Coming Up – Elect Her Events

We have received some correspondence with details of a range of online events, encouraging women to participate in politics at all levels. You can find details of these events below:

In September, Elect Her – a non-partisan CIC supporting women on their political journey – are hosting a month-long series of webinars, entitled Her Life in Politics, exploring every role in Scottish politics. Each Tuesday at 7:30-9pm, elected representatives from across the political spectrum will share their journey into politics and experiences since.

On Tuesday 20th 7:30-9pm, the webinar will focus on Community Councillors, hearing from Karen Harcus, Alison Lowe and Elizabeth Brown and with facilitation from former community councillor and chair Lauren Bennie. This webinar is a great opportunity for any woman motivated to create positive change in her community to learn how becoming a community councillor can help put ideas into action, learning from other women’s lived experience and meeting like-minded women along the way.

If you know a fantastic woman who you would like to encourage to become a community councillor, please invite them to this free online event so they can start their political journey today. Full details on the event, including how to book, are available here: https://www.elect-her.org.uk/events-workshops/her-life-as-a-community-councillor

The full webinar programme is as follows:

All webinars are open to women from across Britain, either new or existing members of the Elect Her community, and will be BSL interpreted and include closed captioning.

Should you have any further queries, please contact:

Rosie Trevill: rosie@elect-her.org.uk

Community & Communications Coordinator

(She/her)

Correspondence – Reply Regarding Lighting at the School

We have received the following reply from Argyll and Bute Council regarding the issue of lighting around the school.

Dear Dr Holliday,

Thank you for your letter to Douglas Hendry on behalf of Tiree Community Council regarding exterior lighting at Tiree High School.

I can confirm that all but 2 of the exterior lights at the school are timed to switch off at 7pm which allows cleaning staff to leave the building and get to their cars safely as there are no street lights and these provide the only lighting in the area.

In relation to the 2 other lights, one stays on until 10pm and is located at the gym door to support school lets, the other is at the staff door so that staff can also come and go to support the lets or attend meetings in the school which go on later than 7pm.

The safety of all users of the school will always be the Education Service’s top priority and we would not look to change the current arrangements that we have in place, at this time.  It may be possible in future to look at changing the type of lighting currently in place as part of a programme of improvements/upgrades at Tiree.

Kind regards

Susan

Susan Tyre, School Services Support Manager

Upcoming Community Council Elections 2022

Community Council Elections will take place on the 20th of October 2022.

Nominations will be open from Thursday the 18th of August up to 4pm on Thursday the 18th of September.

You can find the full nomination pack, along with further information, here.

Your current Community Councillors are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about the role or the process of standing for election – we are all reachable by email and can also be contacted via our Facebook page.

Notice of Proposed Final Amended Scheme for the Establishment of Community Councils and Associated Documents

Tiree Community Council have received correspondence from Argyll and Bute Council, notifying us that the proposed final amendments to the scheme for the Establishment of Community Councils are now available to view online.

These proposals are subject to a four week period of review; unless material considerations are submitted during this phase of notice, the Scheme will come into effect from the 20th of October, to coincide with Community Council Elections.

You can find the Amended Scheme and related documents here. 

Annual Electoral Registration Canvass – Paid Roles Available

We have received correspondence from Walter McCulloch, Administrative Officer for Dunbartonshire and Argyll & Bute Valuation Joint Board, regarding canvassing on Tiree. These roles would be working to make sure the electoral register for Tiree is up to date.

Vacanices are still available if anyone locally would like to apply – these are paid roles. You can find more information about the roles and how to apply here: Canvassing Roles Available on Tiree

Notice of August Meeting and Draft Minutes of June Meeting

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 10th July 2022 at 7pm.

