Corrigall Farm museum

The Corrigall Farm Museum held a special Strae Day on Sunday.

The event, which featured demonstrations of straw crafts and live music, enabled visitors to see simmons rope being hand made.

The straw ropes being made are part of a project for re-roofing the “Crow’s Nest” at Rackwick, Hoy in June, led by Paul Newman of the Scottish Vernacular Buildings Trust.

The images were recovered from SMS Karlsruhe a World War I cruiser, after recreational diver spotted them on the wreck and passed the information to Historic Scotland.

A preliminary dive was carried out in October 2003 to bring up a small number of the papers to test that conservation was possible. This operation was successful and Historic Scotland contracted local company SULA Diving to retrieve the rest of the photographs.

Click here for more details

The visiting tankers in Scapa Flow

Police inquiries are continuing after the death of a crewman on board one of the oil tankers involved in the ship-to-ship transfer operations in Scapa Flow.

The man, a foreign national, collapsed on board the vessel late Thursday night, where attempts to resucitate him failed.

A police spokesman confirmed there are no suspicious circumstances and that no further details are being released until the man's next of kin have been informed.

The funding, announced by Communities Minister Margaret Curran, is part of a national £17.7 million investment programme.

Margaret Curran said: "The focus of this programme is to target money at disadvantaged communities where the need is greatest and to help people on low incomes to rent or buy a house."

Members of the recreation and cultural services committee were considering the creation and possible venue for the project - with the former Orkney Library building in Laing Street remaining the "preferred option".

A Kirkwall butcher has scooped four awards in a recent national competition.

George Donaldson & Sons picked up two golds, a silver and a bronze at the Make it with Meat awards for a range of their sausages.

Scottish Hydro-Electric have appointed a new manager to run its operations in the Highlands and Islands.

Mark Rough, who has been the operations manager in Orkney for the past three years, said he was looking forward to the challenges of the new post.

The owners of the Ayre Hotel are in discussions with a fellow hotelier over a possible takeover.

Roy and Moira Dennison have said: "We can confirm that Dawn Flett has expressed an interest in purchasing our shares in the Ayre Hotel."

Ms Flett owns the West End Hotel and leases the Albert Hotel.

A busy week for Scapa Flow kicked off on Thursday with the first of a series of ship-to-ship oil transfers.

On Thursday, the vessels Narodny Bridge, Indra, Izmaylovo and the Moskovsky Festival transferred more than 140,000 tonnes of fuel oil between them.

The future of GP services in the outer isles has again been thrown into chaos - with NHS Orkney facing a mass resignation of rural doctors unable to sign new medical services contracts.

While some GPs have agreed to a temporary solution they say they are still unsure what lies ahead, in the long term, when their current contracts expire next Thursday.

GPs Tony Trickett and Pail Kettle from Hoy have said this week that several members of NHS Orkney and the Scottish Executive regard isles practices as "an expensive luxury" which could be covered from the Mainland.

Planning permission for six new wind turbines at Rothiesholm in Stronsay has been granted - but islands' councillors have imposed a number of conditions on the project.

But the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage are maintaining their original objections, which include concerns for the welfare of local birdlife.

The completion of the project, by Farm Energy Ltd, will see a total of nine turbines on Stronsay.

Hall of Clestrain, Stenness

Ambitious plans to create a major new boat museum in Orphir moved forward this week following a meeting of the Orkney Boat Museum steering group.

The project will also see the renovation of the Hall of Clestrain - the former home of Orcadian explorer Dr John Rae - with the long derelict 18th century building forming part of the proposed museum grounds.

The steering group met on Wednesday morning and agreed to form a new company, with former Orkney Islands Council convener Hugh Halcro-Johnston as chairman, to progress the multi-million pound project.

Thirty drivers have been caught by an undercover road policing unit who have been in the county this week.

The unit travelled the Mainland roads for two days this week, issuing fixed penalties for defective vehicles, seatbelt offences, speeding and vehicle tax offences.

A police spokesman said: "The message there is that complacency can seriously injure your health and your pocket."

Stromness, Holm and St Margaret's Hope have now passed their broadband trigger levels, meaning all Orkney areas with set trigger levels have achieved them.

Ready for service (RFS) dates will now be set - BT currently have a backlog of RFS dates, but have said they will have a plan in place to cope with the greater than anticipated demand by the end of March.

