West by North West

 

Flying over Jura

Being a west coaster, I’m always happiest when I’m travelling in that direction, so last week was a double bonus as I had the chance to travel to both Islay (for the first time ever) and Durness in north-west Sutherland.

Both visits involved catching up with the local CVS (Council for Voluntary Services), and on the Islay one I was also keeping up with the delivery of the Rural Direct service in the person of  crack RD operative Ian Mathieson. Ian had been booked to deliver a workshop and follow-up meetings on the possibilities for community groups in accessing funding from the Scotland Rural Development Programme.

Islay reminds me of  Barcelona.* Everyone who goes there raves about how beautiful it is; then you go there yourself, and discover they were absolutely 100% right. Flying in over the snow-covered hills and mountains of Argyll and Jura on a fantastically sharp, sunny day with an electric blue sky, the view was just plain stunning, and the island seascapes and landscapes (not least the ever-present Paps of Jura) continue to dominate your sightlines everywhere you go.

We were met and very well looked after by John Davidson, the high energy force behind Islay and Jura CVS. John had set up the funding workshop and also arranged a series of visits, starting with the hugely impressive MacTaggart Leisure Centre (so much more than just a swimming pool), which is owned by the people of Islay and Jura and run as a local community enterprise. Gary, who manages the operation and has raised impressive amounts of cash to sustain and develop it, was looking for more opportunities and spent the morning with Ian. Meanwhile I was given a Davidson’s tour of some of the impressive halls and community facilities on the island.

John Davidson at the Community Garden

It would take too long to go through everything we visited and to register how genuinely inspiring they were in their different ways, but I do have to mention the one with what John refers to as the “Wow!” factor – the Islay House Community Garden. This community project, begun in 2005, is now a very productive vegetable garden growing a vast range of crops, outdoors and in polytunnels. It’s an amazing place and well worth finding your way to if you are on Islay. The wow comes when you first open the door in one of the garden walls and look onto the startling five acre space that opens up below you like a botanical amphitheatre.

The afternoon workshop on the delights of the SRDP went very well (you can check out the main presentation here), with Ian delivering high quality information in a relaxed and accessible style and making lots of dates for follow-up meetings to give one-to-one assistance the following day, which is exactly how it’s meant to work. As he later emailed me: “I wouldn’t say I had a full day on Thursday but my final session was in the airport as the flight was being called!”

After a brief stopover and catchup at Rural Towers, Friday morning saw an early start to go and meet Ronnie and Frances from CVS North, up in the top left hand corner of the map in Durness. Although I was brought up in Assynt, I’ve spent remarkably little time in the areas further north – if we travelled anywhere it tended to be Inverness, to shop in Woolies! – and it still takes me by surprise how much coast there is before you hit Cape Wrath. At the risk of again being accused of trying to commit poetry by my colleague Mrs Hogg, the long drive through that snowstrewn glaciated landscape was astonishingly, breathtakingly magnificent.

Ronnie and Frances, who share the Development Officer role in the CVS, are organising a Sutherland Summit, and we discussed what input SCVO could provide. We met in the CVS office, at the back of Ronnie’s Wax and Wine shop (guess what it sells), and their enthusiasm for the event they hatched up on a long car journey a few months ago was utterly infectious. They’re not just setting the local community development agenda, they’re grasping it by the scruff of the neck and giving it a really good shake.

You can find more details of the event and what it sets out to do here, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it works out and to spreading the word about a remarkable example of the voluntary (Third, whatever) sector taking a decisive lead in one of Scotland’s remotest rural areas.

After that, it was back to my cottage in Inverkirkaig to check out a septic tank, assemble a pine wardrobe and cook a Valentines Day dinner. But that’s already far more information than you want or need.

Bye for now
Norman

* Betcha that’s the first time anyone’s written that sentence.