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Our local Aboyne COOP has generously provide refreshments and biscuits for the Centenary Cafe, Saturday 18th June 10am to 5pm.

The Victory Hall Aboyne is celebrating its centenary on Saturday 18th June with an open day 10am to 5pm, community cafe, heritage photos, mini cinema and kids colouring and quiz. In the evening a family ceilidh is from 7.30pm to 11pm, tickets are free, email the hall to be put on the guest list. Local musician have come together to form a band. The day is all about community, sharing stories from the past and looking forward with the launch of the Centenary Fund Raising Campaign, starting with designing a new emblem for the building.

As part of the Victory Hall Centenary Celebrations we have been researching the story of the emblems over the buildings entrance arches. Jan Dawkins, Trustee of the hall engaged and shared the story of the emblems with the pupils of Aboyne Academy. They have created a super colourful embroidered set of cloth emblems which will doctorate the hall during our centenary celebration day on the 18th June.

On the 18th June we are launching a competition to design a new emblem for the building to mark its 100th birthday and to set a vision for the future use of the community hall. Thank you to all at the school, teachers and pupils.

We are ending the day of centenary celebrations with a family ceilidh. This will be from 7.30pm to 11pm. A mix of Scottish Country and line dancing with a ceilidh band formed from local musicians. Tickets are free and will be allocated to existing community groups that use the hall and on the day of the centenary on a first come first serve basis.

The Formaston Stone is located within the Victory Hall. Come and see it during centenary open day on the 18th June. In the mean time you can view a 3D scan of the stone.

A local resident added the following notes:

1    The ogham(which is very unusual)  has been applied to a pre-existing stone and from what I remember of various conjectured readings it represents a claim of ownership , much like a boundary stone. Scholars are now tending to feel that the pictish symbols of mirror etc are a proto written language representing sounds, sometimes names and therefore also a claim of ownership.

2    the exact find spot is not recorded but a C19 source which I would have to re-find and look up to quote exactly says that it was found  near the doorway of the church, which raises the possibility that it was deliberately buried in a liminal space which holy/mystical/superstitious resonances.

We are celebrating the centenary of the Victory Hall on Saturday the 18th of June this summer. The hall will be open from 10am to 5pm with a community cafe and a range of activities and displays. Our local heritage society and Aboyne Academy are putting together displays to tell the story of the hall, there will be guided tours of the hall on every half hour, for the kids there will be colouring and making of stain glass windows and we are creating a mini cinema experience to bring back the days when the hall was the local cinema. In the evening the hall will host a family ceilidh from 7.30pm to 11pm. More details on the centenary will follow in the days ahead as we approach June.