A special event is being held in Orkney next month to promote healthy living.

Organised by Stromness Academy’s OKNY Young Enterprise Company, the “Commonhealth Games” will let people try out a variety of different sports and find out more about all the activities available in the county.

Healthy eating will also feature at the event, being held at the Pickaquoy Centre, with local food companies on hand to show off products that taste great but won’t increase the waistline.

Despite gales and driving rain, a steady flow of Stromness residents went to see an exhibition of plans on how Stromness might be developed on Friday.

OIC councillor Ian Johnstone said there had been a queue waiting outside for the exhibition to open on Friday morning.

Medals belonging to an English sailor lost on the Royal Oak were presented to the Orkney Museum on Friday.

Harry Griffin was 16-years-old when the ship was sunk by a German U-boat in 1939.

His nephew, John McNally (pictured left), who now lives in Sandwick, has fulfilled his family’s greatest ambition, to return his uncle’s medals to Orkney.

An 18-year-old male from Orphir is to be reported to the procurator fiscal following a road accident in Kirkwall on Thursday.

Orkney is to receive £22,000 to go towards improving facilities in nurseries and pre-school groups in the county.

Two people keeping warm in the rear of a lorry caused alarm in Kirkwall on Thursday night .

Police received several calls from concerned members of the public who had seen sparks coming from the back of the red vehicle on Bignold Park Road.

Sanday’s fire unit was called to a vehicle fire at the school in the early hours of Friday morning.

Thursday night’s meeting in Stromness was the “most successful” of any of the similar events held elsewhere in Orkney, according to Voluntary Action Orkney’s Gaynor Jones.

Over 130 people attended the meeting, which was to enable townfolk to express their views about future development in the town. The need to renovate empty and derelict buildings and encourage and support new and existing businesses were highlighted as the most important issues.

Other suggestions included a new, or refurbished, town hall and performance space. Several speakers wanted the OIC to decentralise and base staff throughout the county

Click here for more details on the Mart development brief

A number of pupils in the county were sent home early on Friday after the weather forced the closure of some schools.

The schools affected were: North Walls, Burray, Evie, Firth, Glaitness, Hope, Orphir, Papdale, St Andrews, Stenness, Kirkwall Grammar School, Stromness Academy, North Ronaldsay, Stronsay and Sanday.

The Churchill Barriers were closed to traffic for almost three hours on Friday afternoon - the third time this week.

Because of the weather and tidal conditions, it was decided teh causeways should be closed from 2pm. They remained out of bounds until shortly before 5pm.

This followed closures on Tuesday and Thursday - the latter meaning pupils from South Ronaldsay and Burray had to remain in Kirkwall Grammar School until the Barriers reopened after 6pm.

North Ronaldsay will not be getting an extra weekly sailing this summer.

The Orkney Ferries 2007 summer timetable will remain the same as last year’s - with just one timetabled sailing per week to North Ronaldsay.

After recommendations by the OIC’s inter-isles transport sub-committee, and consultation with the outer North Isles, it was decided that it was not possible to devise a timetable that avoided a serious depreciation in service level to the other outer north isles.

The union GMB Scotland is recommending that its members reject an OIC offer for past inequality in pay.

The offer was to both male and female employees in certain occupational groups such as cooks, cleaners and home carers.

A GMB Scotland spokesman said: “This offer represents approximately 50 per cent of what an employee would reasonably expect to be awarded if they were successful at an Employment Tribunal and GMB will not endorse any offer that appears to significantly under value our members’ entitlement to back pay under the Equal Pay Act.”

The planned operation to remove the cargo of ferrosilicon from the Sunna, which ran aground on Swona last week, has been postponed.

The transfer vessel Haukur was due to arrive in Lyness on Saturday, but has been stormbound in Ireland. Once the vessel leaves port it will take three days to reach Orkney.  

The Stromness Fire Brigade were called to a suspected fire in the Café, Victoria Street, on Thursday morning.

Firefighters entered the premises at 11.20am and quickly extinguished a small fire in the kitchen.

A training programme for Orkney construction companies is taking place in February.

The Orkney Construction Training Group (OCTG) Site Management Award Programme is the first of its kind in the county, designed to meet the skill needs in Orkney by replacing generic modules with with island-specific requirements.  

