Scottish Churches House prepares for the next 50 years

PRESS RELEASE 23/11/07 

On 22 November 2007, the Scottish churches launched a £500,000 appeal to transform Scottish Churches House in Dunblane into a modern conference and hospitality centre to be at the forefront of its work over the next 50 years. 

Scottish Churches House is a unique spiritual, intellectual and social resource for the Scottish churches. It is a place of hospitality where for 50 years there has been radical thinking, encounters designed to resolve conflict and educational, cultural and spiritual programmes. The House is a window of the churches on the civic life of Scotland, a place where faith meets and is tested by social and political realities. In the dining room of Scottish Churches House at Dunblane stands a clock made by prisoners at Aberdeen Craiginches Prison as a token of their solidarity with the parents of the children massacred at the Dunblane Primary School in 1996. 

The House now needs a property fit for purpose to support its inspirational programme and other activities. It was founded in 1960 on the Golden Jubilee of the 1910 Edinburgh Conference, from where ecumenical, inter-church cooperation in Scotland started. Its own Jubilee will coincide with the Centenary celebrations of the 1910 conference. The Scottish Churches will help endow a refurbished House as a visible symbol of working together in the run up those celebrations. 

The refurbishment will provide the bedrooms with en-suite facilities, update catering provision and transform key conference capacity. A public appeal will be launched in early 2008 to raise the £500,000 necessary. Danus Skene, the leader of the Interim Management Group charged with raising the funds and project managing the refurbishment, said “I am truly excited at the future for Scottish Churches House. We already have raised £125,000 from the Carmichael Montgomery Charitable Trust for this refurbishment even before our appeal has been properly launched and have recently had over 130 letters expressing ongoing support for the work that is done here.” 

Contacts: 

Danus Skene, Convener, Interim Management Group : mobile 07762 166 444 

Alastair Hulbert, Warden : 01786 822 602 

Elizabeth Templeton, Member of the IMG : 01796 482 232 

Notes for editors: 
Scottish Churches House Scottish Churches House exists to be a hub of dynamic and participatory ecumenical encounter, combining local resources of hospitality and recreation with global awareness of the challenges and complexities of Christian faith in the 21st century.
• It creates a context of hospitality and conviviality which welcomes friend and stranger, people of faith and guests of no particular faith or any commitment, in an ongoing and interactive dialogue.
• Its facilities for day conferences and short or extended stays, self-catering to full board, allow for the widest possible range of use by church and community groups.
• There are normally rooms available for individuals, couples or families seeking retreat/refreshment time in a peaceful, comfortable and stimulating environment with the resources of house, garden, chapel and library.
• The House Programme generates opportunities for ongoing exploration of major issues in Theology, Church and Society, encouraging multi-disciplinary awareness from those engaged in the interface between church and world, at local, national and international levels.
• SCH provides a locus for many of the activities of Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), e.g. through its support of the Churches Agency for Inter-faith Relations in Scotland (CAIRS) interfaith events, and its potential for hosting all kinds of ecumenical and denominational agendas.
• The development of experiential and reflective events, linking the arts, the natural environment and multiple dimensions of spirituality in the contemporary world, offers creative space, complementing the traditional worship of the churches.
• The heritage of Scotland’s distinctive contribution to the ecumenical movement is cherished here, in the context of a commitment to identify and nurture the liveliest growth-points in contemporary ecumenical life.