View from a Croft
Artist: Sarah Helen Dowse
Exhibiting: May & June 2022
Working mainly in pastel on paper or card, Sarah has taken inspiration for her exhibition from the views she sees daily from her home as well as still life studies of homegrown flowers, fruit and vegetables.
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Christmas Craft Workshop:
Gingerbread House Decorating
Saturday 14th December
1 - 3pm
£15 per person, booking essential
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Join us for a joyful two-hour session where you’ll assemble and decorate our homemade gingerbread kit into a festive gingerbread house. We’ll provide everything you need – icing, sweets, gingerbread, plus hot drinks and biscuits!
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Note: please let us know if you have any allergies.
Booking Now Closed
Christmas Carols by the Lighthouse Lens
Wednesday 18th December
1.30pm - 2.30pm
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Join us but the Lighthouse Lens as we celebrate the season and bring a close to the Museum events and activities for 2024. Everyone welcome.
Whatever the Weather Wednesdays
Wednesdays
10.30am – 3pm
Donations welcome
In the morning, our session uses Museum objects and other inspiration to aid discussion. Am Bàrd, the Museum cafe, we will be offering a soup lunch on a pay-what-you-can donation basis. This is open to anyone in the community as well as those attending the Wednesday session.
In the afternoon, we play bingo and other group games. All our activities are accessible and dementia friendly. If you need help with transport please get in touch.
With thanks to The Hugh Fraser Foundation, GAMS and the Highland Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for their support, as well as the individual donors who help to keep these sessions going.
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Cearcall Còmhraidh
Fridays
2pm - 3pm
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Join us for these engaging Gaelic language conversation sessions aimed at both fluent speakers and learners of all ages. These sessions will be welcoming and supportive, using the inspiring environment of the Museum to get you using and developing your Gaelic language skills.
School pupils are especially welcome to join, as we aim to provide students with the opportunity to speak Gaelic outside the classroom We gratefully acknowledge the support of Bòrd na Gàidhlig in making these sessions possible.
​Our last meeting this session will be on Friday 13th December 2024. We will restart from Friday 10th January 2025.
Ceilidh House Gathering
Monday 6th January
7pm - 9pm (doors open at 6.30pm)
£2 donation appreciated
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Our Ceilidh House gatherings meet once a fortnight and are a welcoming group who enjoy making music, singing or spoken word. Come and sit in front of the virtual fireside, sing a song, tell a tale, read a poem, play a tune, bring your knitting or just sit back and enjoy the atmosphere. We look forward to welcoming you!
Museum Book Group
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Tuesday 7th January
3.30pm - 4.30pm (in person)
Wednesday 8th January
7.30pm - 8.30pm (online)
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Our current Museum Book Group read is Sea Bean by Sally Huband which won The Highland Book Prize 2023, was longlisted for the Wainwright Nature Writing Prize 2023 and named as Waterstones Nature and Travel Best Book of 2023.
Sally's search for a sea bean begins not long after she moves to Shetland. When pregnancy triggers a chronic illness and forces her to slow down, Sally takes to the beaches where she discovers treasure freighted with stories and curiosities that connect her to the world.
Read along and then join our friendly group for tea, coffee, cake and lively discussions. We are yet to set a date for our next gathering (we will likely meet early in the New Year rather than in December) and there is an option to meet in person at the Museum or Online via Zoom. If you'd like to take part please get in touch.
Creative Writing Group
Tuesday 14th January
2.30pm at GALE
Our Creative Writing Group is a friendly, relaxed session to help you get writing. We will maybe do some writing exercises and share our endeavours. The sharing of writing can be either what we have produced during the brief writing exercise or could be something that we have worked on at home.
Winter Talk
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Insights into Wester Ross from early maps with Nevis Hulme
Friday 31st January, 7pm - 8pm
Tickets £5 in person, £4 view from home
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The first precisely surveyed maps of Wester Ross were not available until Ordnance Survey maps were published in the nineteenth century. Before this, the earliest maps were based largely on travellers’ reports or imprecise survey, but they do reveal detail that would otherwise have been lost. This talk will examine the most significant maps covering the area and discuss their place in helping us to understand the names of Wester Ross.
Nevis Hulme is a former Geography teacher in Gairloch. Now in retirement, he has time to pursue his interest in maps, place-names and Gaelic. He is currently editing Roy Wentworth’s place-name collection and has written articles on diverse topics such as Ordnance Survey name books, nineteenth-century rifle ranges, the Principal Triangulation in Skye and place-names.
To book your ticket you can either contact the Museum or book online via Art Tickets.
History & Other Inspiration
Meet the author: S G Maclean
Thursday 13th February
3pm - 4pm
Tickets £5
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Join us at Gairloch Museum, where author Shona MacLean will share with us the inspiration and research that go into her award winning writing.
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Shona was born in Inverness and grew up in the Highlands where her parents were hoteliers. She has an M.A. And Ph.D in History from the University of Aberdeen. She started writing fiction while bringing up her four children on the Banffshire coast. She currently has two series of historical crime in print – The Alexander Seaton novels, set in C17th Scotland, and the Damian Seeker novels, set mainly in Oliver Cromwell’s England. She has twice won the CWA Historical Dagger for novels in the Seeker series, and her standalone Jacobite adventure, The Bookseller of Inverness, was chosen as Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Year, 2023.
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To book your ticket you can either contact the Museum or book online via Art Tickets.