North Mainland Notes

Successful social

The harvest social in North Roe on Monday proved to be a really well attended and successful evening. Magnie Ratter introduced a wide and varied programme that included a range of beautiful songs from the Burra and Trondra choir, the Northmavine choir and Bethany Dunk of Sandvoe, North Roe.

During the evening Gillian Isbister and Andrew Nicolson also performed some splendid tunes on their fiddles, much to the appreciation of the audience, while Joan Tait gave a very enjoyable poetry recital.

The Rev Wilma Johnston, minister at Burra and Trondra, gave the address and the Rev Bob MacGregor from the North Mainland led the grace before the tasty tea and home bakes that rounded off the evening.

Fried fish on the menu

Tomorrow night the fryers will once again be in action at the Ollaberry hall for the regular winter fish and chip take-away season.

Food will be available from 5pm to 8pm and folk can choose to have a take-away or eat in with refreshment from the bar to accompany the food. An adult must accompany under-16s.

Pre-Christmas market

The Vidlin hall committee is organising a pre-Christmas farmers’ market in the hall on Sunday 29th November.

The markets have proved a great success since their inception and although there are now a healthy number of regular stallholders, the committee is always keen to see new faces.

Anyone interested in booking a table for the day can get in touch with Arlene on (01806) 577235.

100 years at Vidlin

Plans for the Vidlin hall centenary, which will be celebrated next year, are beginning to take shape and regular meetings will be held to plan and finalise a programme.

The next meeting will be held in the hall at 7.30pm on Thursday night. One of the organisers, Monique Hunter, says: “We would like to encourage as many Vidlin folk as possible to come along on Thursday to help us come up with ideas and to start putting plans in place for our special celebration.”

Toy sale extended

With such a large range of toys in stock, committee members at the North Mainland Recycling Centre have decided to extend the half-price toy sale at the centre until the end of November.

The shop also has a large range of Christmas goods on sale at low prices and is definitely worth a look by anyone searching for a real bargain.

The shop is open on Monday 6.30-8pm, Tuesday noon-2pm and 2-4pm, and Saturday 2-4pm.

Committee member Sandra Bigland said she was really grateful to the volunteers who helped out at the shop, but added: “We are always keen to extend the pool of folk we can call on to work at the recycling centre. We’d be delighted to hear from anyone who has some time to spare and would like to help out.”

For more information call Sandra on (01806) 522353 or call along the shop.

Brae hall open meeting

Committee members at the Brae hall are always keen to make sure that the excellent space and facilities at the hall are used to their best advantage by the community.

They would also like to welcome new folk to help run the hall and although Brae is a large community, the recent hall annual general meeting did not generate any new folk interested in joining the committee.

As a result, the current office bearers decided that now would be a good time to hold an open meeting to find out how people in the area would like to see the building used and how folk might be interested in assisting at the community hall.

Chairwoman Isobel Mowat said: “We’d really like to hear opinions from folk on what they’d like to see on in the hall and how we can go forward. Although we have some dedicated folk helping out at the hall now, we would always welcome extra pairs of hands.”

The meeting will take place in the hall on Wednesday at 7pm.

Winter youth club

Ollaberry youth club starts the weekly winter programme tonight in the Ollaberry hall.

The season will kick off with a quiz and hot chocolate night with prizes for the winners.

Junior sessions will be held from 6-8pm with a later session from 8-10pm for seniors and new members are always welcome.

Sullom sale

The annual Sullom and Gunnister hall sale of work takes place tomorrow at 2pm.

As well as a raffle and all the usual stalls including local produce, home bakes, bric-a-brac, tombola and books, tea and home bakes will also be served.

The hall will be open from 11am on the morning of the sale to accept donations.

Busy volunteers at Hillswick

The continued flurry of volunteer activity at Hillswick means the re-opening of the shop there is moving closer.

In the past week the lighting has all been replaced inside the shop and Robin Sinclair of Nort Trow Flooring and his team has started to screed the floor in readiness for the new flooring. By the time you read this today, the job of laying the lino should have started – no mean feat.

Us less skilled, but no less important, members of the crew, have been out with swabs, sugar soap and paint to freshen up all the areas that won’t be replaced and already things are looking good. Shelving should arrive mid week and Kenny and Ewan are working miracles with the old shop counter.

The only fly in the ointment is a delay in the installation date for the new electronic point of sale till system, but this will give folk a chance to carry out some jobs that were scheduled to be finished after the tills were in place.

The most important assets any business can have are the staff and the board of directors will be considering job application forms in midweek. They would like to remind anyone who is interested in applying for either the full-time manager post or the part-time positions to send their applications to the NCDC office at Greenbrae by Monday.

Hillswick hall meeting

On Sunday night the Hillswick hall committee will meet for the annual general meeting.

Although annual meetings are often a necessary evil for most folk involved, they are also an opportunity for folk to reflect on successes and the volume of events held in the halls over the past year. It is also an opportunity to plan for the coming year.

The past year has been a busy one at Hillswick with a large selection of events for all sections of the community, plans for a refurbishment and new car park as well as a wind turbine.

The committee is keen to welcome new members or anyone who doesn’t want to necessarily join a committee, but could spare a few hours of their time to help out.

The meeting will be held in the hall clubroom at 7.30pm.

Welcome to families

October heralded the arrival of two new families to Northmavine.

New head teacher at Urafirth Primary School, Wilma Missendon, arrived with husband Stuart and their two sons, aged nine and 12. Mrs Missendon takes over the post from acting head Joy Sinclair, who the school will miss very much.

Fellow Shetland Times columnist Lawrence Tulloch is now settling in at North Roe with his wife Margaret and honorary family member Alexa Fitzgibbon.

We understand there may be a delay in getting the broadband up and running at Bayview, so we reiterate the invitation to use the public access facilities at the NCDC office meantime.

A warm welcome is extended to both families.

Sales night

Next Wednesday there will be a fine chance to start the Christmas shopping early at a sales night in the Ollaberry hall.

The women of the Ollaberry SWRI have organised a large range of sales tables including Avon, Body Shop, Usborne Books, Partylite and Traid Craft.

The evening starts at 7pm and in addition to the sales tables there will also be a raffle and refreshments at eight o’clocks time.  All proceeds raised during the evening will go towards local SWRI funds and the island accommodation at Aberdeen Maternity Unit.

Maree Hay