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Saturday, 02/Jan/2010

Islay (and Jura) Success at For Argyll Awards

Islay News in stencil

Yesterday afternoon the results of the For Argyll Awards 2009 were published, rather low key so far only in an entry on the For Argyll website. Having only twittered a link to the results yesterday I thought I take a more detailed look at Islay's and Jura's successes in the competition today. I think Islay and Jura did very well again:

From the 12 categories Islay and Jura managed to win in four, admittedly one was ‘only’ a joint winner. In addition there were four runner up places for Islay. So what does this mean for individual categories?

The Best Tourism Initiative category was won by the Jura Passenger Ferry. I think that's a great success for this still quite new and probably comparably little known service. Hopefully this win will provide some publicity and help increasing passenger numbers as well securing funding. Keeping in mind the service is provided by a boat and skipper from Islay this is a good joint success for Islay and Jura.

In the Best Environmental Initiative the Islay Energy Trust won with a good margin, leading from the start. A recognition of the great work done so far and motivation for the future.

The Finlaggan centre development only just missed out in the Best Community Initiative category against the Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop, who seems to have been extremely strong all round.

After all the Islay Festival & Homecoming Parade had to share the winner with said St Columba Ceilidh Trail (which is the same as the Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop) in the Best Homecoming Event category.

The Best Activity Website category saw an Islay one two: Jez Hastings Islay Wilderness Guide managed to just edge out Elliott Bowman's Islay Shipping blog. Jez regularly manages mentions in the national press (e.g. recently in 10:10 - The time for action in The Guardian), so probably had an advantage over Elliott (which is partially why I tried to give him some support). Great success for both, I hear Elliott is now looking to win next time.

In the Best Wildlife Website the Islay Birds blog had some very tough competition and lost out to the Mull Eagle Watch. If I'm not mistaken they had a lot of coverage in the national (and possibly even in international) press, so I think the second place for Ian and his contributors is still a great achievement.

Finally The Ileach lost out to the Oban Times in the Best Local Newspaper category. Keeping in mind that Oban has more than twice the number of inhabitants of Islay and the Oban Times probably being far wider distributed I think that's not a huge surprise.

Keeping in mind its relative size and population I think this was another great year for the Islay and Jura contenders, hopefully we can make it an even bigger Islay and Jura success in the next competition.

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