Your Phone Box Needs You

Your phone box needs you!
The project to restore our island telephone boxes is ready to start, and all we need is a little help…

Tiree Community Council have co-opted John Patience to coordinate the project, and we are now looking for volunteers who are interested in being involved in restoring the telephone box nearest to them, or one which they are particularly fond of. We hope that if enough people are interested, each community will be able to take charge of their own box.

We will need leaders, painters, planners, DIYers, dreamers, tea-makers and bakers… in short anyone is welcome!

The Community Council Coordinator will work with each team to coordinate replacement parts and paint, professional help with electrics, doors and joinery, and provide general guidance and help as it is needed.

Each team will restore their box using a guide that has been drawn up after an extensive audit of the Tiree telephone boxes.

Once the repairs are complete, it gets really fun! It will be up to each team to decide:
What colour the box is
How it is decorated
Whether or not it has a theme, a task or a role
What it does/offers/represents

What about a beach box, a library, a coffee stop, a museum, a mini gallery… The options are endless! We really hope that this project will not only showcase the incredible skills and enthusiasm of our community, but also that it will ensure that the telephone boxes remain part of our landscape for the foreseeable future.

How do I get involved?
Email johnpatience@tireecommunitycouncil.co.uk and tell him which box you would like to be involved in helping with. If there are a group of you ready and willing to get involved, so much the better!

Then what?
Once we have enough interest, we will hold a meeting for the teams and go through what needs to be done.

What about doors, and glass, and electrics, and…?
We have written up an action plan for each box, with guidance, and we will make sure that you have help and advice when you need it. We are planning to get professional help for some of the tasks. We won’t leave you stuck!

Who’s paying for this?
We are working on raising the funds needed to pay for the items needed to do the repairs.

I don’t want to do any repair work, but I’d like to contribute financially
Fantastic! We need that type of help too! Please feel free to email John with any pledges. We anticipate needing to raise £10,000 to complete this project and every little helps.

Tell me more!
Sure thing – check out the Tiree Community Council website for the entire project document: www.tireecommunitycouncil.co.uk