Fishermen's Hall

The Hall

The Fishermen’s Hall on North Pringle Street was built in 1886, for and by Buckie’s fishing community, and seated a thousand people in its day. It’s the second largest hall in Moray after Elgin Town Hall, with a main hall of 21 by 14 metres that takes up to 350 people, the Boyd Room for smaller gatherings, and a full kitchen.

After a public meeting in January 2018, the Fishermen’s Hall Trust was formed to bring the hall back into the ownership of the people of Buckie. The Trust became a charity that June, took over running the hall from July 2018, and Moray Council approved the community asset transfer in 2022.

The Challenge

A hall run by volunteers needs a website that answers the questions they’d otherwise answer on the phone: what does it cost to hire, how many does it hold, what’s in the kitchen, and how do I book? It also had to tell the story of the hall and the Trust, and make it easy to join or donate.

• Hire prices, room sizes and capacities, for everything from a coffee morning to a wedding
• The booking procedure and the conditions of hire
• The history of the hall and the Trust’s constitution
• A way to join the Trust, and to donate
• Simple for the committee to update

The Solution

I designed and built the site from scratch, with an admin area so the Trust can post news and update the pages themselves.

• Hire prices for the main hall, the Boyd Room and the kitchen, with community and commercial rates, the conditions of hire and how to book
• A clickable floor plan: tap a room to see its size and what it has
• A weddings page, for up to 180 seated
• The hall’s history, from the first meeting in 1885 to the penny cinema of the 1920s, and the Trust’s full constitution
• An enquiry form, a membership form with three levels of membership and a link to pay the fee, and a PayPal donate button
• News with an archive of past posts, the hall’s Facebook feed on the homepage, and an events page for posters of what’s coming up

The outcome

Anyone thinking of hiring the hall can see the prices, the capacities and the conditions before they pick up the phone, and the Trust has one place to tell the hall’s story and sign up members.

The constitution and the history are there for anyone who wants them, which matters for a building the town now owns.

Screens from the site