Moves to breathe new life into Institute

Published 1 Feb 2012 08:00 1 Comment

MOVES are in the pipeline to breathe new life into one of Cowdenbeath's most iconic buildings.

A committee has been set-up to manage the former Miners Institute which over the past few years has been a night club and leisure centre.

The leisure centre project, which began in the summer went into a reduced form before the festive season but its all systems go to make this a community facility.

Chairman of the committee is local man Gary Cook who remembers the Broad Street facility as one of the town's best known buildings.

He said this week, "The Institute has had a whole different series of roles since it ceased to be part of the town's back-up for the mining community.

"Some were relatively more successful than others but over the past few years it has become a magnificent facility which has not had a solid role.

"Our aim is to make it a real community hub in Cowdenbeath and we have a number of ideas in mind to help this happen."

Mr Cook's right hand people are Liz and Sandy Hunter who have run fitness classes at the Institute for some time.

Mrs Hunter commented, "We need to be ambitious to make this work and put life back into this iconic Cowdenbeath building.

"The Saturday market has been running well for some time and we have taken the decision to extend the hours to 9am to 4pm.

"Our plan is to ensure that the people who sell goods here are highly reputable and and that people know they can come here and pick up a quality bargain."

Mr Cook (right) added, "While the market is an important part of our strategy we have a number of popular fitness classes running during the week on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays plus a Zumba class on a Wednesday night and Friday morning.

"But we want to make this lovely facility open for tea dances, discos for young people, toddler dances and any community need there is. The idea is to make it available for Cowdenbeath people of all ages".

A jewellery and gifts guru by profession, Mr Cook is desperate to see local people using the Fountain Leisure Centre.

"We are looking at a whole host of new avenues which can make the Institute better used including splitting up the snooker hall into separate snooker and pool facilities," he added.

"We have rooms that can be used for meetings and the main hall is a great place for any sort of function.

"If anyone would like to use the Centre we would be delighted to speak to them and see what we can offer."

Mrs Hunter stressed the support of Institute owner, Willie McDonald, has been crucial in their moves.

She added, "Willie has helped us make a lot of progress very quickly and we are grateful to him.

"The building has loads of potential and our aim is to ensure that we make it operate to the full."

The committee, which has dance and fitness instructor, Jade Sweeney, as the fourth member, is making exciting plans for the future of the Fountain Leisure Centre.

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• 

  Keith Stevenson
  Unregistered User
  Feb 1, 15:51
  Report comment

  Well done to Gary Cook for using his Initiative and for all of his hard work spent on building up a Profile for The Fountain. Cowdenbeath needs more people like Gary to bring back the "Community Spirit" to the area.
  
  Recommend?   Yes 5     No 0

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