Category: And The Next Thing is …

ACT Launches: “Local Charity will ACT”

Unfortunately, I was unable to make yesterday’s launch (hence my absence from the photo), but here’s the Press Release:

New local charity ACT (Argyll and the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust) launched on Monday (April 28th) with a strong and positive vision – to maintain, enhance and promote the coast and countryside of Argyll so it can be enjoyed by residents and visitors.

This new initiative is a partnership between Argyll and Bute Council, the Forestry Commission, NHS Highland and Scottish Natural Heritage and will be active in a variety of projects running across the area.

ACT will focus on initiatives which improve opportunities in the access, biodiversity, health and wellbeing, economic growth, heritage and environmental tourism sectors. The new charity will provide opportunities to support existing initiatives and projects and will be actively encouraging the people of Argyll and existing groups to get involved.

Following a successful funding bid of £10,000 for the launch project, ACT’s new website has gone live and takes an active and inclusive approach towards making Argyll a more attractive place to live, work and visit.

ACT Chairman, Ian Hepburn said ‘’Many groups and individuals in Argyll have a strong commitment to our environment and natural resources and wish to maximise the opportunities for developing them fully, which will have economic, health and environmental benefits for us all.   We’ve known about all of the positive things happening in the community for a long time but often it’s difficult for people to get involved because they don’t know where to go or who to ask for more information. It’s the people who live in Argyll and the Isles who have the best ideas on how to enhance the area and we are hoping to attract members who will be able to represent all of the communities and projects across Argyll and the Isles.

‘’ACT will be serving the community as an information hub and a platform for local people to get involved, suggest projects that will help to improve our communities and to find out about recent or upcoming changes.  We encourage people to sign up through our website for ACT membership.’

ACT has already established partnerships with Argyll and the Isles Tourism Co-operative, the Kintyre Way and the neighbouring Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Countryside Trust and has a number of other projects under development.  ACT will be working with these organisations to develop ideas and exchange information.

You are encouraged to get involved via the website at www.act-now.org.uk – there are a range of options to join ACT as a member, friend, facebook follower or business supporter.   Members will have the opportunity to suggest projects and join the Board, as well as receiving regular updates.

#RequiredReading: SF, Fantasy and a little bit of the old Medieval

In  downtime I read avidly. Here’s a snapshot of the last six months or so:

Wool [and] Shift [and] Dust – Hugh Howey. The first is brilliant and the second and third necessary and involving extrapolations of the original idea.

11.22.63 [and] Under the Dome – Stephen King. Fell out of interest with King until I picked up the first, which like the second, is a superbly realised high concept novel. If you can get over the style these are classics.

American Gods – Neil Gaiman. Interesting take on the Gods imported to America by the European diaspora, at times compulsive.

Blood Song – Anthony Ryan & Emperor of Thorns – Mark Lawrence. A great trilogy in prospective with the first, and a sometimes excruciating finale to a great trilogy in the second. Really, really rate Mark Lawrence.

Revelation – C. J. Sansom. Shardlake is one of those persistent characters whose idiosyncracies stay with you long after the novel ends. Sansom hasn’t disappointed yet, although this time around I’d guessed the culprit long before the eponymous revelation.

Proxima [and] Flood – Stephen Baxter. One of my favourite all-time authors. The first is totally compulsive. The second a bleak warning about climate change – a must-read.

The Conservation Plan for Dunans, Lairds and Ladies edition is Published!

smWebCover-ConservationPlanCover

Both the commemorative edition for Lairds and Ladies, and the PDF version have finally been published on ScottishLaird.com. This marks the first stage in the consultation on the plan, and all answers will contribute to the development of our plans for the building, grounds and bridge.

#FabulousFriday: finally closed out the Dunans Conservation Plan books, and redesigned the greeting pack for Lairds & Ladies

interiorspread-bluefolderWatch the Scottish Laird site for news on the books (in particular our Lairds’ and Ladies’ and the PDF versions), and in the meantime enjoy the inside of the ScottishLaird welcome pack A4 folder. Gorgeous isn’t it? Lots of Dunans Rising tartan, lots of Lairds and Ladies taking the tour, and lots of new information researched through the plan.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the end of October Lairds and Ladies are invited to Dunans for a tour at midday!

tourphotoJoin our intrepid guide Colin, on a tour which tells the tale of Dunans over the last 500 years.

Today a party of 15 learned about the history of the building, the fire in 2001, the bridge and the tallest tree in the UK (it is!).

We’re number-crunching the GPS coordinates for all the Lairds and Ladies’ Plot numbers

As is obvious from the picture, this is not a trivial task. The GPS coordinates we’re generating have to be processed using excel, then a text editor, and then parsed into SQL. At the same time, we’re relating the coordinates to specific plot numbers according to the schematic we drew up right at the beginning of the project in December 2007. These things take time, and we are still calibrating the results, so its all not entirely accurate yet.

If you would like to get an idea of where your plot is, please visit our beta app, here.

First Aerial Movie of Dunans Castle is over in 19 seconds, but shows spectacular potential!

Over the bank holiday we have been testing our new quadcopter mounted camera and this is a short excerpt of what we think will become an exciting and revealing tool for the restoration of the castle. We’re presently designing shots for a forthcoming ibook of the Conservation Plan.

Final Proof of the Conservation Plan for Dunans in from Lulu today – we’re so close to publishing the book I can smell it!

That’s the printer’s ink, the new paper and the ozone of a press that I can smell … No, but really the proof is a live book printed by Lulu, ordered three days ago and received today – and it’s lovely and glossy and just beautiful.

We’re looking for a small Scottish printer at the moment to do a run of between 250-500 hardbacks with dust jackets. And that run will be the primary publication, but we’ll continue with the more expensive Lulu version to enable easy sales around the world.

The PDF version is also nearing completion, and that’ll be immediately available on the Scottish Laird website. It’s not as glossy, but all of the text is there, albeit in a more compressed typographical form!

Lairds and Ladies’ Plots plotted on GPS via beta app we’re updating over the next week

We have a lot of requests from Lairds and Ladies for a GPS Coordinate of their plot when they come here for their tour (and actually alot of folk want to be able to see the exact location of their plot online too). So we have a small app which does exactly that.

At the moment, it will provide a result for all plots up to around N5400E1. You enter your plot number into the search box, and if there is a result, you are taken to googlemaps where a pin is dropped on the approximate location of the GPS coordinates (see picture above).

We say approximate because we are not entirely sure that Google plots GPS exactly right in our location.

Anyway, you can check your plot here.

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