Also in the news / Youth centre worries, platinum jubilee, double standards, people power
BRAE Youth Centre may be forced to close unless people in the community step forward to help run the facility, which has been busy again as user groups return to normal business.
The committee running the youth club is holding an EGM on 27 January via Zoom to recruit urgently needed new volunteers. Failing this the youth centre will have to close.
Secretary Alexandra McIntosh said the committee has been running on the “bare minimum” of three members for many years and could not continue without spreading the workload over more volunteers.
“Over the years there was hardly an opportunity to welcome new committee members or to resign from a post as there seemed to be no interest in the community to be involved,” she said.
“Since the lack of committee members is an ongoing problem, the committee is appealing to everyone in the community, whether young or old, to come forward and help to keep this facility open and running.”
Training and introduction will be given. For more information and to receive a Zoom invite contact the management committee by e-mail bycaccounts@hotmail.co.uk of via its Facebook page.
BRIEF discussions have been had over whether Lerwick may look to host a public event to mark the Queen’s upcoming platinum jubilee this summer.
Communities around the country are being encouraged to think about holding events like street parties or barbecues to mark the Queen’s 70 years of service in early June.
The matter was briefly raised at a meeting of Lerwick Community Council on Monday, although no were decisions were made.
The flower park was touted as a possible location if there would be an event – although community council chairman Jim Anderson conceded he was not much of a “royalist”.
Living Lerwick chairman Steve Mathieson said he would raise the subject at the next meeting of the town centre organisation.
NORTHERN Isles MP Alistair Carmichael said it would “absolutely reek of double standards” if the police do not investigate an alleged drinks party at 10 Downing Street during lockdown.
It has been reported that around 100 people were asked along to a “bring your own drinks” event at the Downing Street garden in May last year, with witnesses saying prime minister Boris Johnson was in attendance.
The event apparently happened when people in England were banned from meeting more than one other person outdoors.
Calling for the police to investigate the alleged event, Carmichael noted that Johnson himself said “just days after this party that the police should step in to stop people holding outdoor gatherings”.
THE LOCAL branch of the Greens has expressed “huge relief” after learning that HIAL’s tendering process for its remote tower project for island airports has been cancelled – celebrating the development as a victory of people power.
The party, though in government with the SNP, has – on a local level – always campaigned against the controversial project, promoted and pushed forward by government-owned HIAL. It would have seen the centralisation of air traffic control in Inverness.
Shetland Greens coordinator Debra Nicolson said: “Greens have been supporting the case for local air traffic control in Shetland and throughout the Highlands and Islands for lifeline services for several years now, ever since HIAL’s illogical centralised air traffic management scheme proposals emerged.”
Her colleague Martin Randall added: “It’s hard to believe that minister Graeme Dey MSP took so long to listen to the amount of criticism from across the Highlands and Islands aimed at HIAL for persisting with this unpopular proposal.
“It’s a great victory for people power through the use of petitions and partnerships.”
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