OCTG chairman, Bob Clouston said: “This could help alleviate the need for major contractors coming to Orkney to take over local but large scale projects.

"By up-skilling their existing managers Orkney construction employers will also be in a better position to recruit more young people to train as tradesmen and women to replace the managers as they move up within their organisations. “

Members of the Orkney Area Licensing Board permanently transferred a number of licences to new owners on Thursday.

Raymond Hutchison of the St Ola Hotel, Kirkwall, was granted a hotel licence while Carey-Louise Macguire of the Taversoe in Rousay received the public house licence.

The off-sales licence for Palace Stores in Birsay was permanently transferred by Jenny Cox.

The skipper of the Norwegian vessel Sunna, which ran aground on Swona last week, was fined £2,500 at Kirkwall Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

The court heard that the vessel only had one lookout on duty - the chief officer, who fell asleep on watch.

A pioneer of the industry in Orkney, the company Ola Gorie is considering ending jewellery manufacturing, after 46 years in business.

The company made the announcement on Wednesday, also confirming that a number of jobs in its workshop may be at risk.

Managing director, Duncan McLean said: ‘Greatly increased material costs and competition from jewellery imported from the Far East are making it very hard for a company of our size to succeed.”

He added that no jobs in the company’s retail department were at risk.  

For the first time since the OIC introduced formal measures to control access in bad weather, the Churchill Barriers were closed to traffic on Tuesday.

A council spokesman said that police initially expressed concerns over the safety of crossing the causeways just after 11am. As a result a decision was made to close the first, second and third barriers between 11.30am and 2.30pm.

Council staff were on site, ensuring drivers complied with the new order.

Michael Stevenson, of Midhouse, Evie, (pictured left) is the new chairman of the Orkney branch of the farmers' union.

At last night's annual general meeting of NFUS Orkney he was elected to replace Stewart Wood (right). The new vice-chairman is Michael Cursiter, of Arwick.

Anna Davies, pictured centre, the union's national communications and campaigns manager, was guest speaker at the meeting.

Scottish Water is to host an open day in Kirkwall, outlining a £1 million investment in the water and sewerage pipes in Kirkwall’s Junction Road.

The project will result in more reliable drinking water supplies and allow extra homes to connect to the town’s public sewerage system.

The existing sewer pipe will be cleaned out and relined while the cast iron water main, which has burst on a number of occasions in recent years, will have a 1,054-metre section replaced with plastic pipe.

An all-day planning meeting is taking place in the Stromness on Friday to offer the public a direct way of contributing to the regeneration, design and development of the town.

The event, managed by members of Stromness Community Business Forum on behalf of the Stromness Town Centre Partnership, runs in the Community Centre from 10am, is open to all.

An all-day exhibition of illustrations of possible development plans, the results of previous consultation and the proposals for the former auction mart, will be followed by a workshop aiming to produce constructive and realistic options for the future of the town.

Archive story: Public have their say on Stromness redevelopment

Physical activity in schools across Scotland has jumped by 53 per cent at primary level since the Active Schools project was launched, according to figures released on Wednesday.

Commenting, Councillor Mike Drever, chairman of OIC’s recreation and cultural services committee, said: “Active Schools has been a big success with every school in Orkney.  The council is fully committed to seeing Active Schools continue to ensure young Orkney folk have the opportunity to get involved and get active.

Nominations are now open for the Young Scot Awards 2007, with people in Orkney being urged to take the chance to recognise and celebrate the achievements of young people in the county.

The awards focus on achievements of young people, aged 12-22, in their own area, relative to their background.

A fire next door to an oil storage depot in Lerwick on Monday looks set to renew calls in Orkney to have the BP fuel depot in Kirkwall relocated.

A 200 metre area of the town surrounding the Lerwick BP depot was closed off as firefighters - unable to approach the scene because of a potentially explosive oxy-acetylene gas cylinder - monitored the situation.

Two teenagers who admitted vandalising 36 cars during the festive period a year ago have been sentenced at Kirkwall Sheriff Court.

Following a trial last year, Scott Fergus Scollie, 16, of Sacro, Kirkwall and Martin David Allan Rorie, 17, of Ingale, were found guilty of damaging 36 vehicles on December 24 and Christmas Day, 2005.