Despite the backlog, some RFS dates that have been set already have been pulled forward, so the hope is that the triggered exchanges will be enabled in the next few months.

Orkney Ferries' vessel Earl Sigurd is back in service, but it will still be some time before the sailings to the North Isles return to normal.

The Earl Sigurd was removed from service in December 2003 following an engine failure. This left two ferries covering the North Isles, a situation that stretched Orkney Ferries resources and left many islanders unhappy with the service.

But although the Earl Sigurd is back, the Varagen, followed by the Earl Thorfinn, now have to be sent south for annual refit - leaving the current two vessel service until the refit period is over.

Islands councillors deferred a decision on fitting sprinkler systems in care homes and have called for a more detailed fire report.

Members of Tuesday's social services and housing committee heard that new regulations require sprinkler systems in all new care homes - a move that follows the Rosepark Care Home fire in Uddingston in January, where 14 residents died.

The OIC report recommended that although there is no statutory requirement to install sprinklers in existing homes, they should be installed at a cost of £979,000.

But councillors were not convinced this would fully address safety issues so deferred the decision for a more detailed report.

The Pictish Man

Two new Pictish carvings from Burray will go on display in the island's Fossil and Vintage Centre later this month.

The tiny carvings were discovered on the toe-bone of an ox when bone specialist Dave Lawrence was working through a selection of bones recovered from the Bu Sands in Burray in the 1980s.

Dating from 6th or 7th centuries AD, the carvings show two figures - a man's head and a w1alking man in a tunic.

The Peedie Pict and other Bu Sands finds will be exhibited at the Fossil Centre from March 27 to May 3.

External link: A New Pictish Figure from the Bu Sands

Councillor Stephen Hagan

Orkney Islands Council has set up a working group to address concerns surrounding escalating house prices and the Orkney's shortage of housing.

The group is headed by OIC convener Stephen Hagan, who said it had been prompted directly by the growing concern of Orkney residents.

He added: "The increasing shortage of housing in the county and rising prices of property is becoming a pressing problem that we need to address with some urgency. There are a number of issues around housing that the council needs to debate and discuss and I am confident that we can come up with some workable solutions."

Orkney Quality Food and Drink (OQFD) has appointed a co-ordinator to orchestrate a number of promotional activities in the county this summer.

Ida Seator from Sandwick will liaise with local retailers and producers in a county-wide attempt to highlight the variety of products and the ways that Orkney firms are presenting these to the public.

OQFD chairman Stewart Crichton explained that although there has tended to be an emphasis on promotion outside Orkney, it is equally important that locals and visitors recognise the role the Orkney brand has in supporting key industries.

Several Orkney firms have received the letter, which states that their website domain name (e.g. www.orcadian.co.uk) is about to expire, and suggests that they should send a sum of money to continue the registration.

While it is usually correct in saying that the domain name is due to expire, the person sending out the notices is not the person with whom the domain name was originally registered.

The £35,000 project in Clestrain Sound is the brainchild of former fisherman Neil Matheson. But his plans to feed a growing demand for the seafood delicacy now rely on mussels growing naturally to provide the shellfish "stock" he plans to harvest in 18 months' time.

Among the supporters of the project was Orkney Enterprise, whose senior development manager Michael Reid said: "The project will add to the range of quality food products being exported from Orkney."

A report is being submitted to the procurator fiscal after a man's body was found on the shore of Weyland Bay on Sunday evening.

The body of Sidney Rendall (32) from Tankerness was found on the shore near the coastguard station around 6.25pm on Sunday.

Police inquiries are continuing and anyone who was in the company of Mr Rendall from late evening on Saturday onwards is asked to contact Kirkwall station on 872241.

Orkney's musical links with Canada will be strengthened further this week with the return visit of a group of 70 young Canadian musicians.

The musicians from the Miles Macdonell Collegiate School in Winnipeg visited Orkney in 2001, after meeting and performing with the members of local music group Hadhirgaan during their tour of Canada in 2000.

The reunionsaw both groups perform at a free concert on Monday in St Magnus Cathedral, with another performance on Tuesday evening at Kirkwall Grammar School.

Click here for full story

NHS Orkney will received £9,000 Practice Improvement funding, cash which can be used for improvements such as making practices more accessible to disabled people or to purchase new equipment.