Category: And The Next Thing is …

#CGDT is recruiting for a New Community Forest Project Officer: it’s a varied role at the heart of our community

This is an extraordinary opportunity to work with a highly successful Development Trust in a truly beautiful ‘neck of the woods’. For a year the successful candidate will work with the excellent CGDT team who have developed an exciting and varied roster of projects. From Archaeology to a Dark Skies park, from Woodfuel to Woodland Crofts, from Housing to renewables, this is a contract for only the most able and most ambitious community development officers.

You’ll be supported by an experienced and professional voluntary board toward each of the project outcomes while also having an eye on extending the contract beyond the funding that we have available to us.

If this is interesting to you, to read more, download the application or contact the trust, please visit the CGDT website here.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time – We’re going to be on #BBCRadioScotland sometime in May!

… and that’s the name of the radio programme with presenter Claire English – It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It’ll be half an hour of Sadie and me talking about what brought us to Dunans and how we’ve overcome the obstacles to make a success of the project. We enjoyed it immensely, particularly the initial bit standing on Dunans Bridge in full sunshine talking about that moment when we first saw Dunans and fell in love with it {sort of}!

I’ll post more when the programme gets broadcast some time in May. The photo is of Sadie and the BBC team walking back from the initial take on the bridge.

getting-ready

[And notice all those cars to the right of the ladies? That’s nearly 20 people who went on the ever-popular Lairds and Ladies’ tour today!]

First Stage of Consultation Complete: the draft Conservation Plan for Dunans is now with A&B and Historic Scotland

Really very exciting. We even have a reference number from the council now for this pre-planning stage. Of course now the hard work starts – consulting with the community council and the development trust, who are sure to be our fiercest critics!

 

ScottishLaird tour season has well and truly kicked off with 6 tours in 8 days!

Today I gave a tour for six lairds and ladies – a couple from Aberdeen, another from down south with lovely pooch Oliver and the last all the way over from Australia.

Oliver and people had stayed at Sandra and Michael’s at the Watermill and gave great reviews, particularly for the ever-popular big breakfast that is Michael’s speciality.

Then, given their itineraries, we recommended The George in Inveraray, The Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, The Colintraive Hotel and Inver Cottage! I always feel lucky to have so many great places to recommend in such an isolated spot.

For more information about tours and where to stay and go near us, please click here.

The tartan Dunans Rising puts Dunans Castle in the Herald after our recent order of 6 rolls from @ButeFabric

Delighted to be contributing to the £100K of orders of tartan at Bute Fabric which has given rise to stories in the Herald among others.

Here’s the link

And of course the picture is the tartan, as seen on Lairds, teddies and other wonderful merchandise at the ScottishLaird website

 

All the codes are in for Groupon promotions to Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark for the #ScottishLaird project

One of the major jobs needing done for every promotion we do with groupon is the generation and insertion of several thousand codes – now of course we automate this as much as possible, but the final task of loading the codes into the database is mine. It takes a while, maybe ten minutes a thousand codes and with this promo we had 8,000, so a good hour and a half with distractions, but its done now for the wonderful Nordic nations – time for a cup of tea and a Borders Biscuit.

And the image? Well, that’s the file with all the Danish codes formatted into a SQL query ready for copy and paste into phpmyadmin.

Final, final draft of the #DunansCastle Conservation Plan is now exporting, and next is the Consultation Survey!

What with slight adjustments for a different format, some shenanigans with the style sheets and taking-over some entries in the index, its been slow work on the book today, but as you’ll see from the image the design of the structure for the consultation form is well-advanced (a well spent lunchtime!). The book will be published soon via Print-on-Demand service Lulu and as soon as it does we need to have the survey up and running.

The idea is that we will use the Lulu service to create proofs which will help us ensure colour and typography all work within the format we have chosen. Thence onto creating a small short-run edition of hardbacks with a Scottish Print firm we have yet to choose.

 

In the presence of greatness: the album “Strangers” by Simone Felice is now #onmyplaylist

Simone Felice – Gettysburg

So its Alt. Country Folk. Lumineers provide some backing vocals. There’re some exquisite melodies. Great lyrics. Only half-way through. Superb!

Yesterday, waiting for the last bus of the Spring term, lemonhead Barky and my eldest.

waitingSounds like the title of a great album, but it’s not, it’s just part of the daily round. A great part, waiting for the bus and talking about the yesterday, tomorrow, or even just what we’re hoping for today. And after the girls are picked up, me and the barkster will wend our way to work and the wooden shed, the first cup of tea and the Borders Biscuit club – well, I’ll have the drink – Barty may get a few crumbs if he’s lucky.

If you have ever wondered about the size of the task we’re facing here at Dunans, well, here’s a clue – the indicative costs for Castle and Bridge.

Gulp!

We knew the budget would be big, but not even I was prepared for some of these figures, though they are very rough. They’re based on pounds per metre squared, rule-of-thumb calculations on professional fees, and the type of VAT chargeable. We don’t yet have an accurate survey of the castle – still too dangerous inside I am afraid – but as soon as we do, I am expecting the detail on these figures to resolve.

Obviously with regard to the castle we’re looking at the Accommodation & Event option as our favoured route as this is the most sustainable. Frankly I am gobsmacked at the Victorian Restoration (Like-for-like) price – although this does include lime plaster with horse hair and lath and no plasterboard. You can see where that’s going. Consolidation as a Ruin is the cheapest option, but unfortunately, there’s little or no way of sustaining the borrowing on a roofless shell – albeit a very beautiful one.

The cost for the repair of the bridge is also significant, but at least with the prospect of funding via Historic Scotland, Heritage Lottery and others this might be achievable in the relatively short-term – particularly with the bicentenary coming up next year.

Does this leave you wanting to know more? Well the Conservation Plan for Dunans will be published very shortly (ISBN 978-1-910326-01-5), and you’ll be able to read a great deal more about the site, its history and our plans then… in the meantime, I am going off to write a business plan or three!

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