Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia

 

World Championship Winners

 

Argyll Champioship Winners

Cowal Championship 2010 – Grade 1

1st – The Argyll Challenge Shield – Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia

2nd – Sutherland Challenge Shield – Field Marshall Montgomery

3rd – MacNeal Challenge Trophy – St Laurence  O’Toole

4th – Carson Sinclair Cup – Scottish Power

5th – Macfarlane Challenge Shield – Inveraray and District

6th – A&W Lojko Trophy – Strathclyde Police

Grade 1 Champion of Champions 2010

Drum- Alex Duthart Drumming Trophy – Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia

Band – The Guinness Trophy – Field Marshall Montgomery

World Highland Dancing Championship

Adult

1st – Daniel Carr - Ontario

2nd – David Wilton – Forfar

3rd – Marielle Lesperance – New Brunswick

Junior

1st – Morgan Bamford – New Zealand

2nd – Olivia Freeman-Shaw – St Catherines, Ontario

3rd – Robyn Hart-Winks – Kirriemuie

Juvenile

1st – Anthea Bundy – Grangemouth

2nd – Ellis Hayes – Newton Stewart

3rd – Maegan Sweeney – Toronto, Ontario

Other results will be posted on results pages as soon as posible 

Two Dancers from Ontario

Well after a nice easy start of our first outside broadcast things definitely hotted up on Friday, with more results coming in from the dancers with both the Scottish Open Championships of the Highland Dancing and  the Qualifiers for the World Championships being competed for today, the piping competitions kicked off with the Solo Piping and the athletics also got under way with the Primary School Athletics and the Mens Heavy Athletics. This also brought more people into the studio for a wee chat with the presenters including Billy Forsyth MBE who is M.C. for the dancing competitions who has held the World Champion Title himself and another past champion Christine Lacey from Alexandria. From the piping world we where joined by Stuart Liddle Pipe Major of Inveraray Pipe Band who was judging today; Alasdair Henderson from Dunoon who won 2 of the solo piping competitions and was one of the first people we recorded way back at the 2006 MOD; Jori Chisholm from Washington also joined us and then I met him in the Trophy Room where he showed me some of the previous trophies he had won and explained how much he liked having them in his house, especially the old trophies which had all the names of previous famous pipers engraved on them as they made such a talking point. Well Jori was in luck as he is taking at least two trophies home with him this year – Best Dressed Piper and the Pibroch Trophy. We also managed to talk to some dancers, some children who had come all the way from Bothwell to compete in the School Athletics, members of Cowal Games Committee and some of the stallholders. All this and we managed to play some tunes as well.

More pictures and results from today will be posted on the web as soon as we can get them on. And we look forward to another busy day on Saturday when we already have some Bands lined up to come and speak to us live on air.

Jori Chisholm speaking to Dave Dewar

Andy, Victor and Arthur at the Stadium

 Thursday morning at 9am Dunoon Community Radio started its first outside broadcast from Dunoon Stadium to take part in Cowal Highland Gathering for three days. We are broadcasting throughout dunoon on 97.4FM and globally on www.dunoon-observer.com

Scotland’s biggest highland games, Cowal Highland Gathering, will be broadcast live this year via the internet thanks to a local community radio station.

Dunoon Community Radio will report live from Dunoon Stadium, the event venue, across the three days.  The annual event will take place Thursday 26^th to Saturday 28^th August.  The station’s presenters and production team are planning to broadcast a string of features and interviews with several competitors who are travelling from all over Scotland and the world to compete.  Online listeners will be able to follow the action as it unfolds. 

The station is run completely by volunteers and has a rich mixture of programmes to suit all tastes. It is managed, operated and maintained by people from the community.  Its programmes are dedicated to promoting matters of local interest and concern, local activities & events and the Gaelic language and culture. 

Those all around the world are invited to listen online by visiting the station’s sponsor website www.dunoon-observer.co.uk, also the area’s local newspaper website. 

