Tuesday 9 December 2008

The Scottish Renewables Green Energy Awards 2008


Scottish Green Energy Awards 2008, Thursday 4th December, The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh.

With 59 tables in two rooms and Npower renewables sponsorship this brought together the movers and shakers in a hugely developing industry. Scotland's place as Green Energy capital is an achievable target. I was at the Npower table just below the podium. Good contacts as they have just won approval for the run-of-river scheme on the River glass in my home village Evanton. The Black Rock Gorge which is downstream of the proposed plant is one of the wonders of the world. It appeared in a Harry Potter movie as an underwater scene! The steep sides narrow to a couple of metres from a fifty metre across section. Stunning.

The same cannot be said of the keynote speech at Green Energy Awards by leader of Scots New Labour MSPs Iain Gray. He had comprehensively rubbished the Saltire Prize earlier in the week. Alex Salmond has recognised the complexity of the task set. This is to generate a minimum of 100 gigawatt hours over a two year period. It opens bids for the award for June 2013. New Labour managed to elicit a headline in the P&J 'Renewable energy policy is in shreds, Salmond told'. So Gray rasped on at the Awards speech about himself doubling the prize money if he is FM in 2015. Realism is not Labour's strong suit. So the buzz at the awards was for the winners, not the loser Mr Gray.

http://www.greenenergyawards.co.uk/Default.aspx?DocumentID=c585cda9-a341-4de1-9e71-b8d9da675934

Hands Up for Trad Awards, folkie heaven, The Old Fruit Market, Glasgow Saturday 6th December. My table no 21 was set well in the centre of the hall with guests, Eleanor, Rita Hunter, Aileen McLeod, Drew Scott and his mum, Christina McKelvie MSP and Pete Wishart MP also Aileen Campbell MSP and her fiancé Fraser. You'll see us on the BBC iPlayer this week. My lime green shirt is very visible. At last in its sixth year it was televised by MG Alba. Well done. And a stunning array of music. We met lots of great folk and had the pleasure of a company Rita described as the 'extended family'.







S3M-03059 Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): That the Parliament congratulates Hands Up For Trad for organising the sixth annual Scots Trad Music Awards, Comharrachadh Duaisean Dual-cheòl na h-Alba 2008, held in the Old Fruit Market in Glasgow on 6 December 2008; congratulates the award winners, runners up and performers on the night who show that Scottish traditional music from Shetland to the Borders is in excellent health, attracting new supporters for Scotland’s contemporary indigenous music and bringing it to wider public notice each year, which acts as a barometer of a confident and innovative musical culture and industry in today’s Scotland; further congratulates BBC Alba for being the first broadcasting station to televise this event and looks forward to future TV coverage every year, and keenly anticipates the seventh annual awards in Dumfries in November 2009, which will conclude the Scottish Homecoming 2009 celebrations.

Lodged on Monday 8 December 2008; current

RG

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