Scollie was sentenced to 18 months probation, 12 months restriction of liberty, and 240 hours community service. Rorie was given 12 months probation, eight months restriction of liberty and 120 hours of community service.

The salvage operation of the bulk tanker Sunna, which ran aground on Swona on January 2, is continuing at Lyness.

Surveys have shown the vessel is unseaworthy but an OIC spokesman has stressed the risk of pollution is minimal - although booms remain in place.

The next step is the safe removal of the cargo of 1,900 tons of ferrosilicon. Options include moving the cargo onshore at Lyness, transferring it to another ship or towing the stricken vessel to another port to complete the transfer.

After the furore in the national media over the weekend regarding the planned civil partnership of Sanday-based composer Peter Maxwell Davies and his partner, Colin Parkinson, the OIC has issued a statement to clarify the situation.

Amid media claims of homophobia and religious intolerance, the council - who carried out their first civil partnership ceremony in the council chamber in February, 2006 - stressed that there is no question of the ceremony being "banned" - only that it has to be carried out according to existing policy.

A spokesman said: “We hope to quickly arrange a meeting to discuss all the issues concerned and find a speedy solution that is within the constraints of the law and Council procedure.

Orkney teenagers are now eligible for two free return journeys to the Scottish mainland a year, following the introduction of a new Concessionary Travel Scheme from the Scottish Executive.

The Young Persons’ concessionary scheme will also give all 16-18 year olds one third off the cost of bus and rail fares and is available to full-time volunteers, up to the age of 25, who are actively contributing to their community

Transport Minister Tavish Scott said: "This travel scheme opens up new opportunities and gives greater freedom to young people through access to work, education and social events. That's got to be good news."

Orkney school pupils are being asked to come up with artwork celebrating the county’s shoreline and sea.

The Big Picture, led by the RSPB in collaboration with the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, aims to raise awareness and enthusiasm for Orkney’s 550 miles of coastline, the sea beyond and the local marine wildlife that lives there.

A Naval bomb disposal team travelled to Orkney at the weekend after an item of suspected ordnance was spotted on a beach in Deerness.

Anyone wanting to bid for a share of a £120,000 challenge fund has until the end of the month to lodge with with Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The cash is open to groups or individuals who have ideas for projects which marry up tourism, heritage and technology in “an innovative and effective way”.

Entries will be judged on innovation, evidence of strong cross-sectoral collaboration and meeting marketing needs. Those that miss out on the financial awards will still receive advice on how best to develop their proposals.

More information is available at www.hie.co.uk/tht-challenge.

Roger Hall makes it across the line to score Orkney's only first half points.

Orkney's first XV started the New Year with a 34-3 victory over Kinross in their Caledonia Division One match at Pickaquoy on Saturday afternoon.

Although Orkney led by only 5-3 at half-time, playing with the wind in the second half, they ran in another four tries to end up comfortable winners.

James Linklater kicked three conversions and a penalty, hit the post with one conversion attempt and had two drop goal attempts charged down, in what will be his last game for Orkney for some time, as he is going to Australia.

Stromness residents are being urged to have their say on the development of the town – including the site of the former West Mainland Mart.

Two years after the mart was demolished, long-awaited guidelines on what should be done with the site have been released for public consultation.

At a meeting in the Town Hall on Thursday night, residents will be first be able to put forward their views on what should be done regarding the development of the town as a whole, and two weeks later a meeting will concentrate on the mart site.

For those unable to attend the meeting, at 7pm on Thursday night, community planning forms are available online here.

Click here for more details on the Mart development brief

The Crofters Commission is looking for a new chairman or woman and two new board members.

Board members can expect to spend about four days a month on commission business, with payment of £7,087 a year, plus travel, childcare and other expenses.

Whoever chairs the commission will have to spend at least 12 days a month on commission work and will be paid £28,251 a year, plus expenses.

The appointments are expected to be for three years from March 1. Applications close on January 26.

Full details are available on the Crofters Commission website.

All MSPs have been sent statistics about some of the prices Scottish farmers receive for their produce and are being invited to add their names to a petition calling for fair prices for Scottish farmers.

The petition has gathered more than five thousand signatures so far.