Oct 062017
 

With thanks to Eoin Smith, Senior Account Executive, Tricker PR

From channelling their inner squirrels to playing detective on the trail of secretive beasties, children from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire required colourful imaginations as they took up the challenge to go ‘green’ at Castle Fraser.
The National Trust for Scotland property hosted a series of workshops for over 300 primary school youngsters as part of its annual environmental education event.

The historic castle near Inverurie has been hosting the Going Green initiative in partnership with Total E&P UK for the past eight years. The programme for this year’s event was one of the most diverse to date.

Castle Fraser property manager Paula Swan said:

“The workshops were designed to stimulate the imagination of children, helping them learn about important environmental issues in a fun and creative way.

“The workshops support the Curriculum for Excellence but show that learning about these topics – and promoting environmental responsibility both now and in the future – don’t have to take place in the classroom.

“Over the years that we have been hosting this event we have welcomed hundreds of school children through our doors. Who knows, Going Green may have even inspired some of our future conservationists, biologists and environmental experts.

“We are pleased that we once again hosted Going Green with the support of Total, continuing the very strong and successful partnership which sees us working together to raise environmental awareness at an early age.

“Total has been extremely dedicated to working with Castle Fraser and because of the company’s commitment to the project, thousands of primary school pupils have been able to learn about the importance of the natural world around them.”

Sandra McLennan, corporate social responsibility leader at Total E&P UK, added:

“TEPUK is thrilled to support the NTS in our combined effort to promote the benefits of outdoor learning in the beautiful setting of Castle Fraser. We are especially pleased that the NTS was able to extend Going Green from two days to three to capture the imagination of more children this year.” 

The great outdoors was the classroom for the school pupils, with activities including:

  • Buzzing with the Bees – a chance for children to learn more about the important role that bees play in the eco-system with the Kemnay Beekeepers who have hives at the castle.
  • Minibeast Masterclass – a hunt for minibeasts during which the pupils will discover what all the different beasties eat at Castle Fraser…including other species.
  • Hidden Wildlife – playing detective and finding out what animals get up to at night by looking for tracks and signs.
  • Making Music – a workshop that will hit the right note with youngsters as it allows them to make instruments out of recyclable goods before learning how to play them.
  • Secret Life of Squirrels – pupils learn if they have what it takes to make a good squirrel in an interactive workshop in which they will make their own dreys, hide and store cones, and gather their own food.
  • Can You Survive? – Mar Lodge Estate Rangers give tips on the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, and give pointers on making dens and surviving in the wild.  

There were also workshops to show how to make dens and survive in the wild, and where pupils could learn how to plant flowers and vegetables, and then nurture them.

Castle Fraser – the ancestral home of the Fraser family – is a baronial castle dating back to the 15th century.

As well as its extensive grounds which include the secret woodland garden, walled garden and estate trails, there are many highlights inside the property, such as the Great Hall, an extensive library and a room packed full of 18th century embroideries.

The National Trust for Scotland is the charity that celebrates and protects Scotland’s heritage. It relies on the support of its members and donors to carry out its important work of caring for the natural and built heritage of Scotland for everyone to enjoy.

You can join the National Trust for Scotland for as little as £7.50 per month for a family. To become a member, visit http://www.nts.org.uk/Join/Benefits/.

You can make a difference and help protect everything in our care. Donate online at https://www.nts.org.uk/Donations/

  • Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.
Sep 072017
 

Popular Aberdeen based ceilidh band Iron Broo will provide the music for the World’s Largest Strip The Willow. Photo credit: Janie Barclay.

With thanks to National Trust for Scotland.

Do you want to be a Guinness World Record Breaker? On Saturday 9th of September we will be attempting the Largest Strip the Willow at Castle Fraser and we need YOU.

In the year 2000 Edinburgh broke the record with 1,914 people during their Hogmanay. We are ready to bring the record to Aberdeenshire.

So save the date and get your dancing shoes at the ready!

Organiser Paula Swan said:

“I can’t wait to see it. It was a little idea we had last year and only last week we got confirmation from Guinness World Records to say we could do it.

“Now it’s a reality and we’re really excited about pulling it together, and the responses we’ve had so far have been fantastic.”

She added:

“The great thing about Castle Fraser is you can stand on the tower, so we’re planning on filming it.

“We’re also going to fly drones across the field to really capture all the people having fun.”

By signing up for a ticket you are signing to take part in our attempt. You will still have to register on the day to collect your band. Tickets are free to attend however, there is a £2 parking fee.

