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YOUR VIEWS: Readers on the stories that have been making the headlines.
Squishy fidget ball school ban
Recently, there have been a number of ‘bursting’ incidents with very squishy fidget balls. The contents of these very cheap balls have proved to be hard to remove from clothes, very sticky and we are concerned that they may cause skin irritations.
Therefore this particular type of fidget toy, the very squishy balls, have been banned in the school for health and safety reasons.
I would like to reassure all parents, however, that this is the only type of fidget toy banned in the school. All other types of fidget toys, including the much more robust squeezy foam stress balls, are of course allowed and are available in most classrooms in the school. Fidget toys can be a very positive aid to concentration in class and indeed in the office.
As someone with dyslexia, a condition being championed this week by Highland Council in Neurodiversity Celebration Week, I find having a foam stress ball on my desk very useful and I have been known to borrow pupil’s fidget toys as I walk round the school.
Claire McGonigal
Rector
Culloden Academy
40 years of music – come and join us!
I write as a member of the Midmills Church Band, formerly the Crown Church Band, as this year celebrates the band’s 40th anniversary of meeting, performing, and bringing music to audiences in and around Inverness. The first official meeting took place on March 24, 1986, and we are proud to still be meeting on a weekly basis to this day.
The band was the brainchild of Willie Wilson, an elder of the then Crown Church. Willie offered to teach anyone – of any age or ability – who wished to learn a brass or wind instrument. The first three members were complete beginners, yet his ambition was always that the band should play in public. Thanks to his guidance, it quickly grew into one of the Highland capital’s busiest amateur ensembles.
Over the decades, the band became a familiar presence: performing in the Eastgate Shopping Centre, local Tesco stores, the Inverness Tattoo, and at fetes and festivals as far afield as Ullapool. Our regular summer concerts at the Bellfield Park Bandstand, contributions to the Hospice “Light up the Highlands” Carol Service, the Armed Forces Day Drumhead Service in the Northern Meeting Park, and visits to residential and day‑care centres have all been important parts of our musical service to the community. Much of this has been made possible by the dedication and leadership of our conductors through the years.
Following the challenges of the Covid period, our membership has grown, including an encouraging number of younger players. We hope the Midmills Church Band will continue to be a familiar sight – and sound – across Inverness for many years to come.
We are always happy to welcome new players, no church affiliation required. If anyone is interested in joining, we rehearse on Monday nights from 7pm-9pm, please get in touch via our Facebook page ‘Midmills Band’ or by emailing office@midmillschurch.co.uk
Midmills Church Band
Heating oil support must reach people
The announcement from the Scottish Government that they will add £5.6 million to the £4.6 million funding announced by the UK government – bringing the total support package available to households in Scotland using oil-based heating to £10 million – is a very welcome intervention.
Across Scotland, over 60,000 older households use oil as their primary heating source. Recent spikes in oil prices have been an additional budgeting nightmare for older people on low incomes who have very little flexibility to increase their income.
It’s vital that this support reaches older people on low incomes as soon as possible. The scale of the need is significant. Both the UK and Scottish Governments must remain ready to respond to need, and introduce greater support if required. Pensioners in poverty must not be left in the cold.
Debbie Horne
Scotland policy and public affairs manager
Independent Age
Plans lodged for city solar farm
A 9.9MWp solar farm capable of powering potentially thousands of homes could be installed on part of the former Longman landfill site in Inverness.
“Or… they could make it a condition on the developers of the 1000s of new homes being approved that they put panels on ALL the roofs. And install heat pumps rather than the gas boilers that are still going in.” – Steve Jary
“Sounds like a good idea, for a change.” – Derek Smith
“I can’t help but think that a big opportunity was missed to convert this site into an attractive firth-facing development of apartments, hotels, housing and leisure facilities allied with Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC?” – Rick Deckard
“You have to laugh that some people are skeptical about this at a time when the price of oil has more than doubled. If you think our energy needs are best met by importing oil and gas you need your head read.” – David Jack
“Anything that’s on the very profitable renewable energy bandwagon needs deep scrutiny. MWp… megawattsPEAK – that’s the MAXIMUM instantaneous power output, and as such we first need to know under what conditions that peak can be achieved? And whatever these conditions are, just like these cars that claim to do 90mpg etc, how possible is it to achieve them, and for how long – if at all – at this quite northerly latitude? The question isn’t therefore what the theoretical peak power is, but the total annual energy output in a northerly area with the extent of cloud cover that we have. Then there’s the question of how the timing of supply and demand reconcile?” – Charles Bannerman
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