About Us

Hello!

We are Thurso on Board, a community interest company which was formed in December 2020 after the opportunity arrived of being gifted St. Andrews Church from the generous Michele Dinger. We would like to share our ideas for this project and hopefully gain your support. Our plan is to firstly renovate this amazing building back to its original form. The St. Andrews Church is a stunning part of Thurso history and we want to honour and cherish its true character. To the best of our ability, we will have only the most skilled and experienced local contractors employed to bring it back to its original beauty. The roof and structure is our first priority as of now. 

There have been many skilled professionals helping us since last November to assess what the building needs to make it wind and water tight. An approval from the highland council was recently granted to make emergency repairs and we are in the process of making temporary repairs to parts of the roof and constructing temporary gutters. So far all the repairs and costs to have the building emptied and cleaned have been privately funded by the generous Michele Dinger.

This is a Community Project and when we are ready to open the doors of the Vestry (which has been made safe and renovated) we would love people to come along so we can hear everyone’s ideas. We need people to come forward that want to help create and make use of this amazing building!

Our dream for the St Andrews church is to open it to the community and offer a safe, drug and alcohol free place for our community youth to prosper.

Our plans so far include a multi-use track for rollerskating/skateboards/scooters on the ground floor that can be used by all skill levels and ages. This will be designed so that the inside of the track can be used for table-tennis etc. 

We are planning that the tower of the church will house an indoor climbing structure.

We will have a café on the first floor so that family and friends can watch over the activities while enjoying healthy and delicious food and beverages.  There will be a professional training kitchen built to supply the cafe and to allow for opportunities for local people to learn to cook.

We plan on creating studio spaces for artists of every kind to come and share their skills, ideas, and passion for life. 

We chose to be a community interest company as we like the ethos of a social enterprise: It gives the company, members, and community a responsibility to create a successful business, while providing job opportunities and all profits go back into the community. 

Please send us a message if you are interested in getting involved or if you have any questions or concerns.

We will updating this site with all new information on the project including meetings about the building design and facilities.