Due to the nature of this record attempt participants must be 10 years and over. If you are a business or group and would like to register a team to take part please get in contact with castlefraser@nts.org.uk

Registration: Opens at 12:00pm and closes at 1:30pm for a 2:00pm record breaking kick off.

There will be catering vans and activities to help you to warm up and stay limber. Please keep in mind that we do live in Scotland so dress for the weather. We will be going ahead with our attempt regardless of the weather, so please bring suitable clothing and footwear as you will be dancing on grass. Ponchos will be available to buy on the day if you do require one.

Tickets are limited, booking essential.

The event would not be possible without the hard work and contribution of the following people;

– Iron Broo; who are performing the lovely ceilidh music that will help us strip that willow
– STV’s Andrea Brymer; who will be hosting the event
– Deeside Caledonia will be performing before we kick off the attempt
– Gordon School of Dancing will be showing us all how it’s done before the attempt
– A-line will be providing all AV and Tech support to make this event possible
– Mike Gall Transport for providing the staging required
– Fennel Media who will be filming the amazing attempt

Let’s do this Aberdeenshire!

  • Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.
Dec 212011
 

A £15m debt? Plans to move to new premises that have not convinced the customers and neighbours? Under-performing product? Surely such an organisation’s AGM would see calls for change at the top, summary dismissals, a new financial model? Normally yes, but this is football where normal capitalist business practice is forgotten. David Innes reports from the Dons AGM held on Monday 19 December.

This was, Chairman Stewart Milne declared, the 108th AGM of Aberdeen Football Club. It is the sixteenth of these since the first major share issue of 1996, but whereas the 1996 meeting had to be held in the Capitol to accommodate the hundreds who attended, the 108th meeting quorum was comfortably contained in just one half of Pittodrie’s Europa Lounge.

The systemic stuff, in the form of seven resolutions, was over in a trice. The three directors – Messrs Fraser, Little and Matheson – retiring by rotation were re-elected without opposition, the appointment of two new directors in Colin Welsh and Ian Jack were ratified and the boring accounts drollery was nodded through.

So, to the main course and questions from the floor.

As expected, directors were asked for information on views on debt, Loirston, public relations, the team’s under-achievement, the onfield disciplinary record and the possibility of introducing standing sections in the new build.

There is still an admitted funding gap in the budget for relocation, but we were assured that the bank-demanded milestones relating to this were achievable and that initial construction work was expected to start, on target, in April 2012. The funding needed for the new ground will not affect the football budget which Craig Brown publicly admitted was the fourth best in the SPL and certainly less than his budget when he was Motherwell manager.

On the £2.5m loan extended to the club by the companies run by Milne and fellow director Hugh Little, the latter was blunt in his assessment. This loan, he said, helped Aberdeen retain its football budget at planned levels whilst income had not reached targets, in a time when rivals in Dundee, Edinburgh and elsewhere are cutting theirs.

He mentioned administration as a consequence of living beyond a club’s means. One imagines he had in mind Motherwell’s administration which now sees them in a European place in the SPL, having paid only a percentage of its creditors’ bills post-administration, with morally-suspect consequences for local suppliers. Or perhaps he was thinking of Hearts, where currently payment of staff wages seems to be a monthly option rather than a contractual obligation.

negative press and broadcast publicity from certain media outlets and individuals was difficult to counter

The manager told shareholders that if there were complaints about performance and league position, they should be addressed to him, as the board had accepted his every request for stretching the bounds of his budget, including the recruitment of full backs a year ago and the signings of Chalali, Fallon and Gonzalez.

The responsibility, quite clearly, was his.

On disciplinary issues, nobody disputed his analysis of the sendings off to date in 2011-12. He admitted that his orders to players not to appeal decisions may have cost them dearly and that referees may well “mistake kindness for softness”. Willie Miller conceded that football has radically changed in terms of tackling since he was the nemesis of strikers and that referees were now almost unable to leave unpenalised a “hard but fair tackle”. The big girlies.

The directors and manager agreed too that negative press and broadcast publicity from certain media outlets and individuals was difficult to counter but that the only alternative is to improve the playing record.

That sums it up. Whether or not they are shareholders, fans are only interested in the so-called “football operation”, business-speak for “fitba”. Home games can be held in surroundings replicating the Nou Camp or the old Linksfield, but we don’t care as long as the Reds are fighting like young tigers for the cause we share. We could have the best or worst corporate facilities in the whole of Scotland and it matters not a whit if we’re scoring one more than our opponents.

That was best illustrated by the largely-unexpected easy ride given to those in charge. We’ve just beaten St Johnstone and Hibs and have the good old collective sense of injustice on our side again, following some rather rum refereeing decisions.

