DOZENS of volunteers led a toast to the success of the Great Tapestry of Scotland last week.

With an indoor street party on Thursday, August 17, they marked the final days of the exhibition of 160 hand stitched panels, which attracted thousands of visitors to the Speirs Centre in Alloa - some from as far afield as the USA and New Zealand.

Volunteer helpers have played an important part in keeping the exhibition open to the public for free after Clackmannanshire Third Sector Interface (CTSI) brought it to the local library in partnership with the council.

“It’s going be sad to see it go”, said Josie Clark, who thoroughly enjoyed looking after and speaking to visitors at the display about once a week for the past three months.

The 70-year-old Glenochil resident told the Advertiser: “It’s been amazing.

“It’s been so uplifting to just see people coming along and it didn’t matter where they came from.

“We’ve had people from all over the world – the USA, New Zealand, you name it.

“Everybody that came out of [the exhibition] were amazed, they just loved it.”

Josie said her favourite piece of information to share about the tapestry, a series of embroidered panels that depict aspects of history in Scotland, was that around 50,000 hours of stitching work went into the piece of art – equivalent to labouring 24hours a day for around six years.

That included the work of Tillicoultry group ‘Needles and Gins’ who had to work on it in multiple shifts a day to meet the deadline.

Josie added she will be missing the opportunity to help out with the exhibition as “we’ve made so many friends, we’ve met people that we’ve never met before.

“I am a very active person, but it appealed to me because it involved volunteers and I used to be a volunteer organiser.

“So, I know the experience of people that volunteered and what they get out of it.

“It definitely got me out of the house, in fact, I’ve been here all day today.”

Greeting the volunteers at the party were CTSI staff and business manager Anthea Coulter who told the Advertiser: “We’ve had 78 volunteers in total, who have taken part directly, but we’ve also had the Forth Valley Men’s Shed and Wee County Men’s Shed who have also taken part to help us.

“It’s been fantastic; 12 weeks – they’ve supported us all the way through.

“In July alone, we had 12,500 people coming through the doors of the Speirs, which is a huge increase on the normal number and it’s been really busy and fantastic.

“I think people have made friendships, they’ve enjoyed it all and it’s been a privilege getting to know them all.

“From my point of view – our aim was to raise the profile of volunteering and we’ve done that in a nice, positive way that everybody has benefited from locally.”