FIOS COLUMN – 31 JANUARY 2017

It was great to have such a great turnout for the UHI evening talk delivered by Prof. Frank Rennie in late January. The topic was “Galson: The Evolution of a Crofting Township” and the evening was highly informative as well as thought provoking. It was excellent to have so much interest and to also have input from the audience after the main talk. The talk was recorded and we hope to have this available for download very soon. Our next event in this “UHI” series will take place in the UOG Business Centre on Tuesday 28th February and is entitled: “Weather Systems in the Western Isles” and will be delivered by Dr Edward Graham, a well-known lecturer and meteorologist based at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Lews Castle College, Stornoway. He will talk about the unique aspects of the weather and climate of our region. All are very welcome to attend. Keep an eye out for further updates on times etc.

In my last column I mentioned that we have been working on a series of workshops for businesses and organisations. We have now launched these under the banner of “Fàs”. Our first workshop will take place on Friday 24th in February and will be a half day session entitled “Managing Projects”. The half day session will support those involved in project delivery (on a paid or volunteer basis) to consider the processes involved in managing a project and will provide helpful techniques to avoid some project pitfalls. Check out our Facebook page or call the office for more details and to book a space.

This month we’ve spent some time with schools supporting their enterprise activities. We visited Sgoil an Taobh Siar as part of their crofting project and were overwhelmed by the knowledge of all age groups in regards to crofting and land use! It was so encouraging and a delight to hear the young people discussing stock with Scott MacRury, who supported us on our visit. I think there are definitely some keen young crofters in the area!

We also had a visit from a group of children from Sgoil an Rubha and were again delighted to experience their enthusiasm for crofting and interest in land use and community ownership.