A very Happy New Year to you all

We have started 2002 on an extremely positive note with the news that we have been given the green light from the Heritage Lottery Fund to start our project of archiving and documenting the MacDougall collection.
Back in the spring of 2001, when it seemed that all avenues to funding for getting the Collection out of storage were closed, members of The MacDougall Trust attended a Heritage Lottery Funding seminar in Fort William and discovered the Trust could be eligible under the revenue grants programme to receive funding for an accessible store.
An application was made and we are happy to say the Trust has been awarded £74,800 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to be used over a three-year period to employ two part-time workers to catalogue and do basic conservation on the collection.

Since the MacDougall Collection has never been available for general public access and it was the express wish of the collector, the late Miss Hope MacDougall, that it should be, this is a major step forward.

The Gordon Fraser Charitable Trust, a stalwart supporter of the Collection has also awarded £1500 to the three year project and Argyll and the Islands Enterprise has given £1,100 towards the cost of computer equipment. Argyll and Bute Council has awarded a grant of £2,000 towards the project and The MacDougall Trust will also give its support with £3,000. Part of the project will be to look at other avenues of funding to further secure the future of the Collection.
The present project is aimed at opening up access to the Collection using a new store as a base. The Collection will be documented and access will be created through computer as part of a new Argyll and Bute-wide museum link-up and developing an outreach programme to schools and the community involving a volunteer network. It will also enable researchers to access the Collection and archive.
The project will be based at Dunollie by kind permission of Mrs Morag Morley.

As well as giving more people the chance to see parts of the Collection, the project will also be addressing the widely recognised gap in museum and heritage provision in Oban. Schools will be a key part of the outreach programme and educational material will be developed to complement the artefacts. It is envisaged that themes from the Collection will be used - for example, spinning and weaving. This would involve starting from collecting the pure wool to carding, dyeing, spinning and producing a finished product - using the Collection artefacts to illustrate the methods.
Other community groups, especially the elderly, will also be reached. The project will including the training and establishment of a network of volunteers to help care for the Collection, who can take part in the documentation process and present it to the community.

It has to be noted the achievement of all these grants and the successful Heritage Lottery application has been down to the unstinting hard work of Catherine McDonald, treasurer of The MacDougall Trust. We would like to formally express our thanks to Catherine from everyone involved with The Collection. The securing of these funds is the stepping stone not only to preserving the Collection and keeping it in Oban for the benefit of the people, but to the establishment of a purpose-built museum in the long term which was Miss MacDougall's wish.
The MacDougall Trust has appointed a small management committee to oversee the project. This will be known as the MacDougall Project Management Committee and the office bearers are as follow:- Chairman - Sona Campbell, Secretary Alison Chadwick, Treasurer David Hodge, Committee member Les Stewart.
This committee will be responsible for managing the two project workers who will be employed on a flexible part-time basis. An advertisement for the posts will appear through local and national media avenues in the New Year with a closing date of the end of January for applications.

Other activities
The Friends of the MacDougall Collection was formally launched at the Argyllshire Gathering where we had a stand and display of artefacts. This and a further exhibition at the Great Day Out in the Corran Halls in November were received extremely well, both taking the themes of washing and kitchenware. It was heartening to hear comments on the collection, connections with some of the artefacts on display and the interest and positive feedback on the plans for the collection. We ran two competitions on guessing the mystery object and the weight of the iron for which the prize was complimentary membership of the Friends.
We are happy to report that to date we have 38 members of the Friends with a bank balance of £3,161.57 which is extremely heartening This will benefit the Project and the ongong work of the Trust. Thanks are due to everyone for such great support.

We have also received offers of more artefacts, some to complement those that were on display. One lady from Aberdeen has a barn-full of old agricultural implements just waiting to go to a good home! We would dearly love to be able to accept more into the Collection. However, with storage space at a premium at present, we need to sort through the existing artefacts before accepting more. The message is don't throw them away, we may need them sometime!

In November, the Friends of The MacDougall Collection received an invitation from the Lorn Historical Society to give a presentation at one of their meetings. Sona Campbell, Catherine MacDonald and Alison Chadwick went along and showed a small selection of items from Blacks the Tobacconists, an old Oban family business dating from 1872 which finally closed in 1979.
They also gave news of the HLF grant and plans for the accessible store. Catherine informed the meeting there was a brand new grant from HLF - Your Heritage - aimed at opening up greater access to local heritage which may be of interest to the Society and could be worked in tandem with the MacDougall Project.

We have been active on the storage front and hope to have all the Collection under one roof early in the New Year. Additional shelving has been incorporated into the stores as well as a sorting room and office area. We were lucky to gain some old shelves from the Co-op in Oban when they re-did their store so there is now a considerable amount of shelf stowage for aretefacts. This will enable the project to get off to a good start early in the New Year.

Meanwhile, we are always looking for helpers for The Friends of the MacDougall Collection. Please contact Alison if you would be willing to help at any functions organised by the committee. Currently this comprises: Sona Campbell, chairman, Catherine McDonald, treasurer, Alison Chadwick, secretary, John MacFarlane, committee member.
If anyone has any queries regarding any items in this newsletter or you would like to volunteer to help with the Collection, please contact Alison Chadwick at Ganavan House, Ganavan, Oban, PA34 5TU, telephone on 01631 565213 or e-mail a.mcnab@lineone.net