Football fans don’t ask for much more, but one wonders if next year the club’s custodians will get it so easy if results remain the same and stadium development and other “non-football operation” activity takes over as priority.

Oct 212011
 

Old Susannah looks back over a week in Aberdeen which felt like a month whizzing by in a day and wonders how much of it was real, and how much more connectivity she can make sense of.

The past week in the Granite City was as vibrant and dynamic as you could have hoped for.  There were walks and photos on Tullos Hill, and photos taken on Belmont Street, to the outrage of security guards.

The opening of the exhibition at the Pier (that’s one of the empty shops at the Academy shopping centre in case you didn’t know) for the six design finalists was of course the pinnacle of everyone’s week if not existence.

On the VIP ONLY opening day, an entire 5 people showed up before 9am to marvel at the designs.

These were our very own Lord Provost, Jennifer Craw, Aileen ‘Ho’Malone, Kate Dean, and a charming blonde woman with clipboard, supposed by many to be Zoe Corsi from the BIG Partnership.

It was as if all my Halloweens had come at once.

She saw me about to take a photo (yes, I fully admit I was going to take a picture, it is a fair cop) and came out of the building to tell me photos weren’t allowed.  Laughingly I told her that I was on a public street.  To teach me a good lesson I shan’t soon forget, she said ‘OK then’ and obligingly struck a pose.  I feel obliged to reproduce it here, along with the picture that Security initially banned.

Look away now if you are of a sensitive disposition.  It all becomes clear why they were so keen to stop me.

There are six finalists.  The competition was very, very stiff (so stiff I suspect rigor mortis had set in), and there were many good submissions.

But there can be only six. Choosing these finalists was very difficult, and a bit of an agonising process as well, I don’t mind admitting.  And I put my hand up – there is no way I could do a better job than any of these finalists; and probably could not have done as well as they did either.

All are to be congratulated for getting this far, and I mean that sincerely.

Without further ado here are the six finalists – for the best reviews of the preposterous, ridiculous, unworkable, ugly, childish, regressive, anti-elegant pieces of tripe which were shortlisted to destroy Union Terrace Gardens.

1.  The Monolith

A beautiful and concise summary of the design which looks like a game of Jenga played badly at 3am.  Nothing to do with Aberdeen.  Even less to do with the garden.  Everything to do with’ 2001: A Space Odyssey’.    In the words of those on Facebook (which all the young people use for ‘connectivity’ and so on), the Monolith design is something ‘we can worship at the foot of’.

The supporters of Monolith are 30 strong,  at the time of writing, the Official City Garden Project Exhibition Facebook site has 68 members.  Yes, that’s right:  the ‘silent majority’ who want the gardens built on have come out in full force.  Please do visit the Monolith Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/VOTEMONOLITH?sk=wall for a full set of photos, and some colourful prose.

2.  The Alternative City Gardens Design Contest

The artwork here is superior to anything you will see in the Pier.  The people who created this page understand design principles, scale, colour and aesthetics to a degree our shortlisted official designers can only dream of.  There are pterodactyls, sunken Statue of Liberties, giant slides, flying saucers and other elements worthy of your attention.  The designs I see on this page are as affordable, attainable and desirable as anything you will find in the Pier.  Please register your approval at:

https://www.facebook.com/VOTEMONOLITH?sk=wall#!/pages/Alternative-City-Gardens-Design-Contest/251979328187602 At present this worthy effort has 40 people who like it.  Do scroll all the way down, or you might miss the ‘Colossus of Woods’.  Beautiful and stirring.  And I do like stirring.

3. TeletubbyLand

I nearly spat out my Tubby ‘ustard and Tubby toast when I came across this entry, immediately shortlisted as one of the six finalists.

Yes, someone has gone back to the set of the Teletubbies and re-created all those walkways.  I see no potential problems with concrete walkways ascending and descending some 50 feet or better above the gardens.  No one will fall, jump, slip or be pushed; they will be great for bobsled practice in the winter, and police will be able to respond to any crime on the ground in seconds.

If we covered these great concrete slabs with something to stop anyone throwing empty beer cans at those below, then we’d have a giant cage.  Result!  A Facebook poster has revealed that Tinky Winky is the mysterious £5 million pound donor towards the garden project going ahead.  To this particular vision of our future, just say ‘Po.’

I only hope there will be a chance in all of this for me to attend an event where the designer(s) of Teletubbyland have to explain to a room full of grown-ups just what they were thinking.

