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September 15/16th
Arts Festival
The Sanday Arts Festival runs throughout the weekend and includes both the visual and musical arts. See exhibitions and demonstrations, and hear live music. Participants include: Sanday's Early Music Group; duets; Tony Lee's Jazz Quartet; Viv & Claire piano/flute . There will be showings of the new animated film release "Lights Out" from the pupils of the Sanday Community School.
Farmers' Market and Car Boot Sale
Among the local Sanday produce on sale at the Farmers' Market at the Community School on Sunday will be:
-- Meat
-- Vegetables
-- Herbs
-- Cheese
-- Cakes
-- Bread
The Sanday Fiddle Club will be busking on the stage. Light Refreshments will be available.
Ranger Events
September
Sunday 23rd: To the Lighthouse
12:30 pm at the School, or the car park beyond Thrave soon after.
Booking and wellies essential.
Charges: £5.00 for minibus users, £3.00 for others.
August 19th
Mini Triathlon
Swim, run, and cycle. Classes at many levels. Take part - or, very importantly, please come along just to cheer the participants on. Please see the Mini Triathlon page for more details. Home made soup and sandwiches after the events.
Cyclists must wear helmets.
Anyone needing cycle hire should contact Bernie Flett. Tel: 01857 600284
Craft Exhibition
Come to the Community Hall between 12.30pm and 4pm to view a display of a wide variety of crafts. There will be live demonstrations of crafts, including a demonstration of wool spinning and weaving throughout the afternoon. Refreshments.
** Entry to the Craft Exhibition will be via the front door of the School.
August
Sunday 12th: Expedition to Eday
This trip is now cancelled, due to the Orkney Ferries dispute.
Friday 17th: Lady to Quoyness, the long way
12.00 noon at the war memorial. Skaill, Houstiebreck, Bu, the Clogg, and Quoyness.
Friday 24th: Bea Sand and Backaskaill
1.00pm at the picnic site, for some leisurely beachcombing.
Sunday 26th: To the Lighthouse
1.45 pm at the School, or the car park beyond Thrave soon after.
Booking and wellies essential.
Charges: £5.00 for minibus users, £3.00 for others.
All enquiries and bookings to Rod Thorne, the Sanday Ranger Tel: 01857 600341
Night-Time Storm Petrels
Dependent on tides and weather, this event may happen at any time in July or August. Please contact Rod Thorne, the Sanday Ranger for further details or to indicate an interest in coming along to see these amazing birds.
Past Events on Sanday
2007
Monday 2nd: Holms of Ire
5.00 pm at the gate. Flowers, seals, and the site of the wreck 'Utrecht'
Sunday 8th: Whalehead
11:15 am at Loth or 11:45 am at School. Sanday's WWII heritage.
Booking essential.
Charge for minibus.
Tuesday 10th: A walk on the wild west side
12.00 noon at Villafield. Wader calls, beach boulders, Tammie Nories.
July 15th
Gardens open day. 11am - 5pm
Sanday has some beautiful gardens - the owners are inviting you in to admire them. Please drop in to visit at as many of these gardens as you wish, printable maps can be downloaded here
[600kb], and copies will also be available at Loth Ferry Terminal (Bernie's Bus) and from Ayre's Rock:
-- Nearhouse
-- Bressigarth
-- Lettan
-- Westbank
-- School Plantation
-- Roo
-- Ladybank
-- Orkney Angora
Pirate Raft Regatta
Fun and games at the Peedie Sea, sufficient to make Jack Sparrow envious. There will be certificates for all participants. There will be a Beach Barbecue, Refreshments - including a licensed bar, and a Raffle - all at the Elsness finishing line. There is an early tide this year so please note the start time. Construct your raft from 10:30 a.m. for launches at 11:30 a.m. from Bridgend.
Life jackets are essential; please bring your own if you have one, but some will be available for those who do not have their own.
Sanday Sundays
10th June
In June, the Sanday Sunday was all about Crofters and Antiques. Locals and visitors enjoyed a display of crofting life that included collections of crofting tools and artifacts and some images from the new Sanday Photographic Archive were on display, the whole adding up to a fascinating peek into this unique way of life.
Treasures on display for an opinion by our visiting expert, Christine Clark, included paintings, musical instruments, porcelain, dolls, and vintage magic tricks. An exhibition of archive material pertaining to Start Point Lighthouse was also shown, and vintage tractors were on show outside the school.
The event was enjoyed by a sizeable attendance, as were the excellent teas and refreshments!
