Skyecomuseum

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 ...

STAFFIN businesses are gearing up for the start of the 2015 visitor season with the Easter weekend upon us.
Premises have been painted/refurbished, stock orders have been arriving and menus have been revamped. Some businesses have even launched new ventures, like the Skye Pie Café.
While Staffin is by no means a closed shop during the so-called “shoulder months” between October and March, the A855 is already noticeably busier with traffic of all shape and sizes – and speeds!
Please note that ...

AN UPDATE on the Staffin Slipway Development will be provided this weekend as the feasibility stage nears completion.
The Staffin Community Trust is hosting a drop-in community consultation on Saturday (21.3) to provide the latest information on the transformational project.
Marine engineering firm Wallace Stone, environmental consultant Duncan Bryden and economist Steve Westbrook have been investigating the project’s potential and reviewing the construction options in the last year. Aspect Land and Hydrographic Surveys Ltd has also carried out a seismic report at ...

THE LID has come off a Staffin couple’s new food venture – the very first pie café in Skye.
The award-winning restaurant Glenview Inn at Culnacnoc has undertaken a change of direction and transformed itself into a classy pie eatery.
The Skye Pie Café has opened its doors for the 2015 season and owners Simon Wallwork and Kirsty Faulds, who have run Glenview for several years, are hugely excited about the new venture.
Kirsty said the pie café was partly motivated by a desire to spend more ...

THE mystery behind a piece of jewellery, which was found by a schoolboy among the wreckage of a warplane that crashed 70 years ago in Skye, has finally been solved.
And efforts are now underway to reunite the St Christopher’s pendant – inscribed with a woman’s name – with the American family of the man who was killed when his aircraft crashed into Beinn Edra in Staffin, after his identify was confirmed.
Tormod MacLeod, from Clachan in Staffin, found the pendant ...

TODAY (Tuesday 3.3) marks 70 years since the Beinn Edra aircraft disaster in Staffin – which claimed the life of Charles Jeanblanc – and eight of his colleagues.
The community will mark the solemn milestone on Saturday at the Staffin War Memorial where a plaque, inscribed with the crew’s names, will be unveiled.
Charles Jeanblanc was the navigator on the Flying Fortress when it crashed into the rockface on the Trotternish Ridge on March 3, 1945, in heavy fog. He was 23-years-old.
Skye ...