Shetlands Amenity Trust

EM wrote

Ghostrider wrote:

So, what is your own business BTW, it wouldn't happen to be stonemasonary/dyking or scrap dealing would it by any chance?

 

No clarification on that yet. Exactly what I had been wondering.

You both missed Turtle's response...

Fannies

^ I left it alone, on the basis the OP didn't specify which meaning of the word they were applying.

ie. front, back, or measure of courage etc.

There is of course the old technique (Whalsay style):

An dar wis I lookin fir a bumper

Just about anyone over the age of 40ish has done this, it used to be the way to dump old cars that's why Breiwick bay is full of wrecked cars.

That's before the AMT started a very good service.

Maybe a charge to cover costs would not be a bad thing but to put the service on a fully commercial footing will only lead to a repeat and more videos !!

People have and should have, IMHO, every right to have what some regard as 'scrap' on their own property. What might appear as 'scrap' to some would be regarded as family heirlooms to others and/or even of historical/vintage interest. Besides, look at what gets passed off as art these days ...

Yep it's a highly subjective topic, but I don't like subsidising laziness either. Northwards rates are pretty reasonable.

Should the Charitable Trust support the Amenity Trust ?   

The SCT are far, far too busy tilting at windmills, both metaphorically and literally to have time to be concerned about such a piddling little thing as the Amenity Trust.

The Charitable Trust have provided funds to the Amenity Trust from the start. It's one of the core organisations that the CT has agreed to keep funding.

Is it not a possibility that Shetland is being "means tested" by government and other institutions that provide finances to the many different organizations and groups that the Amenity Trust is involved with..

These funding bodies see Shetland as being well off and consequentially are they  cutting our funding hoping of course we will use our oil reserves to support the beleaguered departments that are facing severe funding cuts.

This of course is what the S.I.C has been doing for years,but if this "pot of gold" is to survive it cannot be squandered on providing funding to prop up various public departments that should be financed from outside establishments like they are elsewhere in Scotland and the UK.

The Amenity Trust is just another group of departments in the public domain which will have to face up bravely to the inevitable cuts if we are to protect our reserves.

The Amenity Trust has for some time had a "preserve everything" philosophy (which is admirable) which had to hit a brick wall at some point, and now it seems to have done so. Becoming involved in high investment/high maintenance projects which provide little to zero financial return over and over again cannot avoid emptying even the deepest of pockets.

They've tried to maintain a too big portfolio now for a long time, and too many of those are ravenous money pits. Old buildings and old boats are fine and well, but they might have been wiser to be more selective and realistic in their aspirations, and learned from those who have done it before them elsewhere.

The country is full of old crumbling piles that lack funds to stop them falling down, the only ones that are surviving are those who have found some way to diversify in to "selling" something to enough of the public to pay for it themselves, and likewise with boats, while keeping one or two seaworthy seems viable eleswhere, a fleet is something completely different, as the old Nil, Brenda and the rest are testament to.