I thought I’d start a page for all the new people and places and stuff we’ll be getting used to on Rum so it’s here to refer to rather than explaining who everyone is all the time. I’ve not actually linked to blogs and websites so that this doesn’t show up on stats for them as I’d rather people didn’t realise I am writing all about them for my friends reading pleasure ;). So it will be copy and paste if you want to follow the links.
First of all some info from the Beginners Guide to Rum document we were sent:
Dear Rum Resident,
Welcome to the Isle of Rum!
You no doubt already know that Rum is a special place – a National Nature Reserve with several important international designations: Special Area for Conservation, part of the Small Isles National Scenic Area, Special Protected Area for Birds, and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The majority of the island is owned by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), but the houses and land around Kinloch village, as well as Harris Lodge on the other side of the island, are now owned by the Isle of Rum Community Trust.
This welcome pack contains lots of useful information that new residents have told us it would have been helpful to know when they arrived – it’s a work in progress, so if there are other things you think should be added, please let us know!
1. About the Isle of Rum Community Trust
The Trust is a charity and a company limited by guarantee. It has 9 Directors elected by members. 3 of these live off-island, and 6 are on-island directors. Of the 3 off-island directors, 1 is a nominated representative for SNH, 1 is a nominated representative for Highland Council, and the third is our independent chairperson. IRCT Memorandum & Articles states that there must be a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 9 elected directors who are Ordinary members.
Directors – what do they do?
respond to or comment on issues as they arise
hold regular meetings between each AGM (the on-island directors meet every Monday, and the full board meets once a month on a Wednesday between boats)
set the strategy and policy of the Isle of Rum Community Trust
generally control and supervise the activities of the Trust
responsible for monitoring its financial position
responsible for the day-to-day management of the Trust
Directors are guided by the needs of the community and are informed by the Rum Community Association. The Trust exists “to manage community land and associated assets for the benefit of the Community and the public in generalâ€; to educate the Community about its heritage; and to promote rural regeneration following the principles of sustainable development – social, environmental & economic.
Taking a Turn
At each AGM one third of the elected directors must retire, so that other Ordinary members are given the opportunity to take a turn directing the Trust. No director can serve more than two consecutive terms of office without at least one year’s rest before being eligible again.
What can you bring?
Directors need to be able to make decisions for the greater benefit of the community, setting aside personal opinions. Between them they have a wide range of skills, knowledge & experience. Being a Director will help you develop your own experience, skills and interests, and give you a better understanding of how the Trust and the community work.
Membership
To become an Ordinary Member you must be resident on Rum and on the electoral register for this ward. Being an ordinary member entitles you to nominate and vote for new directors, to become a director yourself, and to vote on Trust issues. Membership is £1 per year.
If you are not on the electoral register or you move away from Rum, you may become an Associate Member for £1, but you will not be able to vote. Membership is subject to approval by the Board of Directors of IRCT.
2. Electricity
Electricity on Rum is provided by a small hydro system (up to 40Kw) with backup generators. A system of battery inverters has been installed to help manage demand and reduce use of the generator. The power supply is run and maintained by SNH. You can see the intake dam at the top of the Corie Dubh path.
Each house is fitted with a pay as you go card meter. Cards can be purchased from the hostel reception in the castle courtyard.
Living off-grid on an island is not like living on the mainland, where energy is provided from a variety of sources into a central grid system. The capacity of the hydro system is limited and the island grid cannot cope with sudden high peaks and troughs in demand. For this reason residents are encouraged not to use too many electrical appliances: high output kettles, toasters, etc; appliances such as panel heaters, electric showers, tumble dryers and electric cookers are not allowed as they draw too much energy.
Each house has a maximum circuit breaker of 5 amps, which sounds very small but most people get used to this quickly and don’t find it inconvenient – it just means you can’t put all your electrical appliances on at once! If you exceed this limit your supply will trip and you will have to pay SNH £20 to have it switched back on.
3. Gas and Kerosene
Gas and kerosene can be ordered through the IRCT office – call 462 404 or come up to the office in the Castle and speak to Georgie.
