• Agenda

Minutes of Meeting of the Gaelic Select Committee held in the Arainn Chaluim Chille Campus, Sabhal mor Ostaig, Skye on Friday 23 February 2007 at 11:00 am.

 

 

Mr H Fraser in the Chair

 

Preliminaries

 

1.           Apologies for Absence

 

Apologies for absence had been intimated on behalf of Mr R Saxon; Mr A Mackay; Mr W J Smith; Mrs S Slimon; and Dr M E M Foxley.

 

2.           Presentation of the Wallace Sword

 

Mr A Miller declared a non-financial interest in this item as a director of local radio station, Cuillin FM and remained in the meeting.

 

In Partnership with the Federation of Community Radio Stations and the Gaelic Media Service the Council operated a grant scheme to encourage community stations to produce innovative and varied Gaelic programmes. It was highlighted to Members that the scheme was trying to increase the uptake of those applying for a grant, as many of Scottish radio stations already producing Gaelic programmes had not yet applied.

 

A competition was held annually for the most innovative Gaelic programme, with the award for 2007 going to Two Lochs Radio, based in Gairloch. The winning group received a replica Sword, originally provided by Wallace Whisky, and £500.

 

The Select Committee NOTED that representatives from the station were unable to attend the meeting, but arrangements had been made to hand over the award.

 

3.           Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of the Feis Movement.

 

Mr A Cormack, Director of Feisean nan Gaidheal, informed Members of the background to the feis movement. The first feis event had been held on Barra in 1981 and involved 130 children learning song, music and dance from their native Gaelic culture. The event had grown exponentially and there were currently now over 40 Feisean throughout Scotland with some 13,000 young people involved in traditional Gaelic arts tuition each year. A book, edited by Kate Martin had been launched in December 2006 celebrating 25 years of the Feis movement and contained comments and memories of participants and tutors. Over a third of the contributions had been made in Gaelic and remained in Gaelic in the book with an English summary. The research for the book had built up a good archive of written, audio and visual material on how the movement had developed and an audio/visual summary of the material was made to Members.

 

The Council currently invested £87,830 per annum in the Feis movement either as core grant for Feisean nan Gaidheal, by way of grant aid to the individual Feisean, or for special projects. However assurances had been sought from Feisean nan Gaidheal that funding from the Council would continue following the local elections in May. Members were advised that a letter had been sent to the Chairman highlighting the concerns and a meeting was being sought with Council Officials and Members to discuss the continuation of funding. The letter provided details of how successful the organisation had been and its importance in introducing people to Gaelic language and culture.

 

At present the organisation employed 54 staff, including tutors, and delivered traditional music workshops at 186 primary schools, involving some 5,400 pupils as well as through events such as the Blas festival.

 

Members welcomed the presentation and during discussion made the following points:

 

·        praise was given to the achievements of the Feis movement and its success in introducing a wide range of young people to Gaelic through music and song;

·        many organisations were seeking assurances for secured funding beyond May 2007;

·        it was good to see many who attended Feisian as children had often returned as tutors later;

·        a study on the impact of the Feis on local economies;

·        a copy of the letter highlighting the funding concerns should be circulated to all Members of the Council.

 

The Select Committee NOTED

 

i.              the presentation;

ii.            a copy of the letter from Feisean nan Gaidheal  highlighting their funding concerns be circulated to all Members of the Council; and

iii.           that a meeting was being arranged between all those involved to discuss the continuation of funding towards Feisean nan Gaidheal beyond May 2007.

 

4.           Gaelic Media Service

 

Mr D Campbell, recently appointed Chief Executive of the Gaelic Media Service,attended the meeting and updated Members on progress towards establishing the proposed digital channel for Gaelic Broadcasting.

 

An overview was given on the background to establishing a digital Gaelic channel and the current provision of Gaelic programmes. The Gaelic Media Service was in talks with the BBC to launch a joint channel under the BBC licence. The channel would be a partnership between the two organisations and would be the first of its kind.

 

During a commissioning round in 2006, over 167 proposals from 23 different companies had been submitted to the GMS and 10 pilots for the successful proposals were currently in production. It was highlighted that further work would be required once the channel had been established to develop the content and range of programmes available. It was intended that the channel would be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with broadcasting undertaken on a variety of formats. It was likely, along with the new programmes being developed,  that good material from the archives would be used, as well as information pages, as part of the scheduling. The launch of the channel was currently being timetabled for late Autumn 2007. The format for broadcasting current affairs was currently under consideration, with possibilities of increasing the broadcasting of local news in Gaelic, or news with a current affairs agenda behind it.

 

In response to questions, it was explained that the channel was likely to be available on Sky, Cable and online, although exact details had yet to be confirmed. Broadcasting the channel on Freeview was not considered to be an option as the service had reached capacity for public service channels and buying commercial space on which to broadcast the channel would be too expensive.

 

Members were also advised that, as part of investing in Gaelic Broadcasting, the GMS intended to look at production and training facilities opportunities in Stornoway and Sabhal mor Ostaig. The aim was to develop first class facilities that would encourage more production companies to the north of Scotland.

