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Kemnay Youth Service

Just a short post to mention an event that we attended last night at Kemnay Parish Church. It was organised by the Kemnay young people and coincided with a sponsored fast that they were taking part in. We had a youth band from Westhill and also James Duce along as the invited speaker – he was very good to listen to with a very energetic style.

Here is a photo of the band.


I have posted some more photos of the evening click here

May the Glow be with you

Delighted to hear the news today that Laurie O’Donnell has been acknowledged by the George Lucas Educational Foundation as one of its Global 6.

I will not go into much detail here but it felt very good to see that Laurie’s work on the Glow project cited as the reason for this award and recognition.

I had the privilege to work on the Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN) project, of which Glow is a main component and it is great to see it being acknowledged in this way.

Laurie writes about it in his blog – click here to read and also John Connell has commented too click here to read.

Once again – well done to Laurie and of course the whole team of people who have worked on and continue to work on Glow to ensure its future success.

Memories of warmer times

I was looking through some old VHS tapes the other day and I came across some video material which I shot in Botswana. I could not resist digitising this clip which shows a close encounter with a Cheetah in the Mokolodie Game Park, which is very near to Gaborone. Along with a few colleagues I was able to go on a short game drive and I have to say that the high point was when we had a close encounter with some real wild animals. We were told that it is sometimes possible for visitors to enter the animal enclosure and get right next to the animals ( but only after they have been properly fed). I am not so sure that I could have done that. It was exciting enough to be touched by these wild beasts from the other side of a wire fence!
The cats purred just like a typical pet cat the UK and if you listen closely you can actually hear the sound of its rough tongue as it licks my fingers ๐Ÿ˜‰

More on Turkey and Ataturk


Ankara by comparison to Doha was cold. The climate was very much like that which we have in Scotland – so for me it was acceptable. The sun did shine from time to time so it was pleasant on the whole. The photos I took are published here if you want to look at them.

We did notice that many of the tall buildings in the city centre were decorated with flags and portraits of Ataturk. See the photo to the left. It was clear that Ataturk is held in high esteem and his body lies in his Mausoleum in Ankara. He is known as the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

More about Mustafa Kemel Atatรผrk.