Dear Members & Supporters,

Somehow it is already the second week of March, 2026, and as spring arrives it’s time for a newsletter to update you on what is happening with NLCA.

January and February have been comparatively quiet compared with the last three months of 2025, when we held three successful Winter Gatherings hosted by RoamWest at Inchree, funded by Highland Third Sector Interface. These were well received by everyone attending, were a sell-out with only a couple of tickets not taken up at the October night, and brought great feedback and enthusiasm for us to put on similar events in the future.

Thanks again to all who attended, RoamWest’s chef Nathan for his wonderful food, the musicians and speakers, UHI representatives promoting our ‘On the Map’ audio-trail/living archive project, and to artist, Ali Berardelli, for showcasing her ‘Stories in Stone’ work.

Since New Year, NLCA Trustees have met twice to plan out how we progress over the coming months, and held one Activity Day at Creag Mhor graveyard to carry out ongoing maintainance of the site.

Details of what is coming up soon are listed below.

Sadly, NLCA ran out of funding to support our part-time Project Officer for the Inchree Barn, Lucy Cooke, at the end of December, 2025.

The Board of Trustees want to extend our huge gratitude to Lucy for her work over the last two years, without which the project would not have developed such a broad social media profile, nor achieved full planning permission, nor received invitations from so many funding organisations keen to support the concept.

The continuance of these efforts now falls to a new formation of the Inchree Steering Group that took a back seat during Lucy’s tenure. This will be convened by NLCA Secretary, Becky Jury, and any Members wishing to participate should send an email to secretary@netherlochaber.org.

With rising costs effecting hospitality businesses as well as construction and development, there is much the ISG has to do in updating our business plan for the Barn, but there are exciting possibilities to consider that could enable funding for it to become a local heritage centre.

With this in mind Dr. Katie Murray and Kendra Turnbull from UHI have received funding for a project extension to their ‘On the Map’ audio-trail.

This is specifically to train volunteers from within Nether Lochaber to interview and record the stories of fellow residents with basic equipment, and to then edit and add these to the existing audio-trail, and to develop a living, spoken archive of local knowledge that will be hosted on the NLCA website.

Two afternoon sessions will be held in the new meeting-room facility at Beside the Loch, Cuilcheanna, Onich, the first to enable participants to go out and make recordings, the second to carry out editing and uploading of recorded content.

Anyone interested in participating, please email chair@netherlochaber.org.

Upcoming dates in our Events Calendar.

A final word: elements of the ‘Stories in Stone’ project by Ali Berardelli is currently being exhibited at the MacCallum Art House, the Parade, Fort William, open 11-5 daily until Thursday 26th of March, so pop along to look.

That’s all for now, folks.

Regards,