 

During discussion Members welcomed the work done to date and looked forward to the launch of the new channel.

 

The Select Committee NOTED the current position of the Gaelic Media Service and the work that had been done toward establishing a Gaelic Media Channel.

 

5.           A Strategy for Scotland’s Languages: Public Consultation

 

There had been circulated Report No GSC 05/07 by the Gaelic Development Officer indicating that, in the Partnership Agreement, Scottish Ministers had made a commitment to introduce a national language strategy to guide the development and support of languages currently in use in Scotland, which included British Sign Language and other minority languages. The aim of the strategy was to celebrate and promote the rich diversity of languages spoken in Scotland. The report set out details of a public consultation by the Scottish Executive on a strategy for languages in Scotland and invited comment on the proposals. The consultation was due to close on 19 March 2007.

 

The Select Committee welcomed the proposals and NOTED that a report on the consultation would be submitted to the Education, Culture Committee on 8 March 2007.

 

6.           Gaelic Language Act – Implementation Fund

 

There had been circulated Report No 06/07 by the Area Manager Skye and Lochalsh, which detailed the list of projects which explained that at its meeting on 14 September 2006, the Select Committee had considered and prioritised projects related to the draft of the Council’s Gaelic Language Plan which were to be submitted to Bord na Gaidhlig for funding. A summary indicating the position of each of the projects was given to Members.

 

The Committee NOTED the list of projects and conveyed their thanks to the staff involved in Gaelic Development for their work in developing a wide variety of projects.

 

7.            Tobar an Dualchais / A Kist of Riches

 

There has been circulated Report No 07/07 by the Area Manager Skye and Lochalsh setting out the background to the Tobar an Dualchais, a multi agency project to digitise material from some on the key Scottish and Gaelic Heritage collections. The report explained that the project was managed from Sabhal Mor Ostaig with bases in both Uist and Edinburgh. Project staff attended the meeting and explained how the project had developed and demonstrated the accessibility of some of the early digitised material.

 

Mrs E Mackay, Copyright Officer for the project, attended the meeting and updated Members on how the project was developing. At the conclusion of the three year project, it was intended to have digitalised over 12,000 hours of recordings, with material coming from the School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh; the BBC archives and the Canna collection from the National Trust. Examples of the types of material available were played to Members. One of the key issues for the project was to identify the copyright owners, as most people where unaware of the copyright regulations.

 

During discussion, Members welcomed the work done so far and indicated that work should be done in conjunction with preparations for the Highland Year of Homecoming in 2009 and with the current development of a Council wide Archive Strategy. Members emphasised the need to digitalise the material from Feisian events and to work with young people to gather information and sound recordings of local heritage, stories and music.

 

It was indicated that work was underway by Feisean nan Gaidheal to create an archive of Feisean recordings that would create a record of the events for posterity.

 

The Committee NOTED the presentation and AGREED work should be done to ensure effective coordination with the preparations for 2009 and with the Council’s Archive Strategy.

 

8.            Review of Issues addressed by the Gaelic Select Committee 2003-2007

 

There had been circulated Report No 08/07 indicating that, during the current term of the Council, the Gaelic Select Committee had considered a wide range of topics related to the Gaelic Language and Culture. The report reviewed the issues discussed and pursued during the past four years.

 

Some of the key issues pursued by the Select Committee, and some of the Gaelic related projects and initiatives the Committee became involved in, included:  

 

·        Initiatives to increase the number of Primary and Secondary Gaelic Medium Teachers;

·        Involvement in the preparation of the Gaelic Language Act;

·        Creation of the Council’s Gaelic Language Plan;

·        Policy on Support for the Royal National Mod and agreement on a circuit of venues;

·        Policy on bilingual signage and publications;

·        Implementation of the Council’s Gaelic and Early Years Strategy;

·        Creation and extension of the Mairi Mhor Gaelic Song Fellowship;

·        Setting up of Ainmean Aite na h-Alba (Gaelic Place Names Committee);

·        Contribution to Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Gaelic;

·        Lobbying for a new digital channel for Gaelic television;

·        A fund to provide bursaries to students studying Gaelic at UHIMI colleges;

·        Submission to European Charter on Minority Languages;

·        Jointly hosting with Bord na Gaidhlig the 2006 EBLUL Conference “Partnership for Diversity”;

·        Conference celebrating 20 years of Gaelic Medium Education;

·        Work with Careers Scotland to promote career opportunities linked to Gaelic;

·        Second Iain Crichton Smith Bilingual Writing Fellowship;

·        Gaelic Language opportunities for Council staff; and

·        Research commissioned to identify new ways to support use of Gaelic in the home and community.

 

The Select Committee NOTED the projects and initiatives undertaken by the Committee during the current term of the Council.

 

In closing the meeting the Chairman conveyed the appreciation of the Committee for the work done by Officials in successfully addressing a wide range of issues during the current term of the Council.

 

 

The meeting closed at 1:15pm.