Helensburgh club crosses finishing line

Wednesday 31 May 2000

World Indoor Gold medallist (Toronto, 1993), and Scottish 800m record holder, Tom McKean will this weekend help Helensburgh Amateur Athletic Club celebrate a welcome addition by opening its brand new clubhouse.

The clubhouse was part-funded by a sportscotland Lottery Fund award of £26,523 and is situated adjacent to Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh.  The total cost of the new development was £169,000.

The clubhouse includes changing provision, showers, a fitness and club room and will provide a permanent base from which to organise activities, including coaching services for juniors, after school facilities and inter-school competitions.  This will enable the Club to forge even closer links with the local school and community.

Wilson Hamilton, President of Helensburgh Athletic Club, said:  “Our new Clubhouse is the realisation of the vision of founder-member John Turnbull, who kicked it all off with his “begging” letter to the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and who oversaw his dream come true, brick by brick, in his (unpaid) capacity as Clerk of Works.  It is also a tribute to the members, who showed their faith in the Project by raising £25,000 as the Club’s contribution and showed their commitment to the future by endorsing the borrowing that was necessary to put the final funding in place.

“And the future is what the new Clubhouse is about – a base for improving woefully inadequate local Athletics facilities in conjunction with the Academy and for developing participation in Athletics across a wide spectrum of the community – from Sports Hall and “mainstream” Athletics for Primary and Secondary schoolchildren, to Women’s Jogging Groups, to Senior Competition on Road, Hill and Cross-Country.”

Alastair Dempster, Chairman of sportscotland, said:  “One of the visions of sportscotland is that Scotland will be a country where sport is more widely available to all.

“Providing new facilities, whether it be a swimming pool, indoor climbing wall, or clubhouse like this one at Helensburgh Amateur Athletic Club, helps to provide better access to a range of sports activities in communities across Scotland, increasing the opportunities available for people to take part in physical activity.”

The Club also received a £100,000 contribution from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, and over £40,000 was raised by the Club itself through fundraising.