Up-Coming Events

Sunday 10^th November – Remembrance Sunday Service at the War Memorial.

There will be a short Service of Remembrance at the war memorial on Sunday 10th November. Please gather at the war memorial at 10.50.

Fearnan Village Association will serve tea in the hall afterwards.

Community Action Plan

As part of the consultation for the Community Action Plan, Drop-In Meetings will be held in the area on Monday 11th November.

If on-line surveys aren’t for you, come and chat at these venues:

• 10am – 12pm Fortingall Village Hall
• 2pm – 4pm Mclean Hall Fearnan
• 6pm – 8pm Reading Rooms Kenmore

There is more information about the Community Plan later in this Blog. Do please take the opportunity to contribute.

A Cuppa, some Homebakes and a Chat

Lesley and Frances invite you to enjoy A Cuppa, some Homebakes and a Chat, in the Mclean Hall on Thursday 21st November between 10.00 – 12.00 (and fortnightly thereafter).

There will also be the opportunity to play Indoor Curling, Quoits and Table Tennis, should the fancy so take you.

Saturday 14^th December: Mulled Wine and Mince Pies.

The FVA will be serving Mulled Wine and Mince Pies in the Hall 16.00 – 18.00. Come and join friends and neighbours for a pre-Christmas drink and some seasonal eats.

Past Event:

Halloween Pop-Up Coffee Shop

For our Halloween Pop-Up, the Hall was given a suitable seasonal dressing with bats, broomsticks and cauldrons by Frances while our bakers created a Halloween themed spread for this well-attended and very sociable event.

Good to see old friends and also some new faces.

On offer were Toffee Apple Cake, Gingerbread, Pumpkin Cake, themed cupcakes, chocolate spiders and skeleton gingerbread men.

Tom and Anna from Warm Connections joined us making their well-informed advice available on keeping warm over the winter whilst managing winter fuel costs and remaining environmentally sustainable – as well as providing free LED light bulbs!

Community Action Plan

Information about the Community Action Plan for the Loch Tay area, commissioned by the Glenlyon and Loch Tay Community Council and the Kenmore and District Community Council, has already been circulated by several organisations, so rather than repeat the same info, we are using this space to emphasise the importance of taking part in the associated survey.

The Plan that emerges from this process will provide clear evidence about what needs to be protected in our area and what new things need to happen to improve lives and places. Community Enterprise, an independent social enterprise with a specialism in community action planning, is supporting the process.

The issues, ideas and aspirations generated by the process will be collected into the Plan, identifying projects and initiatives and setting out how people can work together to make them happen.

This is the link for the on-line survey, which will take roughly 20 minutes:

 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LochTay-Community-Survey

If you would prefer, you can attend one of the drop-in meetings that have been arranged and chat to Kate Sarti about the things that you would like to see covered in the Plan. You can do this on Monday 11^th November at:

• Fortingall Village Hall – 10.00 am– 12.00 pm
• Fearnan Village Hall – 2pm – 4pm
• Kenmore Reading Rooms – 6pm – 8pm

Please take this opportunity to have your say about Fearnan now and in the future.

Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir

This Blog has followed the fortunes of the Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir at successive Mods over the years, partly because its members include a number of very local people, and partly because the Choir is so good at bringing home the silverware! And this year was no different in that respect. Alan Brown, our ‘Choir-espondent’, has written a very interesting report on the Choir’s appearance at the mod this year, and it provides a number of insights into this national event that will help non-Gaelic speakers to understand the work that goes into participating, and how performances are judged.

Royal National Mod Report by Alan Brown

Each October Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir makes its way to the town or city chosen to house the Royal National Mod, the festival of Gaelic culture attracting competitors and audiences from across the world. In towns such as Airdrie or Paisley the Mod atmosphere can be lost a few streets away from the main venues but in this year’s choice – Oban – there is no chance of that happening.

Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir has been in existence since 1967. It’s a popular choir, has appeared on radio and television, dipped its collective toe in audio/video recording projects, sung in sunny Spain and all over not-so-sunny Scotland and won the highest awards for Gaelic and music at the Royal National Mod both individually and collectively.

So, another year, another Mod? Same old story? No, not this time! This was a Mod with a difference.

An Comunn Gaidhealach, the parent body of the Mod, issues very specific rules and guidelines for competitors in all its events, whether performing music, reciting, drama and, of more interest to us, singing. As well as solo, duets and quartets there are hard-fought competitions in Choral Music and these events are the focus of our visit. A whole year’s work goes into one long day’s performance.

For those readers who like some explanatory notes, there is more to choral singing than meets the ear. You may well know that a choir divides into four parts – soprano, alto, tenor and bass, with further occasional subdivisions. Sometimes all sing the same tune; sometimes something else happens. All pretty straightforward so far but, crucially, what has to emerge from all this individualism is a Choir Sound, so important that I have capitalised it.

Not stray voices, however sweet or robust; not soft and tender passages swamped by the charge of the anything-but-light brigade. One sound. Our geographical location means that our members from much further afield have to rely on the extremely useful but extremely limited phenomenon of Zoom. How can there be a Choir Sound when the choir is a bank of screens of disembodied heads? A Choir Sound comes only from a choir singing together. In person.

But such is the resilience of this Choir that we have established ourselves in the topflight despite having no native Gaelic speakers. The top choirs from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and, of course, the Islands have a regular conveyor belt supply of nurses, teachers and students from Gaelic-speaking areas who move to the cities and bring the language as their natural tongue.

When you consider also that each competition is judged on a total of 200 marks – 100 for Gaelic and 100 for music – we are very grateful to our Gaelic Tutor Gilliain MacDonald who though not a native speaker has graduated from university to be qualified to teach in Gaelic Medium Schools.

But to the competitions. The Friday saw us competing against the many friends we have met on our travels. The morning event is for sung Puirt a Beul or Mouth Music and we performed well against the top choirs.

Afternoon was the Margrat Duncan Trophy where we were singing two songs with which we had struggled over the preceding months. All seemed to click, however, and we gave an excellent performance. We were disappointed to be placed 4th with the marks very close but delighted to be placed first equal with Glasgow Govan and win the Stafffinders Quaich for Music!

With the pressure off, the Massed Choirs event on Saturday morning was the expected colourful highlight after marching behind a pipe band through the centre of Oban and assembling as a huge choir at the Railway Pier. The Mod banner was handed on to the Lochaber 2025 Mod Convener and that was Mod Obainn 2024.

A Mod with a difference it certainly was in another way. It was the final time Musical Director May Brown would conduct the Choir at a Mod. Her 16 years at the helm was marked by the Association of Gaelic Choirs with a special presentation during the Massed Choirs.

She will hand over the baton after a Concert as guests of Aberfeldy Community Choir in December. The Gaelic Choir will always welcome anyone interested in joining through a love of Gaelic music. We meet on Mondays in Aberfeldy Town Hall at 7.30 pm. Look out for our monthly news column in The Quair.