Malcolm Barclay, Event Manager for Cowal Highland Gathering said: “No matter where you are this year, everyone can be a part of Cowal Highland Gathering. This is particularly a fantastic opportunity for those overseas, who have had to miss out this year or have friends and family competing, to tune in and listen to the action live from the event. Our thanks go to Dunoon Community Radio for bringing this opportunity to Cowal Highland Gathering and our friends across the world.”

Cowal Highland Gathering, which hosts a string of family entertainment, attracts up to 23,000 visitors every year.  Heavy athletes and more than 500 highland dancers and 3000 pipers travel from all over the world to compete to win championship titles.  Saturday welcomes back the very best of the region’s local food & drink producers (Food from Argyll) and live music in the Ceilidh Tent, whose headline act this year is the award winning Skerryvore.  There is also a Children’s Tent on the Saturday along with fairground rides, a range of local market stalls and a spectacular finale with the March Past, the massing of 3000 pipers and drummers, the march down Argyll Street and a display of fireworks in the town.  This year the event welcomes former Dr Who star Sylvester McCoy as its honorary Chieftain.               

Cowal Highland Gathering is Scotland’s biggest highland games.  It takes place at Dunoon Stadium, Argyll from Thursday 26^th to Saturday 28^th August, 9am to 6pm each day.

For further information go to www.cowalgathering.com or visit our Cowal Gathering Page 

Maersk Lego model

We are pleased to announce that the Maersk Lego Model ship that was kindly donated to us by Maersk and built by our presenter Andy Eldrige is now proudly on display in the Castle House Museum.  Where everybody can go and see it. The Museum is open every day from Easter to October 10.30am – 4.30pm Monday to Saturdays and 2.00pm to 4.30pm on Sundays, not only does it have a wonderful display of models, of many of the boats that used to sail ‘Doon the Watter’ but there are other displays including the history of Cowal since the Neolithic era, historical reconstructions and wartime Cowal.  There is definately something there to interest everybody.

Don't Hurry, Don't Worry and be sure to smell the flowers along the way

To see the lovely floral arrangements designed by some of the ladies of the High Kirk go to Community News and the Photo Gallery, you have one last chance to see the arrangements on Sunday 8th by going to the Songs of Praise Festival which starts at 6.30pm.

This weekend saw the rsurrection of the Cowal Soccer Festival which was one of the most successful and prestigous soccer tournaments in the 70’s with teams from across the United Kingdom, Europe and USA participating. This tournament involved many young players who went on to be succesful at a national and international level including Bobby Russell (Glasgow Rangers),  Dave McCreery (Manchester Utd) and Tony Fitzpatrick (Ipswich and Scotland). At its height 5000 people watched the final and the organisers are hoping that this tournament will again grow into a spectacular feast of football. Jim Diamond will be at the stadium during the day with some of the original programmes, see if you can spot some local faces.

This year there are teams from across Scotland including Dunoon, Greenock, St Andrews and a team from Hajduk in Croatia. So come along and cheer on the teams.

DJ Ben on the Roadshow

 Check out DYFL’s page for the Results and go to Photos for more pictures

The popular Trad-rock band Skerryvore return to Dunoon on Friday 2nd July to perform in the Queens Hall the day after they launch their new album in Glasgow. . They are an award wining Scottish Band with blazing bagpipes, fiddle and accordians, electrically fused with funky rhythms and soul-gripping songs. They will be supported by Canned Haggis. They first performed in Dunoon for the closing dance at the MOD 2006 where their fast paced ceildh music kept the party going into the small hours. They have gone on to tour the world and we are pleased to say they will be popping in to see us at DCR before their performance. We also have 2 pairs of tickets including back stage passes for the concert to give away, if you want to win these all you have to do is send in your name and contact number by email, text or white post box and the two lucky winners will be drawn out of the hat on Thursday night.

 Mud Divers and AKs Team Buddy Mollox play in the final Buddy Mollox from Port Glasgow (in the orange) where the eventual winners.

 Yippee Ki-Yay from Dunoon where the winners in the mixed final beating the favourites 2 time World Champions from Belgium.