Kerosene orders are usually done every 6 months, and we will let you know when the next one is due, and give you an idea of the likely price (which varies according to the markets). The minimum delivery amount is 500 litres.
If you have any concerns or suspect a leak, contact Georgie in the IRCT office, or if it’s outside office hours contact Sandy our on-call plumber.
4. Waste
We are trying to be super “green†on Rum and substantially reduce the amount of waste we produce. There are recycling facilities for glass and cans at the shop beside the community hall, and at the pier. Paper and cardboard are either recycled or burned – there is an old oil drum outside the community hall for this purpose. There is a skip for general rubbish at the pier, but please make an effort to sort your waste to minimise the amount going into the skip.
Composting is encouraged and will produce a useful product for your garden. Compost doesn’t just happen, however, it needs to be managed, and keep the lid closed and the bin secure to discourage rats. Try to put a mixture of materials into your compost bin: vegetable peelings, teabags, shredded cardboard, grass clippings, etc. Stir it occasionally. Do not put meat, bones or cooked food into your compost bin as it does not compost and it attracts rats. There is some good information about composting at www.gardenorganic.org.uk/composting/
5. Shopping
The Isle of Rum has a fabulous shop in an annexe beside the community hall. Vegetable orders can be made on a form supplied by Jinty and handed in on a Tuesday for delivery on Friday. If there’s something you want that isn’t in the shop, let Jinty know and she’ll order it in for you.
Salad and other seasonal vegetables are often available from local growers – ask around if you’re interested!
The Post Office is in the shop, and is open from 10-12 on days when the Calmac ferry runs. Last collection from the post box is one hour before the last ferry. There is no post on non-boat days.
You can order things from the Co-op in Mallaig, either by phone (462240) or by email: mamaq@co-op.co.uk. If ordering by email, you need to send it before 10am on the day before the boat. You can either include your card details in the email, or ask them to phone you when they put the order through. There is a small charge for freight on the ferry (around £2) and you will need to collect it from the pier.
We would encourage you to use the Rum shop as much as possible though. Without the patronage of everyone on the island it would quickly become unviable and have to close, leaving us with nowhere to buy food when bad weather disrupts the ferry service!
6. Fire safety and prevention
Kinloch Village has no fire brigade so everyone needs to be vigilant with respect to fire. All the Trust properties have fire alarms which are provided for your safety. Please ensure they are unobstructed, serviceable, and tested regularly. If your fire alarm goes off it is up to you to ensure that everyone is evacuated and then check for fire. THE ALARM ONLY SOUNDS IN THAT HOUSE so no other help is coming unless you summon it.
Be particularly careful when lighting candles, fires or smoking (houses on Rum have been lost before by carelessness) and remember the nearest fire brigade is at least forty minutes away.
If it turns out to be a false alarm (alerting you to burnt toast, for example) you can press the round button on the alarm which activated the rest of the alarms (it will have a red light). This will turn the alarm off for 10 minutes.
7. Rats
There are rats on the island.
IRCT runs a program of rat management, which includes periodic baiting of traps around the village. Do not touch or move any of the green bait boxes. You can help minimise rat visits by:
Not putting meat or cooked food into your compost bin
Keeping your compost tidy and the lid on
Not leaving food, particularly animal feed, lying around
Not leaving rubbish lying around
8. Dogs & Cats
Rum is a Special Protected Area for birds, and they are easily disturbed by dogs. You can help by keeping your dog under close control at all times, particularly in areas where birds are likely to be nesting. This includes along the shoreline, moorland areas, woodland, and meadows.
Do not let your dog wander around the village unattended.
Please be considerate to others and pick up any mess that your dog leaves behind!
Cats can be brought to Rum but only if they are neutered as a population of feral cats would devastate wildlife on the island.