On the 10th there was also a Lighthouse visit with the Sanday Ranger, Rod Thorne, and Andrew Skea, Sanday's Lighthouse Keeper. Further trips to the light will be held this year. Booking essential, Tel. 01857 600341
6th May:
After some promise of Spring in recent weeks, there was a distinct change in the weather for the May Sanday Sunday. The planned walks for the first Sanday Sunday of the year were to celebrate ‘Access Week’; leaders were standing by to take folk on walks to the North End and to Burness. Such ambitions were thwarted; instead all brave enough chose an hour-long walk from the school through Broughtown. This included a brief stop to look at the ruins of a traditional croft layout at Brenchiecott, where an equally tough Skylark was kind enough to greet the party with its aerial territorial song-display.
Afterwards, back at the school, refreshments were available – and an opportunity to look at an amazing variety of displays on show in ‘Collectors’ Corners’ – teapots, thimbles, salt-&-pepper sets, Elephants (not full-size),postcards, paperweights, ‘Royalty’ porcelain, Faroese postal first-day covers, Rangers FC shirts and commemorative plates, decorative Owls of all shapes and sizes, model boats, and an array of historic magical apparatus.
Orkney Folk Festival Island Hop
On May 21st, the 25th Anniversary Orkney Folk Festival came to Sanday on their Island Hop. A full programme for the event was very much enjoyed by the excellent turn out. Appearing at the concert were the Sanday Fiddle Club, and a local group of teenagers from Mainland, Skalder, whose talent far belies their age. From further afield came the family harmony group, Fridarey, from Fair Isle, and Martin Curtis, singer/songwriter/poet from New Zealand. Angus Lyon and Ruaridh Campbell, the instrumental duo from Glasgow, headlined the evening and treated their audience to a dazzling display of fiddle and accordion playing - including new arrangements of old tunes and many of their own compositions, which are daringly forward-looking while still rooted firmly in tradition.
The evening was facilitated by the Sanday Community Association.
2006
SWÅP the Du Da tour
The Sanday Community Association, working in collaboration with the Wrigley Sisters, welcomed to Sanday in May, 2006, Swåp, an exciting Anglo Swedish “roots and reel” quartet. Swåp have thrilled audiences around the world with their new take on folk music, and they visited Sanday as part of their 2006 UK, USA and Swedish tour. There was a workshop at the school in the afternoon, followed by a concert in the evening.
Link to the Swåp website for more details about this talented foursome. www.swapmusic.info
A rare chance to climb Start Point Lighthouse!
On 2 October, 2006, it was two hundred years to the day since the light at Start Point was first lit. It's hard to believe that it was signalling the dangers of our low-lying island to the passing sailing-ships nine years before Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo – a time when Napoleon Bonaparte was the bogeyman frightening Britain. At the turn of this century, major alterations led to the Light being computer-controlled from Edinburgh, with power supplied by solar panels installed in the Lighthouse precincts. In 2006, the Northern Lighthouse Board kindly agreed to mark the bicentenary by allowing a limited number of guided visits to, and up, the Lighthouse. These tours were accompanied by the Lighthouse attendant and the Sanday Ranger
Sanday Sundays
Monthly 'Sanday Sundays' are firmly on the summer-season timetable from May to September. In 2006, there was a 'Croft museum' of local artifacts from a century ago; another battle for 'The Embers' the annual cricket match between Sanday and Stromness Cricket Clubs; a Raft Race at the Peedie Sea; and a number of gardens opened to visitors. In August, the focus was on the Lighthouse and its 200th anniversary; while the September event, over the weekend of 9th and 10th, included an Arts Festival, and a Farmers’ Market and Car Boot sale. On these and many other Sundays you’ll often find live music at the Kettletoft Hotel; jazz, traditional and rock.
The Sanday Bird Race
Birding enthusiasts in Sanday hit the road one chilly February 2006 day to see how many bird species they could spot. In a mere 5 hours they clocked up no less than 50 species. Highlights were a Peregrine falcon and Hen Harrier. This event was organised by the Sanday Ranger in conjunction with the Orkney Field Club.
Messiah triumph
Anyone visiting Sanday in December 2005 would have had a chance to hear the Messiah performed by local people. Under the baton of Michael Newman, who founded the group, the Sanday Fiddle Club formed an 18-piece orchestra to accompany about 20 local singers and two visiting soloists. "It is a really remarkable achievement for a small island to put on a full-scale production like this", commented visiting soprano Penelope Chalmers.
A load of old boule
"If you had been spun around with your eyes shut, then plonked down in Kettletoft, Sanday, last Sunday, you would have thought you were in southern France", begins an article in The Orcadian of 8 September, 2005. One of the highlights of last summer was the Petanque or Boule challenge match between Sanday and neighbouring island Eday. The match took place on a specially prepared court at the Kettletoft Hotel, with Sanday narrowly beating the visitors. Spectators revelled in warm sunshine, enjoying both the match and an afternoon of great music from the Sanday Jazz Quartet and other local and visiting musicians.