A MORAY COMMUNITY is celebrating after emerging as the winners of a community mini-bus in a competition conducted by a national newspaper.
Hopeman has won through an intense contest to win the community bus through the Press and Journal’s contest for the £37,000 vehicle donated by North Sea oil firm Nexen Petroleum.
The coastal village was one of 210 different groups throughout the North who signed up to the contest in a bid to win the prized bus, local community leader Carmen Gilles saying that it was something the community had “long wished for”.
At the time of applying she told the newspaper: “We are all about the community as a whole – we want to bring groups representing the oldest and youngest people to Hopeman together. Over time, as they share the bus, we hope to see our youngsters mixing with our over-60s groups.”
The competition involved communities collected tokens – Hopeman was strongly supported by neighbouring communities in Duffus and Spynie, resulting in their handing in 4000 of the 17,000 tokens collected from throughout the newspaper’s circulation area.
The newspaper editor picked the Hopeman bid out from 3400 entry forms.
Newly elected Moray Councillor and chairman of the Hopeman Community Association, Dennis Slater, said it was “tremendous” news for the local community: “Hopeman is everything anyone could hope for in a community, a place where people work hard for their neighbours and look after each other.
“It is tremendous that they have emerged winners in this competition and I would personally thank the Press and Journal and Nexen Petroleum for making this possible.”