Learning and skills

Access to Crofting Toolkit

Local course director: Becky Milne, West Highland College Broadford

An introduction to Scottish agriculture directly related to crofters and smallholders. Peer-to-peer support and a face-to-face training event with industry experts to give you a step up to starting out in crofting, taking on a croft or to update your knowledge and develop your crofting business.

This highly acclaimed two-day classroom-based course is designed specifically for new or aspiring crofters, successors, smallholders or anyone else interested in this traditional way of life.

The 2017 SURF Awards are now open for entries in five categories.

The SURF Awards are open to all community regeneration projects in Scotland that are currently in place or that have been completed within two years of the closing date.

The awards:

A new project coordinated by Voluntary Arts Scotland is offering anyone aged 50+ who helps run creative cultural activity a chance to access free training in digital skills.

Basic digital skills could be anything from establishing a Facebook page for your group or designing an eye-catching poster for an event, to using mobile technology to reach new members.

Social Media Essentials

Be Good Be Social are able to deliver this free workshop thanks to sponsorship from the One Digital programme at SCVO and Home-Start Scotland. Workshop places are only available to charities working within a rural community.

Video and Audio for the Web

Be Good Be Social are able to deliver this free workshop in partnership with Rural Wisdom thanks to sponsorship from the One Digital programme at SCVO and Home-Start Scotland.

Social Media Essentials

Be Good Be Social are able to deliver this free workshop thanks to sponsorship from the One Digital programme at SCVO and Home-Start Scotland. Workshop places are only available to charities working within a rural community.

Aero Space Kinross (ASK) have launched a Star Offer to help them reach their Community Share target of £50,000 by the end of June 2017.

The ASK project will be a knowledge hub, exciting visitor attraction and event venue to be enjoyed by the local community and visitors, with features including a planetarium and flight simulation. The project will also inspire future generations into flight-related, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) careers and leisure flying pursuits.

Buzzing About Grassland

Species rich grassland meadows are an important part of our farming landscape, providing habitats for birds, pollinators, and areas of nutritionally low fodder to manage sheep condition on.

How can we better utilise these areas within our farming systems - and what revenue is available for managing these areas through AECS?

Grazing expert Michael Blanche will take us through the grazing systems, detailing how we can make the most of the grass that we have, before moving outside into the fields to look at different types of grassland and how they can be managed.

Field Lab: Good Green Manures

Green manures should be good for your crops and your soil. But do they make enough of a difference to justify their cost?  And which ones work best?

This field lab is comparing different green manure mixes, looking at their benefits on the soil, and importantly on the yield of the following crop.

Going Undercover: Profiting From Green Manures

Green manures have long been used at Stonelaw’s to build soil fertility, increase biodiversity, improve water quality and provide a valuable source of winter fodder for store cattle.

Join us for this practical morning session covering topics on:
• How to select different types of green manure to suit your farming system;
• How you can incorporate green manures and cover crops into AECS and Greening,
• How to maximise farm output from green manures.
• Why green manures- what are the benefits?

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