Mareel - Cinema & Music Venue

[Baron Farkoff]

Dear oh dear oh dear, the "let's build it in a school" debate runs on and on.

A bar? In a scool? Are you mad? To suggest that you could build it in a part of the school innaccessible to pupils is ludicrous. PC brigade? What the hell are you on about, Malcolm? Since when was the idea of putting a pub in a school a good idea?

What else could we put in there?

I know, lets chuck in a casino and a strip club! There could be a special door that only grown ups could enter,no you naughty kids, you can't go in there!- and this would keep them all safe.

Lets also put the church in the chip shop! Then folk can say their prayers and get their tea at the same time, and saving on "fix the Roof" coffee mornings, meaning the chip shop could expand into the coffee market and clean up on lattes.

Radio shetland could be moved to the yell ferry,freeing up another galley shed right in the heart of things.

What about the health service? Money to be saved there,too!

We could combine ambulances with the library van and improve the quality of both while saving pounds and pounds.

What about the mareel site? We could of course build another fish factory there and pop a restaurant/university in it so that we could impress visitors with how scandinavian we are, and how people in the real north only have time for work and study, with the smell of fish guts to remind them of what they're lucky to be having for tea?

Let's forget about Mareel and concentrate on saving precious pounds!

I'm sure these marvellous money saving tips will be of use to everyone.

[tlady]

Well ... if they incorporated the Mareel with the school then it would be a massive economic saving..

 

Then there wouldn't need to be the massive relience on alcohol [sorry the cafe/bar] to make it pay

[Baron Farkoff]

Saving what, and where? Imagine the cost of redeveloping the plans,plus the cost of all the work so far. Then add the time spent to get funding sorted, and the cost of inflation and we could have another rubbish mongrel shed in about, ooh, thirty years.

Plus the inevitable eyesore which would be created-what do you think such a hybrid would look like? Certainly saving Shetlands' face would be out-we'd be a laughing stock!

Plus the old chestnut of everyone having to be police checked before they went in there making it absolutely impossible, and utterly preposterous.

I'm sure the head of the school would be delighted to have all these other things to factor into the running of their shiny new school,too.

[McMess]

Did I dream this, or was there not an article in the Times a few months back where the AHS heat teacher Valerie Nicholson was interviewed giving details of plans to open the new school canteen/dining area to the public?!?

 

Something about community involvement or some other ridiculous sentiment along those lines. Conbining the Mareel and school would be far less problematic (if it was an adjoining building) than policing public access into the heart of the school at lunchtimes I would have thought... The biggest community users of an open canteen would be scumbags. Better station the sniffer dog at the front door permanently if this idea goes ahead

[Baron Farkoff]

An open canteen? Well I wouldn't send my kids to a school like that.

You'd get paedophiles organising bus trips to their new fave picnic area. What lunacy is this, in this day and age? =

[Ghostrider]

If the educational and development aspects of Mareel were incorporated within a new AHS/Shetland College as appropriate, and Mareel was pared down to serve only it's main core roles of a performance venue, with maybe a cinema. It would seem, on the face of it at least, to be a way of unloading, correct me if I'm wrong here, the biggest elements of the project that have no, or only minimal earning generation potential, on to another budget.

 

That said, considering what the education budget is like, would that achieve anything other than robbing Peter to pay Paul. Plus, I can see some sense in the argument of the benefits of putting the educational aspects in a "working" enviornment rather than a "classroom" one. As has been said, a pub and dancehall by any other name sharing a site with a school is not smart, and if the whole current plan but without alcohol sales were to go ahead as an integral part of the school, it would have no chance of ever breaking even in it's own right. It might be cheaper to create initially, but the ongoing running costs which are the main bone of contention would, I suspect, always be considerably higher than they will be for the present plan as is.

[Infiltrator]

An open canteen? Well I wouldn't send my kids to a school like that.

You'd get paedophiles organising bus trips to their new fave picnic area. What lunacy is this, in this day and age? =

 

Absolute nonsense, Meldrum Academy was opened 6 years ago, capacity of 1200 pupils and the school has a cafe open to the public, it also houses the local community library and the police station.

 

My only gripe with Mareel is the funding from the CT - and the long term potential this has to further drain the coffers when it's realised the attendance estimates and income was a bit on the optimistic side.

 

Like I said before, Shetland already has a public hall facility for every 100 inhabitants, most of which are very under utilised much of the time.

 

Why not build Mareel as an extension to the new Tesco - now there's a good idea - maybe stick a few windmills in the car park and keep everyone happy.

[Baron Farkoff]

Ha Ha!

[McMess]

Infiltrator:

 

"Meldrum Academy was opened 6 years ago, capacity of 1200 pupils and the school has a cafe open to the public, it also houses the local community library and the police station."

 

Yeah, it would certainly need full-time police presence before I'd put my bairns anywhere near a school with a public canteen. Yes ok, the pupils can go to the street at lunch times unsupervised, but the AHS also has a special unit with very vulnerable young folk - who in a normal school setting may not need constant supervision. But they certainly couldn't leave the premises unsupported, so therefore opening the doors to Joe Bloggs would end up limiting their independance for fear of who may be in the building.

