All Saints P5 pupils adopt a Wyllie scul?ture...

You don't often go to a meeting where an issue is to be discussed and come away feeling that you were privileged to have attended. Today we did.

P5 pupils in All Saints Primary School had invited us, along with the Councillors for their Ward, Provost Robert Moran and Councillor Michael McCormick, as well as Mary MacDonald, Senior Housing Officer at Cloch Housing to discuss something which is concerning them.

They welcomed and escorted everyone to the meeting room and then presented their impassioned plea that the Wyllie scul?ture which is situated not far from their school, be repaired, restored, re-painted and re-located. You couldn't fault their arguments or logic.

Wyllie's Monarch of Auchmountain Glen, a stag made from girders, has been vandalised recently and these pupils, and their families and teachers, are far from happy about it. No-one attending the meeting was left in any doubt about that, as pupil after pupil made point after point. They talked with knowledge and understanding about the problems and each pupil presented solutions.

Nine-year-old Jay explained that the vandalism had upset not just the children but the older people in the area. It was made by George Wyllie and they have been finding out about him and Inverclyde, had visited the exhibition and their paper boat is in the Boat Shed in the Mitchell.

Elle suggested the stag should be moved to a location where they could look after it. Lewis said it needed to be repainted and that perhaps lighting could added. Sophie told us she thought putting the stag near security cameras would be a good idea. Laurence had ideas about a plaque being added to let people know that George Wyllie had created the scul?ture.

Then Emma explained that the P5 pupils needed assistance to do all this and was not shy in asking the councillors and housing official what they could do. Liam had told everyone at the beginning that the question marks in George Wyllie's work were there because it was good to ask questions.

And all this came from the pupils.

The councillors, impressed and enthused by the youngsters, are now going to investigate the process and costs of helping the pupils to 'adopt' the stag and see their ideas implemented, and they'll be getting back to the class on that. Action points were part of the meeting for everyone.

The pupils are busy writing and article for the Cloch Housing Christmas newsletter, deadline tomorrow, which will explain what they're doing and be delivered to all of the housing association's tenants. Cloch Housing had originally commissioned the scul?ture when new houses were built in the area and are right behind the pupils.

I took this photo of the meeting and said I'd tell people about what they were doing on Blipfoto tonight.

You don't often go to a meeting where an issue is to be discussed and come away feeling that you were privileged to have attended. Today we did.