Skyecomuseum

A SUMMER fair will be held at Staffin Primary School this weekend.
And parents, pupils and staff are hopeful it will blow away the community’s blues at such a poor start to the summer weather-wise, with a dry forecast for the event. There will be refreshments, home baking, face painting, “Guess the Name of the Dolly”, a raffle, tombola and car washing. Parent Kirsty Faulds added that there had been great local support for the event. “There are fantastic prizes for raffle ...

MORE than 4,000 people – many from Staffin and the Trotternish peninusla –  have signed a petition demanding that Portree Hospital is saved from closure, as plans for a protest march have been announced.
The Save Portree Hospital campaign group has confirmed a march will be held in Portree on Saturday, June 20. The group and supporters will walk from Somerled Square to the hospital demanding the reinstatement of out-of-hours doctors and a full Independent Review of the health service in the ...

A PLAQUE marking the tragic loss of nine men in a Staffin air disaster during the Second World War has been erected on the district’s main war memorial. 
The B-17 Flying Fortress from America crashed in fog at Beinn Edra, the highest peak on the Trotternish Ridge, in March 1945.
The Staffin community held a commemoration in March marking 70 years since the tragedy, with the crew’s names now added to the Staffin War Memorial, by the Kilmartin River.
Ninety people ...

SEVERAL whales have sadly died after being beached in Staffin, despite the efforts of rescuers.
The long-finned pilot whales, part of a pod of more than 20 which arrived in Staffin on Monday, had got into severe difficulties in the bay.
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue has been tending to the animals with locals also helping. A large crowd had gathered at Brogaig but were kept away from the whales to avoid the rick of infection.hey were refloated but ...

A RESEARCH visit to public artworks in the Central Belt – which will aid the creation of the much-anticipated Staffin Crofters’ Memorial – has been carried out the Staffin Community Trust (SCT).
The fact-finding trip to Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Perthshire, which was funded by Creative Scotland, was led by Emma Nicolson, the director of the Skye-based arts organisation ATLAS. Emma was accompanied by SCT director Sine Gillespie and local development officer Hugh Ross.
ATLAS is working in partnership with SCT on ...

A DIGG man, living hundreds of miles away, has urged Staffin’s expats to follow his lead and support their home district by joining the Staffin Community Trust (SCT).
Whether they are in Birmingham, Bruges or Bangladesh, the Taobh Sear’s diaspora can still play a role in Staffin’s future by becoming members of SCT. Angus MacLeod, who now lives in Warwickshire, has become one of the first ex-pats to join, which has delighted the SCT.
The SCT board of directors meet every month to ...

UPDATES on Staffin Community Trust’s main projects will be provided next week. SCT’s 2015 Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday night in Staffin. The AGM will include the information on the latest progress on SCT’s work and an overview of the last 12 months.
These include the Staffin Slipway, the affordable housing campaign, the Staffin Crofters’ Memorial, the Storr, the proposed extension to the ecomuseum Ceumannan http://staffin-trust.co.uk/skyes-eco-museum-ceumannan-ii-2 and the outdoor Gaelic in the Environment course hosted by SCT. The annual report on SCT ...

STAFFIN is poised to get a Hollywood-sparked economic boost with a new movie – filmed in the Quiraing – hotly tipped for award success.
The glitterati have pitched up the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where a new adaptation of “MacBeth”,  starring Michael Fassbender, is one of 19 contenders for the top prize, the coveted Palme d’Or.
It is the most prestigious film award around – apart from the Oscars – so the £25million film, which was shot in the Quiraing in February last year and other parts of Skye ...

STAFFIN featured prominently in a national television broadcast on Tuesday night about the community’s sluggish internet speeds.
Nick Wakeham of Skyelight Candles shop/workshop in Garafad and Donald MacDonald of the Staffin Community Trust both appeared on BBC ALBA’s respected An Là news programme to discuss the current service in the district, amid hopes that a new scheme can secure superfast broadband for the whole area.
John White of Kilmuir’s outdoor activity business Whitewave also appeared on the news report by BBC ALBA’s Eilidh ...

THE Staffin Community Trust and Staffin Museum have both backed a new scheme aimed at protecting important fossil finds in Skye. SCT and the museum in Elishadder, owned by Dugald Ross, have become members of The Skye Fossil Communication Loop which has been set up by Scottish Natural Heritage.  
It comes after concerns were raised last year about the loss of important fossils and potential damage from reckless collectors. In 2011, a significant amount of rock was disturbed at Bearreraig Bay, near the Storr Lochs, ...

A HIGH speed internet connection will be rolled out to Staffin – but large swathes of the district will struggle to access it.
A meeting was held in Kilmuir Hall on Wednesday night (29.4) hosted by the North Skye Broadband Project  and residents in Trotternish outlined their current internet speeds, amid several complaints about slow broadband.
The project, which is being led by Glendale Trust, is investigating current online speeds in its own community, Kilmuir and Waternish.
BT is in the midst ...

ALARMED Staffin residents are among the 1,500 people who have signed a petition demanding that a controversial move to remove beds at Portree Hospital and reduce 24-hour care is reversed.
At the time of writing, the Save Portree Hospital campaign group’s online petition has attracted the signatures of 1,530 people. It was only launched after a public meeting in the Skye Gathering Hall last month which attracted 300 people.  
The campaign group has warned that a “mistake” was made by NHS Highland when ...

A GROUP of orphans, who survived the devastating Asian tsunami, enjoyed a visit to Staffin this week.
The Boxing Day disaster on 26 December 2004 saw a tsunami hit Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. It left death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, with the death toll estimated at 250,000 people.
Two days later police and forensic specialists from 40 countries travelled to Thailand to help with the vast human tragedy and identified more than 4,600 victims in the ...

A NEW online survey – which will investigate the broadband speed in Trotternish – is now live, as efforts to secure a high speed internet connection gather speed.
Businesses and residents in Staffin and Kilmuir are being urged to complete the short survey, which only takes two minutes, so that an accurate picture of the current broadband service in the peninsula can be measured.
The survey can be accessed by clicking here https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Glendalecommunitybroadband
It comes as the North Skye Broadband Project, which is being ...

A POPULAR outdoor Gaelic course in Staffin is set to return this summer.
The Staffin Community Trust hosts Gaelic broadcaster Roddy MacLean’s course Àrainneachd, Cànan is Dualchas in June and August.
The 10-day Gaelic in the environment course is aimed at fluent Gaelic speakers and advanced learners. This year it is offered in two five-day blocks and is suitable for countryside rangers, teachers, people employed in heritage and tourism in Scotland and beyond. It is supported by Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
Students learn to ...