On Sunday 23rd June members and friends of Islesburgh Drama Group gathered for the Grand Opening of the Workshop.
The workshop was officially opened by John Bulter who over the years has been a great friend and supporter of us all both personally and during his period as Manager of Islesburgh Community Centre.
Here are some of the wonderful words he said during his speech:
Establishing this Workshop is a tremendous achievement and a credit to your hard work; your dedication and perseverance; and to your strategic thinking. I know that you are no strangers to hard workFew realise the work that needs to be invested to create a high quality stage production - and Islesburgh Drama Group only does high quality productions.
I know that your dedication and perseverance is born from your passion – and now for many of you, it is in your blood.
There is nothing wrong with passion! We need passionate, creative people. You bring us passionate, skilled, creative people, multi skilled & multi talented, who care for their neighbours and their community.
You recognised the need for this facility and worked very hard to achieve it. You took your fate in your hands and built it with your own efforts. You all know that Shetland needs that attitude and effort.
We can’t ignore that fact that we are in a depression at present. But some of us are looking to building a new positive future. Islesburgh Drama Group is clearly going to play its part in building that new positive future. You are living proof of the incredible value and importance of the voluntary cultural sector.
I have no doubt that this Workshop will prove invaluable in the years ahead.I believe its purpose will help shape a positive, honourable future for Shetland.
You deserve great credit for this achievement.
Morag Mouat (our current President) spoke about our achievement and how so many members over the years had contributed to the building of the workshop. She also thanked Michael Duncan, June Porter and Tommy Coutts for all their support and advice in getting the funding applications in place and also Peter Johnson, Stephen Johnson and Robertson and Read for being so supportive during the construction process.
Doreen Gray (our past President) and who had led the group through all the fund raising efforts during her term of office spoke about our "nomadic" status over the years in trying to build sets. (Please see the next post for her speech which just shows how difficult times have been for us.)
We had some fun decorating it as well for the great day .........
So here we are with our own workshop - just fantastic!!