Agenda:

  1. Welcome and ‘Housekeeping’
  2. Apologies 
  3. Declarations of interest 
  4. Matters arising; including access to SurveyMonkey
  5. Correspondence: Cllr Hampsey, Freedom of Information request to Argyll and Bute Council, Scottish Communities Climate Action Network, Pier View Land
  6. School: submission asking for a review of the decision not to do an Island Community Impact Assessment on recent appointments at the school; Community Services Committee meeting on Collective Leadership Model on the 25th of August
  7. Light pollution at school
  8. Ferries; Report on meeting with Transport Scotland about the idea of a ferry between Mull, Coll and Tiree; Submission to the Scottish Government’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee inquiry into ferries; Letter from Don McKillop about the winter timetable and relief programme for the closure of Uig pier
  9. Air Service; Meeting with Transport Scotland about the next PSO for the Tiree-Glasgow air link
  10. Water resilience; Meeting with Euan Innes from Scottish Water about the adequacy of Tiree’s current water supply and possible future changes
  11. Inappropriate car parking on Crofts and Common Grazings
  12. Planning applications; Campsite and Pods on school playing fields; re-application at Vaul
  13. Housing Crisis; Discussion of new Short Term Lets Licensing Scheme and Planning Control areas
  14. Community Council Elections; timetable and meeting of Community Council in September
  15. AOCB; a chance to raise matters not on the agenda

Meeting papers:

Meeting joining instructions:

Please note: our meetings are recorded for the purpose of minute taking. If you do not wish your camera feed to be recorded, please do not enable your camera. Keeping it off, rather than on but covered over also helps reduce internet load for participants.

When you first join the meeting at the start time – you may find you are in a Waiting Room, please just wait for the meeting to start and you will be admitted automatically.

Join Zoom Meeting online by PC or smart device:

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 856 8174 5966
Passcode: 525971

One tap mobile
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Dial by your location
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdWEspyCth

Guidance on joining the meeting:

You can choose how you view the meeting using the app if joining via the internet – “Gallery view” shows you multiple participants

Please note that by default you will join the meeting muted (i.e. you will not be sending sound out to the rest of the participants) – please leave yourself muted unless you need to speak, and when invited to do so by the chair, and remember to re-mute afterwards. This is needed to ensure that the call is not made very difficult to follow by background noise from multiple people, which can be extremely disruptive to the call.

We suggest that members of the public not enable their camera, unless wishing to be seen when making a contribution to the meeting. This saves bandwidth and reduces the size of the recording for the minutes. Please note that our meetings may also be streamed to our Facebook page.

If joining on a PC, tablet or other device, please set your screen name to a recognisable form of your actual name so that other participants know who you are – this is required if you wish to participate via either speaking or using the text chat.

The mute and unmute button is in the lower left, and looks like a microphone, next to the button for switching your webcam on/off.

If you are using a telephone to dial in, the mute and unmute command can be given by typing on your handset: *6

Requesting to speak:

If joining by computer, you can find a button to “Raise your hand” to ask to speak under the “Participants” menu, accessed by pressing the Participants button (looks like a human figure, in the middle of the bottom part of the window). You can also use the chat function to make a comment or to ask to speak on a point.

You can “raise your hand” to ask to speak if phoning in by using the code: *9

As ever if you have questions or if there is anything we can do to help you take part in the meeting accessibly, please let us know by e-mailing phyl@tireecommunitycouncil.co.uk 

 

 

TCC Response to CalMac Consultation on Proposed Changes to Terms and Conditions

Please find the response TCC sent to CalMac below.

The representations in the letter are based on the 25 responses we received to our own survey. Of these 25, 84% of these were island residents; the notable exceptions being tourism business owners and a Coll resident.

Letter to CalMac in Response to Terms and Conditions Consultation – 7.6.22

While some respondents felt that the proposed changes were reasonable; the majority (75%) were against the changes.

Among the reasons cited were that the measures feel disproportionate for the Tiree-Coll route specifically, where no-shows are less common. Many respondents also drew attention to the fact that the lack of refund for short-notice cancellations is counterintuitive to the policy’s aims – without incentive to cancel, no-shows and ineffective use of deck space will remain an issue.

Specific concerns were also raised about how the policy may disproportionately affect crofting communities, where moving livestock brings a host of additional considerations.

We hope that this feedback will inform discussion going forward, and would like to thank those who filled out the survey.