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North
Tolsta Historical Society
AGM 28 th February 2005
Chairman's
Report
Welcome
to the AGM and thanks to
committee members for their work
throughout
the year. A special thanks for your good wishes and
your
support
during the weeks last year when I was incapacitated due to
ill
health.
1.Projects
•
Young
Historians
Two group leaders, Nina Moir and
John
A. Maciver, were employed in October 2003 to run
this
project, which is funded by LEADER+, Better
Neighbourhood
Scheme Fund and the Comann Eachdraidh.
The project is due to end in April 2005. In May
last year
John
A. resigned because of increased work commitments
and
Nina continued as sole leader, submitting regular
progress
reports to our committee. This 18-month project
has been very successful, receiving accolades from several
groups.
The youngsters hope to continue with their
involvement in the Historical Society after April and
we certainly
welcome
and appreciate their input.
•
Tolsta
Bardachd
Marsali Macleod started work on the
substantial
collection of village bàrdachd, collected
by the
committee, on 26
th April 2004 .
Angus Macleod has been
editing
and proof reading her work as required. This work
will
continue through 2005. It is financed by Gaidhlig
sa
Choimhearsneachd
(£3,360), CNES (£600) and Comann
Eachdraidh
Tholastaidh (£240).
•
Local
Walks Some
members of the committee
accompanied Susan Rabe, Project Officer CNES, round
various
walks in October. Funding will be granted for
this
development, but at the moment we are awaiting details.
2.Functions
•
Bill
Lawson Talk on Genealogy This
interesting talk
took
place in the Community Hall on Friday
12 th March
2004
and a video recording was produced by the young
Historians.
•
Classic
Cars Visit
This was part of the Community
Council May Holiday Fun Day in the hall. Members
of
the
Historical Society met with the car drivers at the
Garry
Bridge
and John Morrison, New Tolsta gave a
short,
interesting talk on the history of the bridge.
The
Young Historians prepared a display on the Leverhulme
Bridge
in the Community Hall.
•
Meeting
of Merchant Seamen in Stornoway This
social
evening was sponsored by Project nan Sgeulachdan
and
the Historical Society arranged a minibus to take the
seamen
to the British Legion on Friday 5 th November.
A good time was had by all, as seamen met up with
friends from the Butt to Barra.
3.Income
Seanchas
and private donations pay for our running costs.
We
print 400 copies of Seanchas every quarter. There are
now 78
subscriptions
to Seanchas. We are very grateful to all those who
supported us throughout the year by buying Seanchas and by
making
donations
to our funds.
4.Special
Interest Groups
This
is ongoing throughout the year. The Young Historians
have
developed
further the Fishing Records and collected some wedding photos.
5.Membership,
Visitors and Visits
We
now have 352 members.
We
had visitors from the island, the mainland and from abroad
during
the
course of the year and they were all grateful for the time
we spent
with
them. Many more friends and supporters throughout the
world
have
made contact with us by e-mail through our website, usually
looking
for information on their roots. We now have more control
over
our website and since last July we have been able to edit
all
the
pages on the site. I would like to thank Ruairidh,
Marsali and
Rhoda for keeping the site up to date. The site experienced
problems
over the past few weeks, but hopefully these have
all
been resolved.
I
attended all the meetings of the Caidreachas Eachdraidh.
Representatives
also attended meetings in the Lews
Castle
College
/
Woodlands Centre/ Town Hall/ Museum nan Eilean
mainly
to do with the Links Project.
6.Database
AGM 2005 AGM
2004
Pre-school
children
30 32
School
age children
64 65
16-18
year olds
11
7
18-59
year olds
244
242
Over
60s
140
140
TOTAL
489
486
Births
4
6
Deaths
7
11
Holiday
Homes
16
13
Unoccupied
Homes
5
5
Thanks
again to all those who contributed to a successful year
at
the Comann Eachdraidh.
Donald
Murray
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