From about 1910 the Kirk Session rarely met more tnan two or tnree

times a year. Their minute book contains little more than a record of the

number of communicants at the half-yearly communion services. From 1910

to 1929 the number on the communicants’ roll varied from a minimum of

312 in 1917 to a maximum of 380 in 1925, and the number of communicants

varied considerably from 191 in 1916 to 256 in 1923. The amounts collected

for the various schemes are stated tohave been divided amongst the schemes,

but neither the amount of money nor any scheme is mentioned. The schemes

of the church, although changed in name, were and are, involved with missions

at home and abroad and with social needs.

Minor repairs were made to both the church and the manse, and in 1919 the

Trustees ‘decided to ask a man of skill’ and received a builder’s report saying

that part of the north-west wall of the church ‘should be cut out’ and rebuilt.

The cost would have been about £30 and, although the wall would last another

seven or eight years, it would have to be rebuilt at some time; they could

‘leave [it] till things become cheaper, or rather in the hope of things becoming

cheaper’. They decided on a few repairs and a coat of cement on the faulty

wall.

In 1929 Mr. McLeod explained to the Session ‘the various features of the

Basis of the Union of the Churches, after which the Kirk Session agreed to

give their adhesion to the Proposed Plan’. As the Strathkinness Free Church

had elected not to unite with the Parish Church until there was a new minister,

the next few years were a holding operation. In 1932 Mr. McLeod resigned

as Session Clerk and Treasurer, but he did not resign his ministry.

Soon after his death in 1935 ‘at the first meeting after the union of

Strathkinness Parish Church and the congregation of the Preaching Station of

Strathkinness, formerly the Strathkinness United Free Church’ it was decided

that the property and funds of both should be united. For three months,

until after the induction of a new minister, services would be held in each

church on alternate Sundays. After that time the united congregation would

decide, subject to the approval of the General Assembly, which church should

be the place of worship, with the other church being used for congregational

purposes. The manse of the Parish Church was to be the manse of the united

congregation and the elders of both churches were to continue as elders of the

joint church.

The Rev. John Patterson was elected their first minister, and in 1936 the

decision was taken to keep the Parish Church and to sell the former United

Free Church building. When this was sold later in 1937, the Trustees of the

Mitchell Trust, who bought the church for £75, claimed the bell and organ

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