Welcome to the Voice for Arran for August.
With the holiday season in full swing we have our usual mix of news, views, previews, reviews, and other eclectic offerings from around the island and beyond. Arran is fortunate to have so many good people doing so many good things, and this Voice gives a flavour of that.
This month also sees the launch of our new format. We are very grateful for all the help from the behind-the-scenes volunteers who have made this possible. We hope you will enjoy it.
The film to be shown on the 13th August at 8pm in Corrie and Sannox Village Hall is Rosetta (1999, France/Belgium, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 94 mins, Cert 15).
The Open Studios Weekend, now in its sixth year will once again feature many local artists, working in a wide variety of disciplines including painting, drawing, etching, sculpture, pottery, needlework, jewellery and furniture. This year’s dates are:
This year’s McLellan Poetry Competition has now closed for entries and, if all goes to plan, by the time you read this Maura Dooley, this year’s the judge, will have completed her adjudication and the prizewinners will have been notified. Once again, after a slow start, interest built up to a frenzy during the final stages with a deluge of entries received on the last day, rather appropriately the summer solstice.
In the end entries were slightly up even on last year and in part this was due to the continued surge in interest from overseas. This year overseas poets accounted for more than a quarter of the field. As might be expected many came from the Irish republic and the US, but plenty came from more distant and sometimes unexpected places: Australia and New Zealand, India, South Africa and Zimbabwe. And over half the foreign entries came from EU countries including Romania and Cyprus. Arran’s poetry competition can claim to be truly international.
Running maintenance to the Sillar memorial seat on Kildonan shore (erected 2008). For those who don't know it, the inscription from Kahlil Gibran reads 'does the song of the sea end on the shore or in the hearts of those who listen?'
And COAST now reports that the first set of 2017 surveys in Lamlash Bay no-take Marine Reserve are complete. Highest lobster numbers ever!
All round the island the Eco Savvy Village Hubs are getting up and running; Lochranza, Pirnmill, Corrie, Kilmory, Lamlash and others. Here are the details of Kilmory:
Andy and Jenny Macdonald of Kildonan have announced the launch of their new vegetable box scheme. Their fruit and vegetable boxes can be delivered either to drop off points or direct to your door weekly. Go to www.woodsidearran.com for details.
A date for the diary
Friday 25 - Monday 28 August, 11-6 in Corrie Hall. Come and see Jan’s wonderful seascapes!
Jan says that “earth, sea & sky are influenced by light. In painting I am attempting to express this fluid complexity. The most important considerations I have when working are the presence of light and the physical qualities of paint. Light is the subject of the seascapes/landscapes, forever moving and changing in intensity.”
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Is it a plane? Is it a bird? Is it Superman?
Many visitors to the island scan the sky for eagles, but are not sure whether they are seeing eagles or buzzards.
Eagles are simply magnificent, and the assumption is that they will be easy to identify. But distant views of birds can lead to confusion with Buzzard, and now we have to consider two species of eagle in Scotland - Golden and White-tailed. This video guide looks at how you can confidently separate all three species of large raptor.
Governments and schools are failing to help people to recognise the best ways to cut climate change, researchers say.
by Alex Kirby
Teachers and policymakers are missing a golden opportunity to show people the best ways to cut climate change and reduce their carbon footprint, a study says. It identifies four ways of behaving that it says will have the most substantial effect in decreasing someone’s climate impact: eating a plant-based diet, avoiding air travel, living without reliance on a car, and having smaller families.
It is a great time to be involved in art and crafts on the island. In recent months, a new Crafts & Company Collective has sprung to life offering a craft club, workshops and a brand new monthly Arran Crafts Fayre. These events have been very well supported and much more is planned. Coral Smith & Fiona Doubleday began Crafts & Company in May 2016 but by the turn of the new year it had already become too busy for just two people to run. Five more ladies offered to help and the new collective took shape. Crafts & Company wants to make connections with people who love to craft and to use crafting as a way of working positively with charities. In 2106 Crafts & Company worked with the charities Mind, RNLI, Mary’s Meals, Little Dresses for Africa and Ayrshire Hospice. So far in 2017 the new collective has worked with Knit-a-Square for orphans in South Africa and our very own Arran Duke of Edinburgh group. A new and very exciting crafting charity campaign will be launched in September and people living on and off the island who love to craft can all get involved. For more information about this and all that Crafts & Company get up to keep an eye on their website www.craftsandcompany.net.
Cruise ships can emit as much particulate matter as a million cars every day and the air quality on deck can be as bad as the world’s most polluted cities, according to a new investigation. An undercover investigation by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 television station has revealed the shocking levels of pollution found on board some cruise ships.
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme sent its investigators onto P&O Cruises’ 250-metre-long Oceana vessel, which can carry more than 2,000 passengers. The programme focused on monitoring ultra-fine particles in the air around the vessel and the investigation showed that just one ship can emit the same amount of particulate matter in one day as one million cars.
Phil Taylor is campaigns manager at Open Seas.
eXXpedition Round Britain’s yacht Sea Dragon will complete the first leg of her voyage around the British Isles by sailing into Lamlash Bay on August 17th. With her all-women crew of 14 – mostly volunteers – she’s trawling for plastics and toxics in the seas around Britain, aiming to complete the first ever 30 day snapshot of the state of our seas. A large number of scientific projects are being carried out, from trawling the waters, with different grades of filter, scooping sediments for analysis of microfibres - to catching the wind – to see if microplastics are being carried through the air.
from John Kinsman, Coastwatch St Monans
Sustainably sourced North Sea cod is back on the menu after the Marine Stewardship Council said stocks had recovered from overfishing. Cod levels fell from 270,000 tonnes in the 1970's to 36,000 tonnes on 2006.
Laws on quotas, modified equipment and closing spawning areas to fishing have helped stocks recover over the past decade. However the WWF has warned that levels of fish remain at historically low levels.
I have been a supporter of COAST for a number of years as a holidaymaker to the island. Having moved to the island recently the Marine Protected Area (MPA) moved from being an abstract concept with some intangible environmental objective, to the practical application of zoning fisheries activities to protect habitats like seagrass or maerl beds, where juvenile fish flourish on a bit of coastal line which is now my home. This cross over is where the challenge comes in. The abstract allowed me to read monthly newsletters, send the odd donation and write to my MSP on pertinent issues but the application of the abstract was in the hands of others. Now I am involved, I feel duty bound, obligated even, to play a part in protecting the area and in fact I am keen to add my practical support in the enforcement and defence of the hard won South Arran MPA.
Tory plans to raise the state pension age to 68 from 2037, seven years earlier than planned, will affect up to 500 people on Arran it has been revealed.
Figures from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) show that 13,999 men and women born between 6 April 1970 and 5 April 1978 and living in North Ayrshire will now be forced to wait a year longer to get their state pension, after the UK Tory Government announced it would bring forward an increase in the state pension age, which wasn't due until 2044. Around 500 of those affected live on Arran.
Calculating, plotting ravens make plans for their future.
Given the choice of having a dog biscuit right now or plotting to receive a greater reward later, ravens like to plan ahead.
Ravens are complex birds. Not only are they able to imagine being spied upon, it's now been found that they are able to make plans for the near future.
Cognitive scientists from Lund University, Sweden, spent hours watching the corvids to determine that they are able to think ahead to future scenarios. It's a behaviour that's previously only ever seen in humans and great apes. The research also showed ravens were willing to miss out on a reward now to get a better one in the future.
