Foords_Chocolates

Then you think wrong. Many trips of groups of folk came from Scandinavia so hired a minibus or large mpv in their native country, as it was cheaper than hiring one here and a lot more convenient for carrying whatever luggage they wanted and not having weight and size restrictions on their baggage. A boat is the only way, and Bergen is a good place to come from - we know, as we used to see many trips from Norway but now see them very rarely.

We are open now, along with our new (ongoing) RAF Saxa Vord exhibition. We do not charge any entry fee, so you can come and view the factory and the RAF stuff for free. We have a shop and a tearoom, but you do not have to buy anything.

commited suicide you mean.

This year we are trying to get a new exhibition up and running at the factory showing Shetland and particularly Unst in years gone by. We get many many visitors to Unst to whom the concept of no electricity, 1 tv channel or no running water is totally foreign, and so we are looking for old photographs showing how life used to be. If you have any photos that you can date, and can scan them in we would be extremely grateful if you could email them to us for possible use in this display. If you have a story to go with the photo, even better! We are also looking for old copies of The Shetland Times, the older the better so if you have any lying in the loft or currently wrapping old china that you can spare, please send them to us and we will be displaying examples at the factory for all to see. The factory has no admission charge and anyone can come and see the displays at any time, but we are hoping that those people who do not want to spend their holiday time in the museums or heritage centres will at least get a chance for a glimpse into the past.

Hate to disillusion you, but this is not a Shetland Rhyme. I grew up in the south of England and they have the same rhyme there just with different locations inserted.

Have you tried selling on ebay? Yes - but I would not sell our chocolate products on ebay, as there are hundreds of other chocolatiers doing the same and it would be too expensive on unsold auctions. However, this does not change the fact that ebay has a worldwide coverage and so anyone selling on ebay would expect to pay 15% in total ( assuming they are using paypal, it would be cheaper otherwise). Since shetlandmarket will have a much smaller coverage, the cost is too high and there are too many other charges that the seller would have to pay in addition to the 15%.

So, I have had an email now explaining the 15% fee, but also stating that I have to pay delivery costs and make the arrangements, and I only get paid at the end of the month. Now this is not only a site with a very small percentage of coverage compared to ebay, but if someone buys from me online then I get paid straight away. Our customers that buy from us via our website realise that there will be a postage charge, but how does that work on an independant site? Does the site charge a carriage charge which they then pass on to the sellers? What happens if a customer buys from more than one seller in one purchase? It seems that many elements have not been thought out. Since any customer will blame us if our products either do not arrive with them on time or are incorrectly sent, then I have no faith at the moment that Shetlandmarket is not going to land us with problems and still take 15% for doing absolutely nothing. Lots of things to take into consideration, until then we are not signing anything.

I realise that I may be just being thick here, but I have no idea what that means. You need to state how good will get to the end consumer - via you or direct from the supplier. You also need to state who is actually paying the suppliers for the products, you or the end consumers. As stated previously on here, it is a good idea in principle but has been tried and failed many times, and without proper Terms and Conditions and an exact explanation of how it will work from the supplier point of view, I cannot see many suppliers jumping in too quickly. However, that said I have replied to you as I am interested, and I wish you the very best of luck. I would finish though with an example. A couple of years ago another site started on a similar vein. in 18 months they ordered 1 box of chocolates from us, and wanted that delivered to Lerwick from Unst at a moments notice. At that point we ceased to deal with them. However much time and effort you are putting in to the site, it has to be economically viable for the suppliers too.

This is not actually true, is it. You are requesting a 15% commission charge which is high as you are not actually doing a great deal as far as I can see that the various businesses own websites are not already doing. However, you mention that you will be 'dealing with the orders' which I would ask for exact clarification on what that entails? I am assuming that any delivery to the customer will have to be done by the seller, therefore incurring more costs. There have been other sites that have tried this in recent years and have disappeared into oblivion. I can see what you are trying to do and I honestly wish that it was a viable proposition, but I think more details are needed if you wish to get Shetland businesses to take part.

Graham Keith on Yell does work on them I believe.

Well said, the kennels on Northlink are appalling. They are far too noisy for the dogs which of course have over sensitive hearing anyway, and even humans cannot hear themselves think or speak in the kennel room! Access is limited, and if you leave your dog in the car you are not allowed access at all. Northlink do not cater for dogs properly, and I pity any dog or owner who has to use those kennels.

I agree

Definately Westside are the best in our opinion. With 14 dogs plus sheep and ponies we have always had a second to none service from them all, whether at the Bixter or Scalloway surgery.

It is different, as the rules on how much cocoa solids are different in the US (and in most of Europe) as far as the hame of the product, ie chocolate or candy. Many UK manufacturers cannot sell in the states as their product contains too much cocoa butter and not enough cocoa solids, so the product has a strong flavour of chocolate but is not actually chocolate, Having said that, white chocolate is not actually chocolate at all,but thats another story.

You could try ours, 60% in the dark and 30% in the milk !!

Unst now clearing fast after heavy rainfall, should be all gone by morning but roads are fine already

Anyone know of one, preferably in outer isles?

who do you work for then?