9. Other animals
As Rum is such a special place with important conservation designations, there are certain plants and animals which cannot be brought to the island because they would have disastrous consequences for the flora and fauna here:
Animals & plants which cannot be brought to Rum:
Rabbits
Mink
Ferrets
Weasles
Polecats
Stoats
Foxes
Hedgehogs
Rats
Birds of Prey (inc. Owls)
Crayfish
Japanese Knotweed
Himalayan Balsam
Cotoneaster
Rhododendron Ponticum
Other animals and plants which can be brought to the island without permission are:
Agricultural crop species Horses Aquarium fish
Horticultural species Goats Guinea pigs
Garden plants Pigs Gerbils
Cattle Domestic breeds of duck Tortoises
Sheep Domestic hens & other poultry Dogs & cats
Animals and plants not referred to in these lists may only be brought to Rum with the prior written permission of SNH. If you’d like to keep bees, check with IRCT first and please don’t bring your own kit as it can introduce disease to the resident bee population.
10. Light Pollution & Shearwaters
Bright lights attract and confuse our lovely Manx Shearwaters when they return to their nests at night, so please restrict the use of outside lights during the summer and early autumn. Every year, shearwaters are attracted to the light and land in the village, often falling victim to cats, dogs and rats, which doesn’t help to keep their population numbers buoyant. You can help reduce this by not leaving outside lights on, and by using curtains to blackout lights inside the house. If you do find a live bird hiding around the village the best thing to do is catch it, put it in an empty box until morning, then contact the SNH office so someone can collect, ring and release it.
11. Vehicles
There are no paved roads on Rum, and even parts of the track around the village are very rough. Residents can bring vehicles to the island, but there’s nowhere to drive to and walking and cycling keep you healthier! You will need to obtain a permit from SNH to bring your car on the ferry once you’ve booked it on, as Calmac will not allow vehicles without a valid permit to land. These permits only permit you to bring your car to the island, they do not give the right of access to the Nature Reserve. Please check your vehicle for invasive stowaways (rats etc!) before you leave Mallaig.
Secure parking is available at Mallaig harbour; a permit can be obtained for £55 a year from the Harbour Office: 462 154
12. Doctors Visits and Medical Emergencies
The Small Isles Medical Practice is located on Eigg and is run by Dr Rachel Weldon. A doctor comes over to Rum about once a month. To join the practice you need to phone the surgery and ask for a registration form to be sent to you: 482 427.
You can make an appointment to see the doctor the next time she is over if your query is not urgent; she will call you the day before she comes and let you know what time she will arrive on her RIB. The Rum doctor’s ‘surgery’ is off the castle courtyard – just ask a staff member to point it out.
If you need to see the doctor urgently, you can call her and discuss your problem over the phone. The SNH reserve office holds some medicines that can be given out with the doctor’s authorisation, and she can send medication over on the next ferry.
If something is extremely urgent, the doctor may advise calling emergency services. An air ambulance or coastguard helicopter may be dispatched. There is also the NHS Direct helpline for advice: 0845 46 47.
If you have found this pack useful or have any comments on how it could be improved, please let Vikki know!
A bit about the people
Vikki – the community development officer. Her post is funded (I *think* by the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HEI) until the end of 2013 and her main brief is to oversee the transition of Rum from SNH owned to IRCT managed. She is about 30, single, very small and quietly spoken. Originally from Kent but has been in Inverness for a long time and has a wide range of contacts – the woman running the crofting course I was on is a friend of hers. She is very sweet and seems quite overwhelmed by the whole thing really. I think she will become a friend and already sees us as allies. I like her :). She blogs at www.communityland.org.uk/content/notes-from-a-small-isle/
UPDATE Vikki is actually 36, comes across as quiet and shy but is secretly a real dark horse. She is VERY competitive and likes to win at everything. She is considering applying for a croft here on Rum and sees her future as a crofter or self sufficient type. She is very lonely here on Rum and has never really had a long term or proper healthy relationship. In Rum ‘shag or die’ she picked Ady! :)Definitely one of my best friends here.
