A “like for like” replacement of a century-old Aberdeenshire winter sports club which was educed to ashes by a ferocious blaze should be up and running by the end of the year.
The Vale of Alford Curling Club’s clubhouse, which was home to 140 years of precious photographs, trophies and historic mementoes, was destroyed in a fire in July.
It was also home to the club’s equipment, including 40 sets of curling stones worth between £40,000 and £50,000.
Members have set a funding goal of £21,000 to replace the centre of its activity on the banks of a pond in Alford’s Murray Park, and have already achieved about half of this.
They are also the new owners of 16 sets of curling stones generously donated or funded by locals.
The members are in the process of preparing a planning application for the new building, which they will submit to Aberdeenshire Council later this year.
Secretary-treasurer of the curling club, Allan Taylor, said: “Things are progressing reasonably well, certainly in the fundraising side of things.
“We have acquired or been gifted enough stones for the rinks, there are 16 sets of stones, so we have enough stones to do curling when we do get the weather for it.
“We have raised quite a bit of money, and people have got things off their own back.
“We are getting an architect to submit some proposals and that will have to go through the normal channels.”
He added his thanks to the public for their help so far.
“For what we would like we would need to reach £21,000. It is an achievable sort of goal,” he said.
“We have already got half of that in place and with the grants submitted and other things going on then we’d be quite confident of achieving some money fairly quickly.
“The response from the local community has been absolutely amazing and continues to be amazing. We can’t thanks everybody enough.
“It makes it a lot easier being positive when there is people supporting you all the way. Next winter we’ll be back up and running.”