School leavers

HIGH SCHOOL LEAVERS LOOKING GOOD

Above: Mallaig leavers.

Lochaber High School march. Left: Ardnamurchan High School graduation dinner.

Iain Ferguson Young people across Lochaber dressed up smartly to celebrate completing their final year at high school. Whether at a graduation ceremony or leavers’ dinner, each of the four schools in the Lochaber Life area - Lochaber, Mallaig, Ardnamurchan high schools and Kilchuimen Academy - made sure each pupil had a happy and memorable event to recall for the rest of their lives.

Kilchuimen leavers.

Lochaber High School graduation.

Cruise FORT WILLIAM

Iain Ferguson Mention a cruise and people will often conjure up visions of the Mediterranean, Bahamas or Florida but, for many liners and their passengers, Fort William has become the destination of choice on their travels.

This year alone, 19 visits are planned, as vessels ranging from 49 to 1,300 passengers sail into Loch Linnhe, dropping anchor within a few minutes tender ride to the pontoon installed by the Fort William Marina and Shoreline Community Interest Company (FWSCIC) beside the West End car park.

After disembarking, passengers can wander through the town or take one of the many guided bus tours to locations including Glencoe, Glenfinnan or further afield, taking in the beautiful scenery before heading back to the ship in time for dinner.

Several of the ships, operated by well-known and highly regarded companies including Ponant and Hurtigruten, are set to become regulars, showing the potential that was waiting to be realised with the right services in place.

Each ship is welcomed by members of FWSCIC, with Sarah Kennedy leading the way by going on board to meet the captain and crew, delivering locally produced gifts as a thank you. On every maiden visit, Sarah is often joined by a local councillor to formally welcome the ship, presenting a plaque or other gift on behalf of The Highland Council, with Nevis Radio recording an interview for broadcast.

Almost all of the ships are environmentally aware, with many pollution reduction processes in place to filter harmful emissions from the engines.

From late July until the end of cruising season in October, another six ships are due to visit, one for the first time, all delivering an impressive sight for ‘landlubbers’ and an equally great view of the beautiful landscape for the ‘cruisers’.

Culachy Wind Farm community update

Since our proposals to develop Culachy Wind Farm were on display earlier this year, we have been refi ning the plans to make sure they consider the feedback received and the fi ndings from our environmental studies.

Whilst this is under way, we have been having several conversations and are pleased to be supporting local initiatives. This includes helping Glengarry Games return after a two-year break by sponsoring the event to help provide a fantastic experience for all visitors.

We also plan to attend the Glengarry Produce Show on Saturday September 3.

We hope to be able to bring forward a project that will play an integral role in the community and help to provide longterm support to community projects, including Glengarry Highland Games, for years to come. We hope to have our fi nalised plans on display later this year. For now, further information can be found at www.culachywind.co.uk

Please visit: culachywind.co.uk for further information or email: communities@fredolsen.com

Tiger on the Wall hits the spot

One early summer evening, I popped into Tiger on the Wall to say hello to Saket, one of my Lochaber Life advertisers. It didn’t take much to twist my arm to stay for some food before heading back to Oban after a long but lovely day working in Fort William. Some delicious authentic Indian food on the promise of an honest review? Why not? I didn’t have to do it - it needed to be genuinely good for me to do so - but it was one of the nicest Indian meals I’ve ever had. I poured over the extensive menu of Indian and oriental dishes before opting for a Chicken Biryani - a substantial portion, accompanied by a fl uff y, buttery garlic nan bread. The rice was perfectly cooked, the chicken was tender having been marinated in warm Indian spices, fi nished with caramelised onion and served with fresh raita on the side.

Thanks to Chef Sinclair Pinto and the welcoming staff for a delicious meal - highly recommend. NM.

Connecting | Facilitating | Growing Lochaber Careers Fair

Join us at Lochaber High School... Your opportunity to talk with around forty employers, from local and national businesses and organisations. Monday 29 August Open to the public: 4-6pm

In partnership with:

Access all areas

Jo Cowan

I saw this door-way village-calendar on my travels in the Isle of Wight and thought of you.

How often have you missed out on something just because you didn’t know it was happening? Frustrating, isn’t it?

Getting information out to as many people in the community as possible is a complicated job these days. Community magazines like Lochaber Life, West Word, De Tha Dol are a great way of spreading the word when the lead-in time for your event/ activity is long enough. Local media – newspapers, Nevis Radio – can be helpful too. Our libraries, information boards and usual poster points off er good opportunities for offl ine communication about ‘what’s On’. A hard-copy invitation is unusual these days but possibly all the more eff ective for its rarity. But it is generating ‘word-of-mouth’ chat about events and opportunities that is a vital ingredient in reaching the widest audience.

You would think online information-sharing via email, social media and websites would make things easier. But that’s complicated too. Things don’t always get passed on to the folk you might expect them to and people use diff erent social media platforms and with varying degrees of interest/intensity. How many times have you seen events and activities promoted recently on posters and online with only a Facebook page or email mentioned for contact or even for booking? Where’s the phone number for the folk who aren’t online? I was asked by an older person to make a plea to community groups for promotion of events and opportunities to be ‘more than just online’. But there’s another side to this. We have not been meeting others as much over the past two years or going out and about as often. Do we perhaps need to up our ‘word of mouth’ game now and pro-actively tell as many of our neighbours and friends as we can about events - chat in the street, pick up the phone or drop a note through the door? If you see something online, spread the word about activities to those who aren’t. If you see a poster - spread the word to those so busy on their devices that they have missed it in the real world. Make announcements in churches, clubs and pubs. Get the information out by all means.

Community groups and services could do with your support.

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Members John Ferguson & Caroline Ferguson

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as a mortgage is secured against your home, it could be repossessed if you do not keep up the mortgage repayments

NORTHWORD -

TRADITIONAL STORYTELLING IN MODERN TIMES

Iain Ferguson

Dr Katie Murray of North Highland College and colleagues from across the Highlands and Islands are at the heart of a project aimed at preserving and encouraging storytelling through many types of media, in voice, words and crafts.

In ‘officialspeak’ NorthWord combines traditional storytelling with modern technologies to help increase the visibility and market reach of creative practitioners working in remote areas.

It uses stories about places to help creative practitioners promote their products and services.

This form of ‘story tagging’ responds to the economic challenges shared by creative practitioners across remote northern communities: distance from international markets, higher delivery and production costs, limited local customer base, depopulation and a limited labour market.

The project will increase the visibility and market reach of these businesses by providing a digital platform to market and sell products and by providing tools and training resources to enhance participants’ digital marketing skills, making it easier for creatives to stay in their home communities. The platform will also serve as a resource for tourists, increasing visitor numbers to remote areas. Recognising common factors and drawing on the experience and expertise of institutions in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Northern Ireland, Russia, Sweden and Finland to find solutions is also a major aim of NorthWord forging links to allow each of the businesses and enterprises in each partner country to address these issues collaboratively rather than in isolation.

A recent showcase/workshop was held in Fort William where participants both local, from other parts of the Highlands and Islands, as well as a partner from Northern Ireland came together to show and discuss what they had been doing as individuals.

An amazing diversity of ideas and items was on display, all surprising and thought provoking in interpreting the project and highlighting the range of talents.

As an example, Rowena Henderson from Strontian used her expertise in beadwork to reproduce an atom of strontium, an element discovered and mined in the area, which also takes its name from the village.

Rowena researched the history of the element and conversed with scientists on its structure before carefully planning the best way to build it with immense accuracy using beads. She eventually used around 19,500 red beads of varying sizes threaded together to make her incredible representation of the atom.