A statement from Hebridean Trust:
The Hebridean Trust was founded to celebrate our islands strong heritage, culture and language. Recognising the unique buildings and history we have in Hynish, they renovated what is now the Hynish Heritage Centre and linked exhibitions into what stands today.
The Hebridean Trust has always been led from Oxford: but in a move to really engrain the Hynish Heritage Centre within the social and economic structure of the Tiree community and maximise the use so it’s a real resource, the registered office and administration will relocate to Tiree this year.
Trudy MacKenzie, Tish MacKinnon and Rosaleen Campbell have been appointed as new Trustees to support the move: while also working with the existing Trustees to develop the long term vision for the centre and attracting funding to bring the ideas to life. We’ll continue to share more details as we move forward.
It’s also exciting to announce that these changes will bring future job opportunities and create an excellent community hub for us to shout about and attract tourism when the time is right.
A project support team has been built with the aim of involving as many Tiree people as we can to really boost the projects and get them up and running. To date the team includes Mark Vale who will focus on IT and the website, Jennifer MacKinnon driving Marketing, Fiona MacKinnon leading on Finance and Jane Isaacson will be supporting on funding.
We’re developing a lot of partnerships on and off the island and have spoken to a range of local bodies, local businesses and individuals about the options for the future. The response, support and ideas so far have been really heartening.
As a tourism and hospitality business we’ve closely followed the Governments COVID-19 advice, and just as we’re seeing other businesses around the world take a pause – we are too. Although a challenging time, it does give us the opportunity to plan and get everything in place. Our great onsite team, Fiona and Christel, are focusing on their individual online training plans until we can safely re-open.
We would love to hear from you if you have any ideas or would like to get involved in whatever capacity – from supporting the projects, to partnerships. Involving locals and people with a strong Tiree connection is key to making Hynish everything it can be.
