficult steps !

Contributions

All contributions for inclusion in the Bulletin are welcome and should be submitted to Jacquie Clapperton on salineandsteelend@btinternet.com

COMMUNITY COUNCIL MATTERS

There was another welcome good attendance at the November meeting with some lively discussion and at least one newcomer.

Chair's Opening Remarks

John Crane took the chair and, in addition to procedural matters, remarked on the high number of recent funerals. Sadly, some were relatively young people and our thoughts are with family and friends.

Vacancies Filled

The last Bulletin asked for people interested in filling the vacancy caused by Dave Quinney's death to come forward. Unfortunately, another vacancy has occurred as Martin Cairns had to resign due to work and family commitments. However, Jean Morris and Melanie Mitchell volunteered and have been elected. Jean brings years of service to Steelend while Melanie brings a welcome link to younger people to the Community Council.

Updates from October

The community minibus is now operational, is based in High Valleyfield and arrangements will be made for use by other settlements. However, volunteer drivers are required and anyone interested can contact Aileen Aitken for details.

It has been agreed that £50 will be committed from the Community Council's budget to help Cubs celebrate their centenary in 2016. They are still seeking sponsorship so please give some thought to contributing.

Solar Farms

Contact has been made with the company promoting the Muirmealing project with a view to ensuring that local businesses can benefit from the works. The company sees the benefits from using skills and will make more information available once the planning situation is clearer. A planning application has also been submitted for a similar project at Bogside while another is anticipated near Comrie Colliery. This potentially creates a flow of work for local businesses. As indicated in the previous issue, it would be useful if businesses could provide details of the type of services they could provide.

Kingdom Housing Association, Oakley Road Development

Progress has been made with Fife Council agreeing to amend conditions attached to the outline consent. This allows the association to incorporate some protected trees into gardens and to alter the specification of the path through the Oakley Road Park to one that reflects the views of local residents and the police. Importantly KHA is still on course for a start in 2016.

Allanwater, Oakley Road Development

While participants at Community Council meetings were reasonably happy with Allanwater's revised proposals following the Area Committee's intention to refuse the original proposal, there was disappointment that this did not include any affordable homes. However, Fife Council insisted on this requirement being met and, importantly, will be providing the first number of homes. These will be offered via the Fife Housing Register so, if you are interested, please ensure that you have registered.

Anyone noticing activity west of Oakley Road should be aware that this is NOT Allanwater starting in advance of planning permission. These will be works to construct the SUDS ponds required for the Allanwater and Kingdom sites. This was given planning permission earlier this year.

The Glebe

The proposal to erect nine houses to the rear of The Glebe continues to concern residents in the area. They dispute the applicant's claim that it is an infill site and are concerned about the form of development. They are particularly worried about access being via a former garage drive and about poor visibility at The Glebe's junction with North Road. These views are reflected in the Community Council's submission to Fife Council.

Flooding

Discussion of The Glebe application highlighted poor drainage in the North Road area but concerns have been raised by residents in Upper Steelend and Steelend. Recent flooding at Upper Steelend caused a number of vehicles to leave the road with one driver having to be freed by the Fire Brigade. While Fife Council has reacted fairly quickly to the situation at Steelend, the North Road situation has now dragged on for some time and people are demanding action. While Fife Council Transportation does not necessarily have responsibility for addressing all of these issues, the Community Council will be contacting the service initially to at least identify who does have responsibility.

Traffic and Road Safety

A decent number of people attended a meeting in Saline Golf Club with Phil Clarke from Transportation. Issues of flooding, speeding through Kinneddar Park and Steelend, Main Street parking and congestion around the school were discussed. While some issues were outwith his remit, Phil will try to progress some road safety initiatives and will also investigate some ideas raised by those present. The meeting hopefully marked better understanding between the community and Fife Council, leading to working together to mutual benefit.

Christmas Tree

Once again, Jim Evans from Cowstrandburn will provide the Christmas tree that will be sited in the Church grounds. When the lights have been switched on, there will be carol singing in Saline Golf Club.