Oh, and as reminder, for the shortlisted designers, a prize is awarded of somewhere in the region of £135,000.  £135,000 for a drawing of the set of a kids’ tv show or a monolith.  I must go find a definition of either ‘value for money’ or ‘old rope.’   Dipsy would be proud.

4.  The Giant Glass Worm on ‘The Future Is Here’

We aren’t supposed to reveal who any of these creative masterminds are, but when you visit this website – which is a must – you will soon realise that No. 4 and No. 5 of my shortlist are both by this design giant.  His observation of the glass structure proposed somehow to cover pedestrians, cars and trains may be one of the worthiest submissions yet:

“The worm doesn’t actually devour the humans, It appears to simply wine and dine them. Like a giant larval bad date” – Fraser Denholm

Obviously there won’t be any issues with air quality, safety, cleanliness (or just plain stupidity) if we make a giant glass worm cover people, trains and cars.   Will smell lovely inside I’m certain.  Birds will persuaded not to deface the beautiful worm by either defecating on it or crashing into it.  Likewise vandals would never be tempted to do anything to a giant glass structure covering a road or train track.  Why didn’t we think of this sooner?

Hats off to you Mr Denholm.  A job at Foster & Partner surely awaits.

The best part of the serious submission is some giant banners in the worm’s body which for no particular reason read ‘science’  on them.  These will soon be for sale as tea towels in every city centre souvenir shop which this project will deliver.
http://fraserdenholm.blogspot.com/2011/10/future-is-here.html

5.  ‘I can’t believe it’s not Halliday Fraser Munro!’ (the underground bunker with no ventilation and with trees without roots growing on top of it).

Mr Denholm delivers some spectacular laughs, but we do have only six places on the shortlist.  His prose is brief on this lovely design, but is incisive.

This design gives us all the underground lifestyle we can only dream of – no sun, no natural light, and not even any air vents of note, for if they were included, they would be very large and visible in the garden.  The garden features giant trees which very thoughtfully don’t  need to have any roots.  Most plants have underground parts that are at least as large as their ‘aerial’ parts.  Not these ones.

Four-hundred-year-old trees are so yesterday

Get rid of those, the things living in them, and get some of these magic, rootless trees.  Denholm also correctly identifies the rice paddies (they can’t be anything but) which grace another shortlisted design.

With all this connectivity business,  I’m starting to wonder whether all these people pushing the project forward are in some way ‘connected.’  Maybe even well connected.

6.  The Garden of Earthly Delights (H Bosch)

Normally in an important competition, it would be wrong to include yourself, friends or family members, but this is my late-breaking entry for the competition.  It’s not as if there are any family ties between the official competition companies, entities, sponsors, backers and so on.

Feel free to vote for my design, which is also on the Alternative Garden Project site.

I think it nicely captures the place where the garden scheme movers and shakers are heading.  And it’s got a space for musical performances, and access at all sides.

When you do visit the Pier, pay attention to all the lovely drawings.  See the trees that cannot exist if something is built under them.  See the lovely people walking around casually, just like you’ll be doing in February.

See the complete absence of logic.  If Star Trek’s Mr Spock were real and went to this show, he’d have a breakdown.  Comfort yourself with the fact there are several good pubs nearby.  You will need one.

And there you have it.  I have sadly taken up so much space with the finalists that there is only room for one definition.  For some reason this sprang to mind.

Boycott

(noun, verb – modern English)  to embargo, ban or cease trade or activities with a person, company or entity. 

Folks – has someone or some company taken advantage of your good nature for too long?  Is, say, a football mogul asking you to ultimately pay (via an ‘uplift’ in retail tax) to turn your Victorian garden into Teletubby land?  Has such a person sent letters to the press ‘warning’ that unless we build a monolith or worm, the city is going to fail?  Has a certain chemist likewise said that a concrete spider web will save us and we must all stick to it?  Has a certain councillor said that you need to support a monolith and monorail?  Has a hotelier called you a luddite NIMBY for not wanting a big bunker in er, your backyard?

Whatever can you do about it?

Well, if you wanted, you could boycott these and other like-minded businesses and business people.  Don’t shop with them.  Don’t use their premises.  Don’t for the love of Pete vote for them.  Don’t spend your hard-earned money to watch their football team lose, and don’t (for many reasons) buy a house from them.

If everyone were to boycott people who used their power in ways the public did not wish, then things would change.  And not into a giant worm either.

Next week:  who knows?

Reminders: 
1. Please keep your artwork coming for the Union Terrace Gardens art contest, which (because of lots of stuff) has not closed yet.  Alternative designs for the garden project most welcome.
2. Anti-deer cull postcards still available – get in touch if you need some; I know where they can be found.