Fliss – when I first read about her online I christened her ‘Queen of Rum’, rather amusingly when one of the builders was talking about her he called her that too 😆 She is very tall, has three daughters (two secondary school age off the island, one toddler) and two step daughters (living on the mainland) and does knitting, crochet, makes soap and lip balm and grows veggies in her polytunnel. She has a craft shop selling stuff to tourists and a caravan available for rent on the beach. She is very friendly and seems nice. Her website and blog is at www.isleofrumcrafts.co.uk late 30s, early 40s. UPDATE Fliss is 40, very lovely and much shyer and less confident than her exterior lets on, a direcy quote from her ‘I feel like a mouse in a big hat!’ in reference to being physically intimidating. She is also lonely here having had lots of friends who have now left the island and not made friends with the incommers. Married to an alcoholic and in lots of turmoil about how to deal with that. Definitely one of my best friends here.
Sandy – Fliss’s husband. Works as a carpenter. Really friendly and offering lots of help to us. Currently building a loft extension on their house to be a B&B. Rumour has it he has been a heavy drinker / recreational drug user in the past but that may be relative to the person telling me… 40ish. UPADTE – Sandy is 42 and is indeed an alcoholic as witnessed by us for the first time recently. Lots of issues, a bit ‘broken’ and with a fairly low sense of self worth. Son of a doctor and minister and one of five children. We like him a lot and are hoping we can help him help himself.
Allie – Deer researcher, married to Sean with a little daughter. Friendly in real life when we met and following me on twitter and reading blog. Is keen for one of us to apply for the teaching job, in her 30s. UPDATE – Ali is 38, is indeed nice and friendly if a little odd. She is a bit skittish and not great at holding a conversation with. Wonder if this is an island condition though! I like her a lot but have not really connnected with her.
Sean – Director of IRCT currently, one of our interviewers. Looks a lot like Merry’s Max. Quite low key and a bit reticient and serious. Estate worker for SNH. Had heart issues last year, 40ish UPDATE Sean is mid 40s. I have decided he is autistic or Aspergers which helps me forgive him his very shaky people skills. On a good day he is okay, on a bad day he can be abrupt, aloof and infact just rude.
David – castle / hostel manager. New to the island too. Lives there with his wife and daughter (not met them yet). Really nice bloke, very straightforward, viewing island politics from afar with amusement. Don’t really expect him to be there very long as tied to the job which may not last. About 40 UPDATE as above still stands but there is something of a witch hunt for David which is not really fair but he doesn;t help himself.
Lynda – David’s wife, lovely woman, not here that much as she spends a lot of time back on the mainland and feels quite set apart from the community which is a shame as I think she has a lot to offer. She used to be a translator and has Spanish background but no longer works as she is raising Elena their daughter.
Jinty – runs the shop and post office. Not officially met her despite being served by her in the shop. Suspect she’s shy rather than unfriendly. Hard to age – 40 ish maybe UPDATE when sober Jinty is as above, sometimes when drunk (often) she is very friendly and effusive. She has a nice relationship with both Davies and Scarlett despite claiming not to like kids. I could see us bonding further given time but our lives are worlds apart despite both living here.
Ross – Jinty’s housemate (not partner apparently). Works at the castle /hostel. Nice bloke, good with D&S. Brother of Leslie the other crofter. About 30 UPDATE Ross and Lesley are twins and aged 33. Ross is cool, very softly spoken but with a wicked sense of humour and very good at taking the piss out of people without them realising. Totally in love with Jinty.
Norman – older (as in retired age) bloke who always seems to be in the shop with a can of drink. Lives next door to Jinty & Ross and used to be the shopkeeper. I think he does the post now. Friendly. UPDATE another alcoholic, mostly harmless, probably could have been someone if he’d not got drunk and never really sobered up. No idea if he has family, devoted to Zappa his dog. Nice bloke, supposed to be an excellent cook.
Steve – lives in a yurt, had thought about applying for a croft with Clare (friend, not partner, lives in the other yurt) but didn’t. Into Earthships and has given us info on them with promise of more and support in building one. Into green technology, suspect useful friend in terms of support for our wackier ideas. Late 20s / early 30s UPDATE Stevie is WAY older than I first thought. He is allegedly madly in love with Clarie despite getting regularly pissed and coming out as gay to anyone who will listen. Has a lot of issues but is basically a sound bloke hiding from the world.
