TEN YEARS AGO
Friday October 18 2013
Sunflower success grows on Riverside Rascal Amy
A child from Riverside Rascals Day Nursery in Lochgilphead has won the Argyll Community Housing Association’s grow your own sunflower competition.
Abby Simpson won with an impressive sunflower that measured 1.86 metres and received a £50 book voucher from Sandra Mackenzie, chairwoman of Mid Argyll and Kintyre Area Committee.
The three-year-old is the second youngster from Riverside Rascals to win the competition, which is open for three to five-year-olds in pre-education in Mid Argyll and Kintyre.
Wendy Thompson and Rebecca Welsh from the nursery said the youngster was thrilled to have won the competition.
Colglen trust to create two jobs
Colglen Community Trust is to employ a project officer and an administrator to deliver its Greener ColGlen project.
It comes after the trust was awarded £172,357 to deliver the two-year project, which aims to reduce food, waste and energy carbon emissions.
The project will grow food locally in two polytunnels, compost waste and use the local forest as a sustainable source of wood fuel for people living in Colintraive and Glendaruel.
A full-time project development officer will oversee the project, co-ordinate the community, volunteers and contractors to install the necessary infrastructure, while a part-time project admin and communications officer will provide support with payroll, purchasing, marketing and communications.
TWENTY YEARS AGO
Friday October 17 2003
Mid Argyll musicians at the Mod
Youngsters from schools and choirs across Mid Argyll have been making their mark on the 100th Royal National Mod, which began in Oban on Saturday night.
The talented junior Gaelic choir Coisir Og Dhail Riata made its many sweet voices heard to take a host of trophies and placings on Monday and Tuesday.
The Lochgilphead-based choir took home the unison, two-part harmony and port-a-beul trophies and more and many members of the choir were placed in their classes.
There was success for younger Mid Argyll singers too, with pupils from primary schools, including Tarbert and Furnace, among the prizewinners.
Craignish gets its lottery loot
The Craignish community was ‘chuffed to bits’ this week after receiving official confirmation of a grant of thousands of pounds from The Community Fund.
The lottery body has awarded £165,000 to Craignish Village Hall committee; £160,000 towards demolishing the existing hall in Ardfern and building a new one in the same location and £5,000 for a post-project evaluation survey.
After saying how delighted Ardfern residents were with the news, chairman Peter Richardson explained the committee had applied for £160,000 but the fund gave it the extra money for the survey ‘because we had made such a professional application, a high quality application’.
Peter said the money from The Community Fund was crucial to the project because the committee could not apply to the European Regional Development Fund without it: ‘It was a big chunk of funding that we needed. We had to have all the gap funding in place before we could apply to the ERDF for the final £130,000.’ Argyll and Bute Council has agreed to apply to the ERDF on behalf of the hall committee but the community can not relax yet.
Peter explained that, unlike the Community Fund which when making an award usually gave the full amount requested, there was a chance any ERDF award may be less than the sum requested. So the Craignish fundraising efforts will continue.
Peter said: “We have made an application for Scottish Executive funding and will continue to hold theme nights and food nights that have been quite successful.”
The estimated sum needed to provide the new hall is £475,000. That should cover the costs of demolishing the existing 50-year-old hall and building a new one designed to serve many uses and an increasing population.
It should have a main hall, computer room, a smaller hall, kitchen, disabled access, male, female and disabled toilets and more.
Expected uses of the hall include internet access, distance learning, pre-school and after school groups, health clinics, citizens advice bureau, visits by other organisations and all the usual community activities.
The community expected to hear whether or not it has secured ERDF funding by Christmas. Peter said: “If we get that, we hope to start building in spring 2004.”
FORTY YEARS AGO
Friday October 21 1983
Opposition to Ardrishaig housing plan
A proposed housing development in the grounds of Fascadale House, Ardrishaig, has met with strong opposition from members of Ardrishaig Community Council.
At its October meeting, council members expressed their concern about the application from Crichton Cousins Ltd, the Aberdeen-based company which has applied to the district council for permission for five individual building plots within the grounds of Fascadale House.
The council was unanimous in its view that such a development could not be carried out without seriously affecting this valuable wooded area.
The Mid Argyll Plan, produced by the planning department earlier this year, shows clearly that the Fascadale landscape should be preserved and the community council feels ignoring such recommendations would make a nonsense of the Mid Argyll Plan and would question the credibility of the district council’s commitment to conservation.
In addition, it is the understanding of the committee that the existing and projected provision of owner occupied and specialist housing in Mid Argyll is adequate and that the need for additional housing of this nature would not justify the destruction of such a prized location.
The community council unanimously agreed secretary Miss I MacGregor should write a letter outlining its objections to the development and this should be put before the planning committee.
The letter is intended to point out that the community council would be looking to the planning committee to refuse the application and to Argyll and Bute District Council to update and consolidate its protection of sites of local heritage, such as Fascadale.
Eighteen local residents also stated their objections to the proposals in a statement of opposition which they have presented to the district council.
SIXTY YEARS AGO
Tuesday October 15 1963
X-ray tests may be compulsory for teachers and meal staff
Regular X-ray examinations may be made compulsory for Argyll’s teachers and school meals staffs.
At a meeting in Lochgilphead on Wednesday, members of Argyll County Council were told it was essential teachers and members of the school meals staffs should be X-rayed before being appointed.
Dr J C Macgown, Islay, chairman of the health and welfare committee, said he was disappointed to learn the education committee at its last meeting had agreed teachers and members of the school meals staffs should merely be ‘invited’ to have an X-ray.
Dr Macgown said: “It would be hard for me to overemphasise the importance of this. I don’t think the education committee can really have understood its significance. It is the unanimous view of the entire medical profession that no-one suffering from an infectious disease should handle food either for children or adults.”
To emphasise his views, Dr Macgowan reported that a case of tuberculosis had occurred in Port Ellen School.
A check was made and it was discovered one of the women handling the school meals was actually suffering from tuberculosis. As a result, the whole school had to be X-rayed.
“It is essential we make these X-rays compulsory,” he added.
Dr Macgown also cited the case of a teacher who had applied for an exchange post in Canada. On being X-rayed, she was found to have active tuberculosis.
Commented Dr Macgown: “I must support the county medical officer on this.”
Ex-Provost James Marshall, Dunoon, chairman of the education committee, pointed out that in the islands it would be extremely difficult to put such a proposal into operation.
“Staff changes are frequent out there. Are we going to have to bring them all to the mainland for an X-ray? If Dr Macgown can show us how we can get it done at a reasonable figure we will probably agree.”
Mr Marshall thought most people would be willing to respond to an invitation to have an X-ray. Dr Macgown said it was his experience that those very people who thought there was something wrong with them were the ones who were most reluctant to submit to an X-ray.
The county council agreed that the education committee should be asked to reconsider its decision.
● Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection that most often infects the lungs and can also damage the kidneys, spine or brain. The massive campaign to eradicate TB in Scotland, especially in the poor housing conditions in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, is one of the forgotten triumphs of the NHS.
CAPTIONS:
2013: Sunflower winner Abby Simpson with Wendy Thompson and Rebecca Welsh. NO_A41FROF01_23
2003: Lochgilphead High School pupil and Coisir Og Dhail Riata member Davina Macintyre, proud winner of the An Comunn Gaidhealach Silver Medal for first place in the fluent speakers, girls aged 13 to 15 choral class at the Mod. NO_A41FROF02_23