 

Sorry, I find the concept very worrying indeed. Security would be a logistical nightmare and couldn't be done without either police or trained guards. Look at the current youth drug problem. Public access without specialist security would only open a whole new retail market

[Malcolm]

Look before the PC brigade get too OTT can I just say that If the Mareel was being used as an educational unit and for public use most of the time it would be required for public use would be at weekends, Also as it would be partially paid for by the educational system there would be no need for a permanent public bar (This could be supplied by an outside caterer on an as need basis).

As for not mixing kids and alcohol, well can I just say...Up-Helly-Aa ! I saw more 12 - 16 year olds p****d out of their trees after getting dropped off by their parents and left to their own devices!

[Infiltrator]

Infiltrator:

 

"Meldrum Academy was opened 6 years ago, capacity of 1200 pupils and the school has a cafe open to the public, it also houses the local community library and the police station."

 

Yeah, it would certainly need full-time police presence before I'd put my bairns anywhere near a school with a public canteen. Yes ok, the pupils can go to the street at lunch times unsupervised, but the AHS also has a special unit with very vulnerable young folk - who in a normal school setting may not need constant supervision. But they certainly couldn't leave the premises unsupported, so therefore opening the doors to Joe Bloggs would end up limiting their independance for fear of who may be in the building.

 

Sorry, I find the concept very worrying indeed. Security would be a logistical nightmare and couldn't be done without either police or trained guards. Look at the current youth drug problem. Public access without specialist security would only open a whole new retail market

 

If you've ever spent any time recently in the company of a group of 14-16 year olds you'll realise that the police are there to protect the public not the other way round

When I was at the AHS the school sports day was a huge pi55 up - a bar attached to the school would have made a mint

[Ghostrider]

When I was at the AHS the school sports day was a huge pi55 up - a bar attached to the school would have made a mint

 

Well, you have to keep up long standing traditions, don't you. That one was going strong in 1979, and was by no means new then.

 

Sports day(s) were in the Gilbertson though, so nipping back to the Knab for a pint would have been a little out of the question. Nipping out the back to Hayfield, or the Coop for a kerry-oot was prevented by the Gestapo....ooopsss....supervising staff, they had already posted guards.

[Infiltrator]

When I was at the AHS the school sports day was a huge pi55 up - a bar attached to the school would have made a mint

 

Well, you have to keep up long standing traditions, don't you. That one was going strong in 1979, and was by no means new then.

 

Sports day(s) were in the Gilbertson though, so nipping back to the Knab for a pint would have been a little out of the question. Nipping out the back to Hayfield, or the Coop for a kerry-oot was prevented by the Gestapo....ooopsss....supervising staff, they had already posted guards.

 

I can't remember if it was 1978 or 1979 when the sports day went horribly wrong. The weather was fantastic and half the school were up on the rocks in the Gibby smoking cigars and drinking . The teachers did a pincer movement and attacked up the paths at either end. Some folks were caught and there was someone expelled. Liptons was the big source of most of the drink as some of the bairns worked there. Our drink came from RC Robertsons as the chap who ran the shop thought it was legal to sell cider to 14 year olds (guess it was 78 then). This was the last year that the whole school attended the sports day, after this you had to compete to get the day away from the school.

Going home from school with a hangover

[crofter]

 

I can't remember if it was 1978 or 1979 when the sports day went horribly wrong. The weather was fantastic and half the school were up on the rocks in the Gibby smoking cigars and drinking . The teachers did a pincer movement and attacked up the paths at either end. Some folks were caught and there was someone expelled.

 

thanks for sharing that hilarious story!

[Ghostrider]

I can't remember if it was 1978 or 1979 when the sports day went horribly wrong. The weather was fantastic and half the school were up on the rocks in the Gibby smoking cigars and drinking . The teachers did a pincer movement and attacked up the paths at either end. Some folks were caught and there was someone expelled. Liptons was the big source of most of the drink as some of the bairns worked there. Our drink came from RC Robertsons as the chap who ran the shop thought it was legal to sell cider to 14 year olds (guess it was 78 then). This was the last year that the whole school attended the sports day, after this you had to compete to get the day away from the school.

Going home from school with a hangover

 

I can't speak for anybody else at the '79 one, as a small crowd of us were holed up in the rocks in the company of a very large bottle of vodka, and the day was going very well. Or it was until one of the guys, who shall remain nameless, had a little bit more of the contents of the bottle onboard than he knew how to handle.

 

A some point during the afternoon it was noticed he was missing, but nobody was inclined by that stage to care too much, so we just carried on, until that is, one of the crowd spied our missing guy way down below staggering around in what was being used as a running track, and, heading slowly in the general direction of where Joannie and Nessie were standing sheeksin . They of course noticed him approaching, and headed towards him, god knows what happened next, as we, and the bottle with the remnants of it's contents, high tailed it.