Broadband “Service” (LOL)

There is considerable disquiet at BT's progress (?) towards providing a reliable broadband service. A snail seems to move faster than this company. People, particularly those dependent on broadband for business, explained that they only want the speeds that others have experienced for years not the ultra superfast speeds being trumpeted by BT executives. At present, this area is promised speeds of 4.5-7Mb but small print shows a minimum of 1.5Mb. A check on the BT web site shows that Oakley Exchange is enabled for Superfast Fibre but our cabinets are not ready yet. This is programmed for completion by March 2016. Don't hold your breath though; completion was estimated for March 2015, 2014 etc previously.

Date of Next Meeting

Meetings continue to be well attended and are covering more issues relevant to people in our communities. It was nice that a new resident has remarked on how much he and his wife enjoy life here. The Community Council and Saline and Steelend Community Development Trust can take positive action to make our community better for all but need more people to contribute. Why not give it a try? Meetings are informal so why not come along on Tuesday 28 January 2016 at 7.30pm in Saline Community Centre. This will also be the AGM.

SALINE AND DISTRICT HERITAGE SOCIETY

Museum Report: Update 2015

The topic for the museum presentation this year was ‘Through the Keyhole - Houses and Shops ‘. The venue was once again the Session House of the Parish Church.

The museum was open on Sundays 11:30am-1.00pm and Wednesdays 10.00am-12.00noon. It had been agreed to try an evening session, Tuesday 6.00-8.00pm, in addition to the two regular ones.

There were ten volunteers able to provide a total of 41 planned sessions. The museum was also opened on Saturday 27 June to support the ‘Opening of the Graveyard’.

There were over 200 visitors this year.

As well as people local to the area visiting there were several who have specific links to the village among the visitors to the village who were able to gather more information about their ancestors, houses and shops.

Donations were gratefully received.

Thanks must be given to all volunteers who gave of their time and enthusiasm over the summer. I hope the volunteers enjoyed their sessions as much as I did. The good weather experienced this summer made the opening of the museum much more pleasant.

Thanks must also be given to the people who lent items for the display and for those people who were able to provide photographs and histories of their houses and some of the local shops.

Legacy

As part of the collection this year we were able to pull together several folders of hard copy photographs of both Saline and Steelend (High and Lower). These have been saved to disc and are available for future use. People continue to find photos they are happy to share and they will also be included in the folders. Several photos of groups are being investigated and local people are assisting in gathering names for individuals in these photos. This can be an ongoing project which will ensure names can be linked to faces, and people to houses.

Winter Programme

Our winter programme is well underway with a great range of talks. The photograph folders compiled during this year will also be available at each talk.

If there are any photographs of Saline and Steelend houses, shops, events and residents still lurking in drawers, I would be more than happy to receive copies to add to our collection.

Museum 2016 – Games, Sports and Pastimes

The theme for our 2016 museum event is GAMES, SPORTS AND PASTIMES, related to our area. This gives us great scope for involving lots of people in the villages and looking at clubs, sports and other activities of both the present and the past!

We are looking for all clubs and associations in the area to give a short resume of their history and activities which could also be useful in attracting new members. There have also been many clubs in the area which have now disappeared but hopefully people will still know about them and have information and pictures to share. If you are not aware we’ve had several sportspeople representing Scotland and Great Britain at major world events, including the Olympics.

Did you know that the golf club has been around for a long time and that there was a cycling club, cricket club and curling? As well as the football club in Steelend, there was a boxing club and a quoits field.

If you have ever scanned the list of activities listed in the Bulletin you will know that there are lots of activities at the Church, Saline Community Centre and Steelend Club.

It would be great fun if we were able to involve the primary school in researching games from previous years – such as hopscotch or peevers, yoyo, skipping, gird and cleat, footie, elastics, Meccano, dominos, computer ping pong, Pacman, Lego, and of course what children play today.

We will be sending out a letter to all the clubs we can identify as well as to the school requesting their help and involvement in gathering information. All the information, which hopefully will include photographs and newspaper cuttings will be gathered in folders to ensure we can keep the information safe for future generations. Hopefully there will be several topics which we can develop further and display in our museum when it opens in June 2016.

If you are looking for further information on the museum event or have any ideas about the theme please contact Tina on 852235 or at tinachapman1@msn.com.

or by telephoning 852367.