Rural Community Gateway

In Rural Round Up 93, we reported on a new shop that is sprucing up food and drink in Moffat. Zacharry’s mainly sells products made from the family forest, including spruce burgers!

The shop has already featured on the BBC's Landward programme and in the Soil Association magazine – their forest is the only one in the world to be registered organic!

And if you fancy trying some of the spruce teas, ice cream, bath products and more you can now order online from the Zacharry’s website.

Young rangers coming to Cairngorms National Park

More than 40 young countryside rangers from all across Europe will be coming to the Cairngorms National Park at the end of July. The EUROPARC Junior Ranger Camp will be in the area for the first time from 26th July to 3rd August 2008 at the Glen Tanar Estate in Aberdeenshire.

The EUROPARC camp will see young rangers aged 14 to 18 take part in a range of activities including adventurous outdoor activities, nature conservation work and cultural events. Young people from Kingussie, Aboyne, Alford, Brechin and Inverness are among those taking part.

EUROPARC is the umbrella organisation for Europe’s protected areas, bringing together national parks, regional parks and reserves in 38 countries with the common aim of protecting Europe’s wildlife, habitats and landscapes.

Get on the ceilidh trail this summer

The Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trail is underway. Traditional Highland musicians kicked off the trail on 14th July at Muirtown Basin Marina in Inverness. Nearly 50 events make up the Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trail, which will finish with an event for the Blas Festival at Farr Hall near Inverness on Saturday 13th September.

Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trail is a traditional music project organised by the Highland Council in association with British Waterways (Scotland) and working in partnership with TMC Folk and lottery funded by the Scottish Arts Council.

Councillor Bill Fernie, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee said, "The Glens will be alive to the sound of traditional music this summer with the return of the ever successful Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trail. This is an excellent platform for our young and talented Highland traditional musicians to showcase their skills and expertise whilst contributing at the same time to the cultural diversity of the Highland tourism market."

To find out more about the Ceilidh Trail band and get details of events and locations go to the Highland Council website. Copies of the trail programme are available from Highland Council Service Points of by calling 01463 724 314.

Nominate now for Scottish Green Energy Awards

You can now make your nominations for the Scottish Green Energy Awards 2008. The awards are organised by Scottish Renewables to highlight and celebrate the achievements of trailblazing organisations in the renewables field.

You can make your nominations for the following awards:

• Best Politician Award
• Best New Business Award
• Best Environmental Initiative Award
• Best Renewable Energy Project Award
• Best Community Initiative Award
• Business Achievement Award
• Best Renewable Innovation Award
• Best Student Project Award
• Outstanding Contribution to the Industry Award

You can make your nominations online until Friday 3rd October 2008. For more details on the awards go the Green Energy Awards website, email event@scottishrenewables.com or call 0141 222 7921.

For the past year NLP Highland and Rosie O’Hara of Forres have been working closely with Elgin Academy on Motivation and Setting Goals.

They are using two basic elements of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming – how we experience the world using the five senses and apply all kinds of filters to it either to do well or not so well) to enable students to understand more about why they do what they do and how to improve their thoughts, confidence and motivation

Rosie explains, "Many teenagers are more or less goal-less. And if they do have goals, those goals may not be 'well-formed' or clearly thought out. The students need to understand that if you just drift along in life, one day you'll wake up to something you never wanted! So it's important to be clear about what you want and the steps you'll need to take to achieve it, as well as having a contingency plan."

NLP Highland and Rosie’s work with the young people has recently made it into an international NLP magazine. Go to the NLP Highland website for more information.

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