Winners in ForArgyll Awards 2008
published this on 6:48 am, Thursday, 15th January, 2009Argyll's Achievers| News | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
Let’s start with recognising remarkably galvanic energies in a range of Argyll communities – islay, Easdale, Appin, Ardrishaig, Arrochar, Cowal, Inveraray. The active engagement with place, the centrality of heritage, music and theatre, the solidarity, the fidelity to local achievement - and the playfulness – was life enhancing.
In Best Music and Arts Organisation, an artists’ creative retreat and chamber music venue sat comfortably alongside a Village Hall with a particularly lively music and arts programme, two pipe bands, a piping school, a fiddle workshop, two theatre companies and an arts centre.
In Best Event, a rock music concert joined forces with a walking week, and a festival bringing together walking and the arts and these found themselves – appropriately – cheek by jowl with mud, stone and rain. These came in the form of two world championships – in swamp soccer and stone skimming and a cycle race with a title marrying realism with poetry – Ride of the Falling Rain. (And to share discoveries that were a pleasure for us – the Velo Club d’Ardbeg which runs the Ride of the Falling Rain has the best communications blog we’ve seen – called thewashingmachinepost. Beat that for a series of unforgettable names. An Advertising Agency would kill for creative ability of this calibre.)
We saw widespread interest in and support for environmental and renewable energy initiatives – both great strengths of Argyll’s. The new Machrihanish Dunes Golf Course – the first to be built in a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in a collaboration from the outset with Scottish Natural Heritage, was the winner of the Best Sporting Facility Award. Islay Energy Trust and Our Power at Cairndow in Cowal contested the Best Renewable Energy Initiative Award, representing both ends of the spectrum in the field. Islay Energy Trust is engaged with Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen in proposed technological trials in tidal energy generation in the Sound of Islay. The winner, Our Power, has a community-based biomass energy scheme which is already delivering local power, with a small hydro-electricity scheme in development.
And we saw little that was parochial. The best evidence for the happiest of marriages between local residents and long term visitors and supporters from elsewhere was – resoundingly – Islay. Islay is astonishingly well served by its key websites: Islay Info, Islay Weblog and Islay Blog. These are provided selflessly and imaginatively for the island by non-residents – yet. And in the voting, all three sites were supported with marked vigour and commitment by both islanders and by visitors. These sites are clearly embedded in their place, appreciated by it and equally appreciated by those elsewhere who develop their understanding and their love of Islay through the services of these sites. This testifies to a confident and outward looking island society, echoed exactly in the smaller Easdale.
Anyway, you’ve had the video news with the category winners so here, with our warmest thanks to nominators, contestants and voters who together have made these Awards such an outstanding success, is the written record. Please take time to look at the websites of all the finalists. They reward exploring.
- Best Accommodation: An Taigh Osda, Bruichladdich, Islay.
- Best Group Achievement: Inveraray & District Pipe Band
- Best Individual Achievement: Angus Gray Stephens
- Best Arts Website: Robin Jenkins Literary Award
- Best Blog: Islay Weblog
- Best Community Event: Lismore Armistice Day Drama – Coming Home Again by Lismore Youth Theatre & The Walking Theatre Company during the Lismore Armistice Celebrations
- Best Community Initiative: Ardrishaig Community Council
- Best Community Website: Islay Weblog
- Best Ecommerce Website: Loch Fyne Oyster Shop
- Best Event: Ride of the Falling Rain, Islay
- Best Heritage Website: A dead-heat between Appin of Yesteryear and Arrochar, Tarbet and Ardlui Heritage
- Best Local Newspaper Website: The Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard
- Best Music and Arts Organisation: Crear, Kilberry
- Best Potential for 2009: The Walking Theatre Company, Glendaruel
- Best Renewable Energy Initiative: Our Power, Cairndow
- Best Restaurant: An Taigh Osda, Islay
- Best Sporting Facility: Machrihanish Dunes Golf Course, Kintyre
- Best Tourism Website: Islay Info
- Best Village Hall: Easdale
- Best Visitor Attraction: Easdale Island
- Best Wildlife Website: RSPB Mara & Breagha
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January 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thank you very much for this interesting award and the regular updates, it has certainly generated a lot of interest for Argyll and within that Islay. While I’m obviously very familiar with all the Islay candidates and website this contest has also made me aware of many places on the mainland I now plan to visit during my journeys to Islay.
We’ll be back