On September 8th, 1970, at around 10:00 p.m. a single Lightning Jet Fighter departed from RAF Binbrook located in North Lincolnshire near Grimsby. The ground staff were used to Lightning Fighters being scrambled in a hurry at any time day or night. RAF Binbrook was a front-line fighter station and its aircraft shared QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) duty with other east coast airfields to provide cover should an unknown aircraft appear on radar. The pilot of the Jet was Captain William Schaffner of the US Air Force who was on his second tour of duty as an exchange pilot with the Royal Air Force. Schaffner was a well experiences fighter pilot with combat experience in Vietnam he has been stationed at RAF Binbrook for some time and his wife was living on the base with him. The aircraft was an XS894 Lightning F6 of 5 squadron, whose call-sign on the night in question was Foxtrot 94. The jet tumbled into the North Sea and disappeared leaving a mystery. Very early the next morning a recovery effort was made but no trace of Captain Schaffner's plane could be seen. Over one month later the wreckage of the aircraft was found on the seabed by Royal Navy divers however there was no sign of Captain Schaffner. The events which ultimately led right to the crash of the fighter jet starts at a radar station called Saxa Vord whose task was to spot unknown aircraft approaching the north sea, or the Iceland Gap. The cold war was at its height in 1970 and Russian aircraft made regular trips into the North Atlantic and along the British Coast to test the reaction of fighters. On the night of the crash a radar operator at Saxa Vord picked up the blip of an unknown aircraft over the North sea halfway between the Shetlands and the Alesund in Norway. The craft was monitored for several minutes at a speed of 630MPH at 37,000ft in altitude and on a south-westerly heading. Saxa Vord noted that the unknown was turning through 30 degrees to head south at this point it increased its speed to 900MPH and claimed to an altitude of 44,000ft. Radar operators at Saxa Vord sent a scramble message to the ORA flight at the nearest NATO airfield which was RAF Leuchers located on the east coast of Scotland not to far from Dundee. At Leuchers two Lightning intercept aircraft who were prepared for such a message scrambled and within minutes were in the air and heading out over the North sea after checking the position of their tanker, a Victor K1A, the two fighters were guided north by Saxa Vord but it was then that radar operators on the Shetland Islands saw something on their radar screens which they thought to be impossible. The unknown they had been tracking at speeds and altitudes consistent with modern Russian warplanes, turned through 180 degrees on a north heading and within a couple of seconds vanished off their screens. Later they predicted that for this to be possible the unknowns speed must have been at an astonishing speed of 17,400MPH. Within the hour, the mystery aircraft reappeared several times, approaching from the north and on each occasion the interceptors were sent north to check out the unknown aircraft showing up on radar and again the unknown turned around and vanished from radar screens. At this point two F4 Phantoms from the US Air Force had been scrambled from an American base at Keflavik, Iceland. They had much more advanced radar than the British Lightning's however when they tried to get close enough to identify the mystery they found they were just as useless as the Lightning's. The alert has reached such an alarming level that the contact was being monitored at the Ballistic Missile Earling Warning System at Fylingdales. The information they were collection was then passed on to the North American Air Defence Command at Cheyenne Mountain and the US Detection and Tracking Centre in Colorado Springs. RAF staff at Fylingdales heard that the Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska was ordering its B-52 bombers into the air. This order could have only come from the very highest level of command and what had started as a ordinary sighting of what was thought to be a Russian aircraft had now been passed on to the White House and President Nixon himself. At around 9:45pm a request was made from a high level within the North American Air Defence thought strike Command's at UK headquarters at High Wycombe, for RAF Binbrook to send Captain Schaffner to join the Lightning's to look for the mysterious craft. The NATO forces were at full alert because of the mysterious object picked up by radar over the North sea. The object had at first been a normal Russian aircraft out to test the reaction of Allied air forces but the strange craft had began to behave in a way that left Radar operators lost for answers. At approximately 10:06pm Captain Schaffner took off from Binbrook's main runway and shot off into the night sky. At this point the mystery now involved five lightning aircraft, two phantoms, three tankers, the president of the United States being informed and a Shakleton being scrambled over the North sea. The mysterious craft was now flying parallel to the East Coast 90 miles each of Whitby at 530MPH and at an altitude of 6,100ft which was a most ideal course for an interception by a Binbrook Lightning.

perhaps we should encourage the new Tesco to open a garage then?

As the nearest eating place to Northern Lights we were aware that they were closed, but from our point of view it just meant more trade came to us for a few days! However, Unst has been needing a choice of places to eat for some time, and this year we now have it with Northern Lights, Saxavord and the Baltasound Hotel all giving us a choice on the island of where to eat. We have been to Northern Lights and enjoyed our eating experience, both at a lunchtime and an evening meal. As another small business in Unst, we know what sort of time and effort goes into running your own business, and look forward to visiting Northern Lights soon. Good luck to them in their first season and it looks like Dandiest Guitarman should check their facts before making unsubstantiated comments. Aaron & Cassie Foord - and we put our real name too!! P.S. we think OUR chocolate cake is best!

Not Sky, but we have no BBC1 on terrestrial tv here in Unst this evening - is it just me?

Sorry Infiltrator, I was being sarcastic.