Clare – lives in yurt, only briefly met, seems friendly. late 20s/ early 30s. UPDATE Claire is 25, a bit of a one for the gentlemen much to her detriment. Very affectionate, a lovely girl and fab with Davies and Scarlett. I forgive her a lot for her relationship with my kids and her heart of gold. She can be hard work though and I regulaly want to shake her!
Reece – have heard from Neil on Eigg he is a top bloke, only very briefly met him. No idea what he does or where he lives. Seems nice. About 60. UPDATE still not much wiser really!
Neil – other crofter along with Lesley, also harbourmaster greeting calmac ferries at pier. Seems friendly but comes across as slightly simple, not at all sure if this is actually the case. About 30 but could be older. UPDATE Neil had his 22nd birthday last month, he is a *child!*. Nice enough kid but just that, a kid.
Lesley – ranger for SNH and other crofter. Assume romantically linked with Neil but not entirely sure. Not actually been introduced or spoken to her yet despite her being around every time we’ve visited. She asked Vikki to pass on her email address but never replied to my intro email. 30s UPDATE Twin sister of Lesley, in a relationship with Neil despite huge age gap. Very nice, educated, strong woman who I like a lot but don’t know that well really.
Chainsaw Dave – not actually met him yet but read about him. I think he works for SNH. He lives in a static with Sylvia who has cancer and they are currently on the mainland while she is being treated. Not sure of their ages. UPDATE – Top bloke despite questionable lifestyle. 40ish. Very community minded and a real can do character who would help anyone out any time. Currently off island being treated for cancer.
Sylvia – 38, hard, drinking, smoking, Glaswegian who I am slightly scared of but like a lot. Recovering from breast cancer, lifestyle I cannot condone but don’t judge, mother to baby Andrew.
Rachel – 36, Scottish but well travelled so without accent. Catering manager at the castle, has cheffed in various countries. Like her a lot, again one of my friends although not particularly in a group. In a relationship with Marcel.
Marcel – not sure of age, Dutch, very, very tall. Works for SNH doing various stuff on the reserve including culling deer. Aloof but not unfriendly, passionate and very knowledgable about nature and outdoorsy stuff.
Richard & Caroline – Reserve Manager for SNH and his wife. Daughter Cara same age as Davies now on mainland for school. Richard nice enough but distant, Caroline scary and very masculine. Don’t really know them at all.
Paul & Carol – Paul is the new mechanic who arrived her after us to work for SNH. His wife Carol will be moving her full time soon but is currently off island. Really nice people from near Glastonbury. Both on second marriages with grown up children each. Like them a lot, can see them being good friends of ours.
Ranger Ranger Mike – wildlife ranger. Top bloke who has a fab relationship with Davies and Scarlett. Bit of an old woman and not in a great place having lost Georgie (his partner of about 5 years) recently when she went home to NZ. Hoping to help support him through a bit of a rough time as can see he can be a great person. Many skilled, like him lots.
Ian & Kate – Tattie House. Welsh couple, both 29. Lovely, fab people, Kids call them Auntie Kate & Uncle Ian. Have been coming to Rum for a few years but now here more or less full time. Good people 🙂
Derek – Stalker, loner, slightly scary, very Scottish. Have heard various good and bad things about him. Seems ok to us but not keen to make friends beyond nodding at us. Has a very bubbly girlfriend who visits quite often and is very friendly.
Current castle staff – Abby, 22, been there done everything, take what she says with a pinch of salt but a good laugh and a nice girl nonetheless.
James – 38 think he has some issues with drink, currently in relationship with Claire although it’s a bit tempestuous so unlikely to last. Not entirely sure about him.
Alison – 50s, mother of five, from NZ. Seems a bit flaky and has made enemies but interesting woman to talk to if a bit high maintenance.
Izzy – contract catering staff member who has been here longer than us. Top woman. Will miss her loads when she finally leaves back for the mainland.