Santa in Torridon, Elves in Gairloch and mince pies everywhere

Hello and welcome to the latest Wester Ross Round-up newsletter. This week it will be sent to 681 readers for free. If this has been forwarded to you by someone and you'd like to get it sent to you directly hit the button below to subscribe.

This week has been a little quieter. Is it starting to feel a lot like Christmas? Without further ado...

🎄 There will be mince pies, carol singing and all the twinkly lights on the village green at Poolewe at 5pm on December 6.

🍺 The following day, that's Saturday December 7, in Poolewe Village hall, beer, skittles and pasties return from 6pm. This time, there'll be darts too.

The Christmas Winter Warmer event is scheduled for The Loch Torridon Community Hall on December 7 too. They'll be getting festive by showing classic Christmas movies.

🎅🏻 The following weekend, on December 14, there's a super-festive Christmas party shaping up at The Loch Torridon Community Hall featuring ceilidh dancing, mulled wine, carol singing and yes, a visit from Santa himself.

🧝 On Thursday December 12 Gairloch primary and nursery school kids are putting on Elf at the Community Hall. The flyer promises elves (you would hope so really), bells, reindeer, and a naughty list. Proceedings kick off at 6.30pm, and entry is by donation.

And now the less festive things that caught our eye...

🇪🇸 UHI in Gairloch are running a six week block of Spanish lessons starting on January 16. Beginners welcome. More details here.

📖 There's also funding available from Highland Council for employed parents on Universal Credit who want to upskill. Email the Projects Team for more information.

👷 Highland ands and Islands Enterprise have highlighted a number of funding opportunities available to local organisations in their latest newsletter, including Young Business Capital Grants, the Green Grant Fund and the Cycle Tourism Facilities Fund.

💷 Another week, another Highland Council consultation. The cash-strapped council must close the largest budget gap of any local authority in Scotland, and still needs to find savings of £54m over the next three years. Officials are asking for input from the public on how they might do that. The survey link can be found here.

🐟 The Scottish Government is looking for input from people with knowledge or experience of inshore marine fisheries in Scotland. They plan to revise policies in this area next year, so if this could affect you, here's how to have your say.

🏕️ Writing in The Inverness Courier, David Richardson from NC500 ltd said: "the failure of governments and the public sector to rise to the challenges posed by visitor management has resulted in significant issues for some fragile communities." He calls for more government investment around the route to help deal with these issues.

And lastly an apology from us... We ran the wrong ad in this week's paper for Ron's Book Bothy. The ad had the wrong opening hours in it. This is the correct one! (We've also fixed the digital edition of issue 24 too).

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